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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

TOareaFan said:
No I do not mean that at all....but I would not have paid a cent for any of the corridor until the whole corridor was on the table.....
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Then you'd still be waiting, and waiting for a long time. At least this way, they can upgrade the rest of the corridor in advance for when its needed.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
micheal_can said:
This is why I think all rail lines need to be Nationalized. Then you contact the various freight operators to run on it.
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There's already the power under various Acts, notably the Transportation and Crossings Acts, for the Feds to intercede in specific situations to impose improvements, sharing of track, and relocation of track. There is absolutely no need to "Nationalize". What's bizarre is that the Feds haven't acted to make the 'The Missing Link' happen, or to announce a scheme to involve the private sector into doing it. There may in fact be actions on-going behind closed doors. For the sizable if not massive cost of doing this, it would pay for itself many times over, and render the GTHA vastly more efficient and safe for freight handling and movement too. This has been done in various other Cdn cities, and on a large system-wide basis in Ottawa via the NCR (The National Capital Act helped, but the power was already extant in various railway acts). It's not like this is unprecedented in Canada.

smallspy said:
CN didn't offer it, nor will they. Until the bypass is built, there is precisely 0 incentive for them to do anything with the corridor - which also happens to be the percentage chance that Metrolinx has of buying the line from CN until the bypass is built.
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Indeed, and as much as the Feds could force the issue, much better to use the carrot than the stick, and that's to push for a consortium to build The Missing Link, of which CN and CP would be welcome to join. It's a win-win-win situation for all concerned if presented the right way. The irony is that the funding isn't really the problem. It's setting up the business model that is. There's massive amounts of off-shore cash looking to invest in Cdn rail infrastructure. The devil is in the details. CN and CP can either get in front of this, or be left behind and have to accept a much less appealing option, one of which is once built, the Feds then dictate that it be used. In all likelihood, that would be implicit in the business model to placate investors. Unlike a number of other posters, I disagree that CN and CP would have to have their own tracks. The tracks could even be a third party if need be. Again, precedents already exist in Canada. It would be in CN's and CP's interests to be part of that 'third party'. TTR could even be used (as it has in Vancouver) if the rail companies wanted to keep it close to being 'in-house'.

smallspy said:
Then you'd still be waiting, and waiting for a long time. At least this way, they can upgrade the rest of the corridor in advance for when its needed.
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The province is in a tight spot on this, damned if they do, damned if they don't. There's no clear answer on this yet, so logic dictates moving ahead on what you can do with a clear title to it, on the surmise that logic will rule at some point in the near future to allow completion of the whole. And that, for all the shortcomings of announcements and being played in the press, is what is happening. And I'm not one to defend this present regime's handling of transit, but on this one, they are hedging in a sensible way.
 
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smallspy said:
The second mainline between Wice and Halwest, and CTC between Silver and Georgetown would indicate that you are wrong on this.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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Sorry, I'm a little confused, what would the second mainline between Wice (where is that again?) and Halwest (just east of the Bramalea GO Station), and CTC between Silver (just west of the Georgetown GO Station) and Georgetown indicate on the Bypass/off-peak Kitchener Line topic? Thanks in advance.

2fw1Ytt
 
smallspy said:
Then you'd still be waiting, and waiting for a long time. At least this way, they can upgrade the rest of the corridor in advance for when its needed.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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TOareaFan said:
Not sure that is true at all. ;)
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smallspy said:
The second mainline between Wice and Halwest, and CTC between Silver and Georgetown would indicate that you are wrong on this.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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Allandale25 said:
Sorry, I'm a little confused, what would the second mainline between Wice (where is that again?) and Halwest (just east of the Bramalea GO Station), and CTC between Silver (just west of the Georgetown GO Station) and Georgetown indicate on the Bypass/off-peak Kitchener Line topic? Thanks in advance.

2fw1Ytt
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First, I believe Wice is in the vicinity of Woodbine East.

Second, I think @smallspy is saying investments have occurred in 'the rest of the corridor' outside of Halton between Silver and Halwest.

Third, is @TOareaFan hinting that the bypass may *not* take forever?
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
First.....

Third, is @TOareaFan hinting that the bypass may *not* take forever?
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Nope, I am just suggesting that we have no way of knowing what a tougher negotiating stance would have produced.

All we know is that if you offer CN hundreds of millions of dollars for sections of track they don't use much, allow them to keep the key piece in the middle that they need and use a lot, allow sthem continued running rights on the bits they sell and agree to keep the commercial terms of the agreement secret......they will say yes and then become very tough in negotiating any further access to that middle bit (the bit where the majority of the rail passengers are).

If that deal was not there for them, we have no idea how flexible they would have become.

My view on the bypass is that it will be well into the second half of the 2o20s before it opens and that is roughly when you will see a meaningful increase in rail service in the corridor.
 
The Minister placed the mandate to negotiate the bypass with CN in his 2017 direction letter to ML, and ML has highlighted in its business plan. You can be sure that ML's bonus plan for 2017 factors this into its execs' bonus formula.
The Minister can no doubt pass the blame to ML if this fails, so it isn't going to be an election issue - Tories won't highlight it lest the then have to do better.
One of the basic rules of negotiaion is "He with the lead butt wins". CN has the ability to rag the puck and put ML in a more desperate position. I still believe an 11th hour settlement may emerge if Wynne is desperate enough and CN believes that a pre election deal is the last possible opportunity for a deal - after all, if the Tories are elected and kill the whole thing, CN is walking away from a possible goldmine. Their negotiating strategy may be, drag this to Wynne's final position and then see if whatever is being offered is enough to bite. If it isn't, there never was a deal in the works.

-Paul
 
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crs1026 said:
- after all, if the Tories are elected and kill the whole thing, CN is walking away from a possible goldmine. -Paul
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In fairness to the PCs, they haven't (as best I can tell), commented specifically yet on the Bypass concept or route. The Meadowvale to Milton portion of the Bypass goes through one of the seats they hold right now - Wellington-Halton Hills - and would benefit the Georgetown GO Station. Given how sparse the population is in that section one would think there would be little to no NIMBY opposition.

Brown has even said that all-day, two-way GO train service to Kitchener Waterloo "has to happen" and their critic from the region has blamed the Liberals (and specifically Murray) for promising more service and not delivering. So, if they really want to make it happen one would think that they would be in favour of the Bypass, even if they don't acknowledge it specifically leading up to the campaign. You'd think it would be an easy thing for them to say, "The Liberals have promised it, we'll actually get it done, CN will like us more etc".
 
The 'goldmine' may not be a pot of gold, but my point was that whatever cash incentive CN is offered - and there will be one buried in there somewhere - it is money CN will not reap if the deal were to fall through. So there is some pressure on CN to take a deal - but only at the point where it is truly 'take it or leave it'.

Brown would not be wise to claim that CN will like him better - unless he has deeper pockets. They are likely to position around being easier to work with, but cash will be the determining factor. Better to let Wynne drive the deal and then they can claim they could have done better - without having to prove that claim.

- Paul
 
smallspy said:
Then you'd still be waiting, and waiting for a long time. At least this way, they can upgrade the rest of the corridor in advance for when its needed.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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That's such a bad excuse. Now they're spending money to run trains until 3pm on Fridays.


Another bad dead by Metrolinx. How exactly hard is it to build 2 extra tracks from Bramalea to Georgetown?
 
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