GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[steveintoronto]

^ @Northern Light : You came up with that in perhaps ten minutes of searching, and Verster hasn't a clue on it. There's a reason that "deep tunnels" were chosen for the DRL. The soil conditions and underlying shale demanded it. Shallow tunnelling isn't possible, and cut and cover is out of the question for both geologic and social reasons. Not only that, recent advancements in TBM tech have slashed the cost of deep tunnelling. It's not the tunnelling itself that's the expensive part, once you have an operation supported and serviced, you might as well tunnel (cutter wear permitting) until the machine is spent. It is now cheaper in most instances to abandon the TBM in situ (or run it off to one side) than to try and recover them. Heads are usually replaced once the tunnel section breaks into a station box. That's the greatest wear demand, and even there, the tech for cutting heads keeps improving.

Verster should know all of this. If he does, he's being a liar saying what he is. If he doesn't, he shouldn't hold the job he does. Btw, on station boxes, one of the most expensive parts of deep tunnelling, there's been some developments in just the last year or so to reduce the costs of that. Mostly due to vertical TBM techniques, but I'll detail that later.

 

[nfitz]

They do. Check Verster's latest claim on it. It's bizarre.
Many references available for the route, albeit it's all nebulous, but to hold 'them' to their word:

I was out of town for a few weeks when a lot of the Ontario line stuff happened so I've missed stuff.

But did you quote the right thing? What you quoted said it would mostly underground except for a Don Crossing. We've always known the Don crossing between O'Connor and Thorncliffe would be above ground - they've been talking about nothing else for 50 years. I see nothing in that that indicates that they'd be above-ground between Sumach and Broadview.

 

[Northern Light]

I was out of town for a few weeks when a lot of the Ontario line stuff happened so I've missed stuff.

But did you quote the right thing? What you quoted said it would mostly underground except for a Don Crossing. We've always known the Don crossing between O'Connor and Thorncliffe would be above ground - they've been talking about nothing else for 50 years. I see nothing in that that indicates that they'd be above-ground between Sumach and Broadview.

There are multiple instances of media discussion and Verster quotes clearly referencing that the proposed change, one that would supposedly save lots of money, was in reference to the Don River south of Queen Street.

There are examples in the thread above.

But here's an article from Spacing discussing this.

LORINC: Doug Ford draws a subway map - Spacing Toronto

Okay: credit where credit’s due. First, “Ontario Line,” as a brand, works just fine for me — even, as is likely, if we won’t have termini at either the Ontario Science Centre or Ontario Place within our lifetimes. Relief is about indigestion, not transit. It was time to move on. Second, Doug...

spacing.ca

 

[ssiguy2]

So after this big townhall, was technology or train types for RER mentioned as well as construction START times for the project?

 

[nfitz]

There are multiple instances of media discussion and Verster quotes clearly referencing that the proposed change, one that would supposedly save lots of money, was in reference to the Don River south of Queen Street.

yeah, I've not really seen any of that. Simply the quote above, which surely references the East York crossing, which was always to be a bridge.

Putting a bridge at Eastern - gosh what you do turn Lawren Harris Park into a portal?

If they really want to save money why not run this LRT (or Is it Monorail ROTFL) above ground west of the Don, running over Richmond?

 

[crs1026]

So after this big townhall, was technology or train types for RER mentioned as well as construction START times for the project?

Their master DBFOM will simply lay out specs and the bidders can propose whatever they choose. No timelines offered. They indicated that they had recently rolled another work package (which had been previously put into procurement) into the master tender....which says to me that they are still fiddling with the scope.

Ready....aim....aim..... aim.....aim......

- Paul

 

[steveintoronto]

Simply the quote above, which surely references the East York crossing,

That's not what he said at all. I'll quote him word for word...better yet, I'll link it and let you listen again:
Vid@ 34:20 he starts talking about East Harbour (What he says is fantasy "Union Station of the East" but I'll argue that some other time).

He states "cross the Don" @34:52. A few more seconds in, he states: "stations side-by-side""just cross the platform". I don't know how you interpret that, but slowly some are waking up to what's actually being said. It's about time.

I suggest you view it.
https://www.mediaevents.ca/empireclub-20190502/

"East Harbour" "Eastern Avenue" and "Union Station of the East" somehow don't indicate East York.

Edit: I've been reviewing it yet again, start at 34:12, as Verster makes yet another nuanced faux-pas. "How do we create an interface at one of the biggest stations we are creating?" (Remember, this is a SmartTrack station!)

He's singing to a hymn sheet, not logic, not reference. He may or may not be making it up as he goes. If not, it's because someone else has already written the words to the hymn, and Phil is being philharmonic to it.

Where are the details we were promised on this? It's now approaching a month since...

Is Phil alluding to an RER track interconnection at East Harbour? That would make sense. So why wouldn't he come right out and say that? A la: "We are considering various options, and since this is to be standard gauge track, a great deal of symbiosis can be had by utilizing the present and future GO tracks at that point to attain storage and service, if not interline with single-decker RER EMU at a later time". No absolute commitment, forward thinking, and worthy of punters like ourselves considering the implications.

But he's playing this coy cat and mouse game... (gist) "Trust me, have I ever lied to you before?" But of course, we all know the answer to that...The term "stand alone" has yet to be defined by them in their usage of the term. It can and does mean many things in standard rail lingo, one of them that no track may meet end to end of the system to any other. That has legal and regulatory implications, and the ability to run the systems apart from Transport Canada regs with caveats, something they may not have considered, not least that Ontario isn't the only jurisdiction that can change regs by whim. The Feds can too, especially if they're 'putting money into this'. The Feds might attach a caveat to funding, or even if this is done privately at least in part through the InfraBank, that this be declared: "for the general Advantage of Canada " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_92(10)_of_the_Constitution_Act,_1867
That would be a brilliant albeit controversial move on the part of the Feds...but Fed silence on the OntCons' transportation manifesto indicates that something is afoot behind the scenes. Why should the Feds kowtow to a tinpot dictator?

The Feds still have a large hand to play methinks...and political advantage from doing so. "Ontario Line" might have to change its name...

 

[nfitz]

"East Harbour" "Eastern Avenue" and "Union Station of the East" somehow don't indicate East York.

No it doesn't, I was simply responding to your post above and the quote in your post:

It will then follow the path that the City of Toronto has already approved for the line to Pape Station and then head northward to end at the Science Centre Station on the under-construction Eglinton Crosstown LRT line. The line would mostly be underground other than for an elevated crossing of the Don River, likely in East York, but details are slim and that isn't completely clear.

Being out of town, I'd not seen most of the comments about this, but they don't seem consistent. Mostly underground would describe the conventional approach with the Don crossing in East York being above-ground.

I suppose you could go above ground downtown, but that's not consistent with the current alignment, and the claims that most of the existing work will still be used.

The claims it will go to Ontario Place are not consistent with other information that it terminates, and doesn't go south, of the existing Lakeshore tracks.

It's almost as if there are two (or more) ideas floating around Metrolinx and different people are briefing different people on different projects.

At the same time, I don't know how the existing projected demand is consistent with even intermediate capacity railway - and some at Metrolinx/province seem to be tossing around light capacity rail!

Perhaps people are aware of the inconsistencies in what's been said - I've not been following.

Either way, with the clear lack of clarity, I don't understand how this get's completed by 2027, when they seem to have years of studies and then design work in front of them. 2027 would pretty much require go with the existing heavy-rail plan and accelerate the issue of contracts while designing the next bits (which hopefully leaves provision for taking over the GO Richmond Hill line north of Eglinton). But that approach is inconsistent with province's PPP approach, which surely add 2-3 years to the process, which means 2031-2032 ... but that's not 2027 ...

I"m baffled at what Metrolinx is thinking here to be honest.

 

[muller877]

A number of serious problems with that, starting with "East Harbour GO station". That's FastTrack. Verster committed a faux pas on acknowledging what Metrolinx have been trying to downplay: A GO station at that location.

Secondly: If you have TBMs in deep tunnel, you don't bring them to the surface to put the line over a small river and then send them back down ten storeys again.

Think about it. That depth is exactly one of the reasons for deep-tunnelling to begin with, to avoid challenges like that. The cost of tunnelling is not the boring of the tunnels themselves, that's relatively cheap. It's the launching and purchase of the equipment to begin with. Once in the ground, you might as well dig until the groundhogs come home.

The cost of deep tunneling is primarily the stations and vent shafts. Which also adds time (years?) to the project. I would also hope that a large portion East of the Don can be cut & cover to save $$

Launching if it at surface is not that expensive. Plus the locations they are selecting for launching has plenty of room for a constructions site.

 

[steveintoronto]

Launching if it at surface is not that expensive. Plus the locations they are selecting for launching has plenty of room for a constructions site.

lol...hardly.

So let's bring the tunnel to the surface at every station. At a $B saved a pop, and eleven stations, reality will actually pay us to build it, instead of us paying reality. Brilliant scheme...we get the whole thing for free! (Even more so, since we won't even have to build a bridge at each one.) Drip down economics means we can let each tunnel segment flood, and then save even more.

 

[44 North]

The cost of deep tunneling is primarily the stations and vent shafts. Which also adds time (years?) to the project. I would also hope that a large portion East of the Don can be cut & cover to save $$

Launching if it at surface is not that expensive. Plus the locations they are selecting for launching has plenty of room for a constructions site.

I dunno dude. This has been looked at by a lot of people. Even when the City/TTC were well into the alignment finalization stage Metrolinx sort of went rogue and looked at rather unworkable cheaper relief lines. Nowhere during any of this did a bridge next to the GO tracks come up. Probably a reason for this. And the stuff about lighter trains doesn't really change things. Even in the last RL report TTC highlighted conventional subway and ICTS as being carried forward.

 

[steveintoronto]

^ I'll grant @muller877 one aspect, but it's totally apart from a "bridge": That location is apt and useful for dropping an 'insertion shaft' for TBMs to start their journeys east and west. With an adequate flood berm around it while it's open. It would/could later be used as a ventilation/emergency egress route.

A construction shaft at that point would also be valuable for changing cutter heads on TBMs. The Don flows in an ancient spillway now silted deeply at that point. The shale substrate rises to the east from there, the very substrate that makes 'Cut and Cover' very difficult, expensive and disruptive, and offers deep tunnelling advantages. This is all covered in exquisite detail in the TTC's DRL studies.

Here's a good analysis:
https://stevemunro.ca/2018/04/29/relief-line-south-station-and-alignment-plans/

It must also be remembered that Yurek is on record as (mistakenly, but it's a quote of a statement he's made several times) that (gist) "We are going to use all the planning the TTC has already done". Oblivious it seems of the abject hypocrisy of ranting about what a great thing of beauty the bridge will be, all the while claiming the opposite.

In the event, astute journos corrected his claim in tweets and published media.

What really rankles me is Verster's constant adulation of his new masters. He can't seem to get enough of the "Yurek Philosophy"...which evidently doesn't exist in a rational form...and subsequently reveals the fragility of Verster's singing the praises of such. It's bizarre...Maybe it's the Stockholm Syndrome at work again, Verster making his claims second-person instead of being his own.

Maybe closer analysis of the public engagements and Verster's lips will reveal him pleading "Help me, they've taken me hostage". However, I think the gun he has pointed at his head is his own. And it's his prior statements on record. Words kill.

On shafts for inserting TBM's:

Shaft Design and Construction
BY JIM RUSH ON APRIL 5, 2012 TECHNICAL PAPERS

By Glenn M Boyce, PhD, PE

Shafts are the doorways to the underground, serving as the location at which all material enters and exits. They vary in size and depth, and their design and construction are key to the successful completion of any tunneling project.
When designing a shaft, ask yourself these four key questions: Where is the groundwater table? What type of ground will be excavated? How much working space is needed? How deep is the tunnel horizon? The answers to these questions determine which shaft construction methods are feasible and best to use on your project.
The most common shaft construction methods, from simplest to complex, are:

• Trench boxes and speed slide rails
• Soldier piles and wood lagging (or steel plates)
• Liner plates
• Precast segments
• Conventional excavation with rock dowels and shotcrete
• Sheet piles
• Secant piles
• Drilled shafts
• Cutter soil mixing
• Slurry walls
• Ground freezing
• Caissons

Some of these methods only work in soils, some only work above the groundwater, and some are restricted by the depth of construction. It is not unusual for methods to be used in combination. This article provides a brief discussion of shaft design and a summary of the different shaft construction methods available and their limitations. [...]

https://tunnelingonline.com/shaft-design-and-construction/

 

[steveintoronto]

And the stuff about lighter trains doesn't really change things.

This is a whole discussion in itself. And it's another example of how bizarre this whole supposition is. In all fairness, we've yet to hear from an engineer or someone wearing big-boy pants. At best...smaller and lighter is penny-wise and pound foolish. It's like the adage of car makers building compact cars: 'You still have to fabricate door handles and steering wheels'. Drop a TBM in a shaft and the massive amount of support infrastructure and planning, you might as well spend a few extra pennies and build it big. And do it *overcapacity for present needs* so it will be an investment realized more fully in a decade.

We need a full sized mainline capable RER in tunnel system. Like Paris, London, Berlin, etc, etc, etc. And run it out to the burbs on extant Metrolinx tracks to the 905. Metrolinx themselves have only been making the case for such for...what is it now, twenty years?

THAT would be Verster's saving grace for daylighting the line at East Harbour: Interlining with GO. But alas...his prompters haven't suggested that to him. Even Yurek's puppet-master strings can only stretch so far...

In the event. London is running mainline Class 717 in a third rail subway tunnel over a century old, and then out onto the mainline with catenary @ 25kV, as Metrolinx plans to use. The tunnel bore is 4.9m. The TTC planned to build DRL at 5.4m.

Due to being used for both mainline and tight tunnel running, the top speed of the Class 717 is limited to 85 mph. That should do it...The Class 700 series are being run on the Thameslink London Core tunnel section totally automatically (ATO) save for the driver shutting the doors and hitting the 'go' button. That particular model does over 100 mph. The trade-off for the 717's lower top speed is higher acceleration for shorter distance stops, as found in subways.

Preview here:

 

[nfitz]

The cost of deep tunneling is primarily the stations and vent shafts. Which also adds time (years?) to the project. I would also hope that a large portion East of the Don can be cut & cover to save $$

I'd think the emergency exits would be a big issue as well - perhaps more so than the vent shafts.

Cut-and-cover is certainly not cheaper than modern deep TBM tunnelling, in an urban environment. Look at the surprisingly low cost tunnelling contracts for Eglinton for example. But does the cheapness of deep TBM outweigh the expense of all the structures?

With the big change in grade between Queen and Danforth, cut-and-cover is likely not an option anyway. This is part of the problem at Gerrard station and Pape station in terms of depths. Though isn't the line already all cut-and-cover north of Danforth? The phase 1 tunnel into East York is already planned to go more than half-way to O'Connor, and there's little point using a TBM for the rest, with the short distance to the bridge over the Don.

And then what cut-and-cover alignment do you use south of Gerrard Square? Do you cut-and-cover below the train tracks? Run the tracks on the surface (I think you can squeeze 6 tracks in the right-of-way ... though the existing bridges are only built for 4 tracks)?

It's hard not to think Versta has his head placed deep up his imagination here. There are a lot of inconsistencies with what is being said. And I don't see how this is very relevant to RER and GO service, if it's not serving Union.

 

[steveintoronto]

And then what cut-and-cover alignment do you use south of Gerrard Square? Do you cut-and-cover below the train tracks? Run the tracks on the surface (I think you can squeeze 6 tracks in the right-of-way ... though the existing bridges are only built for 4 tracks)?

Your last few posts have been informed and rational. I agree with many points. This has particular interest though, albeit I haven't consulted the TTC's engineering literature on it:

And then what cut-and-cover alignment do you use south of Gerrard Square? Do you cut-and-cover below the train tracks? Run the tracks on the surface (I think you can squeeze 6 tracks in the right-of-way ... though the existing bridges are only built for 4 tracks)?

If deep tunnel is to be brought up to the surface in the way Verster describes, Gerrard would be a much more opportune place to do it, (engineering challenges pending) and then do as you state, run it along that RoW. It lends itself to a number of possibilities, space and engineering permitting, including movement of stock to servicing depot(s) by using 'tugs' (diesel shunters) along the LSE to Whitby or LSW to Mimico. If overhead electrification is used, that can be strung to either or both of those depots. The point is that *overall flexibility* can be had, and economy of not tunnelling that stretch to the Don. It also still allows the use of space at the Greenwood Yards for storage, albeit dedicated standard gauge track. This would be a temporary plan until the line is extended to more available space, probably up the Don Valley. The GO Don Yards would/could also offer storage, at least in the interim.

I haven't completely thought this through, I might have to add provisos later, but generally speaking, what you suggest, and what I and others have thought of in the past can't be any more far-fetched than the idea of a 'bridge too far' over the Don at Eastern. No matter how this is stacked, it accomplishes the same challenge with a lot less complications and cost.

And, provisos pending, it allows interchange of singe-deck LSE RER EMUs to access the 'Osgoode terminus' as well as to Union, and later, when this line is extended west to the Georgetown Corridor, up the two branches that it attains (Richmond Hill and K/W ones to intermediate stations).

It's time to take a close look at this alignment again. And what offers favour to this being doable was the original intention to ramp from deep tunnel depth up to the LSE RoW to move stock in and out of the Greenwood Yards. So access from the LSE to the DRL at that point must be at least partly studied and documented.

Just took a quick glimpse at the proposed alignment map. The only two Ontario Line stations proposed in that area are on the LSE! Again, at the very least, provisos pending, this will be 'two kills for the price of one bird in the pocket'.

Again, I favour deep tunnel pretty much the whole distance save for north of Danforth to the 'next Don crossing', but if the tunnel is to be daylighted on the lower eastern segment, it makes far more sense to do it at Gerrard. And I believe the space is there already to accommodate that at the shopping mall north-east corner of Carlaw and Gerrard and a lot more surrounding:

Google Map