GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[reaperexpress]

Even after all the new service added, the only express trips in the entire GO train network are the 8 round trips per week to Niagara Falls. I hope GO isn't waiting for ridership to build up to the point that more than 4 trains per hour of capacity is required, because that will never happen unless there are express trips which make longer-distance train trips attractive again.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Even after all the new service added, the only express trips in the entire GO train network are the 8 round trips per week to Niagara Falls. I hope GO isn't waiting for ridership to build up to the point that more than 4 trains per hour of capacity is required, because that will never happen unless there are express trips which make longer-distance train trips attractive again.

All day service to Hamilton is certainly nice to have but I don't think it will really get much ridership and due to this, it could start bleeding funds from other services.

Until they bring in full fare integration, these off-hour improvements really don't mean much to the average person. For upper income suburbanites who use GO commuter for work, still will use their cars outside of it and lower income people can't afford to take GO no matter when or where it runs.

e West Harbour and taking the train downtown is far more convenient than driving all the way downtown and paying $5 for parking, not to mention far cheaper. The only situation where the train won't be more viable is if you're travelling in a group, where driving is probably going to be cheaper, or if your destination isn't downtown but on some weird orbital ring around it, and transfering from train to train seriously adds to the travel time.

Let's wait for some ridership. I think HSR post pandemic services will be a major factor in ridership.

 

[innsertnamehere]

All day service to Hamilton is certainly nice to have but I don't think it will really get much ridership and due to this, it could start bleeding funds from other services.

Until they bring in full fare integration, these off-hour improvements really don't mean much to the average person. For upper income suburbanites who use GO commuter for work, still will use their cars outside of it and lower income people can't afford to take GO no matter when or where it runs.

but ridership would be amazing if they were hydrogen trains amiright?

 

[smallspy]

I was only assuming contra-flow to Unionville; that said; even that clearly seems even that is out-of-reach, for now.

Though, I don't see why the project isn't further along at this point.

There have been serious ongoing issues with this project. The primary issue seems to be staffing with the contractors, although there have also been complaints from their side that they have not been given enough access time to complete some (much?) of their work.

But a lot of it has also been the project management. They had asked Metrolinx to discontinue the late-night and weekend service in order to give them more work windows. And when Metrolinx finally obliged, they then neglected/refused to do more of that work on weekends.

Dan

 

[smallspy]

My impression is that the contract to double the track was let in a hurry, before anyone had really digested what the station requirements would be. At Milliken, a fair bit of second track with new concrete ties was laid and surfaced southwards from Steeles towards McNicholl - .... and then the segment through the station was torn up, when the tunnelling for the station work started. It never saw a train.

There seem to have been glitches with the creek bridges, which is the part that has languished the most. At one point, the track contractor was working nights and weekends to get things done, and was said to be demanding uninterruped work blocks, ie bustitutions, to meet the original schedule. Whatever premium-cost work was performed is a bit regrettable now. I wonder if ML has even enforced the time lines for the original deliverables.

So what started out as a rush job has become a slow plod. With the time pressure off, due to the late-arriving station work that reset the timelines for opening day, there's not much point in rushing to finish other things.

This one would be good fodder for an A-G inquiry.

- Paul

That was actually how the contracts were all designed to be let and built. It was kind of like the contracts for the Crosstown - one consortium would drill the tunnels across town, and then the second would come through after the first was done, dig down and destroy the sections of tunnels where the stations would be located.

Yes, it's a bit bass-ackwards. But in some respects, it allows them to get a lot of the easy work done (grubbing, grading and building track) while the harder work is given a bit more time to fine-tune their designs (the stations) before their construction.

Dan

 

[reaperexpress]

Let's wait for some ridership. I think HSR post pandemic services will be a major factor in ridership.

Ridership is a function of service quality. If the service is too slow, it will never attract ridership in the first place. A lot of the pre-pandemic commuter ridership from places like Burlington and Oakville would not have been riding if they had to sit on a local train the whole way.

Personally I would not have jumped from 2tph local straight to 4 tph local on Lakeshore West. I would have had the hourly West Harbour service run express, and the other 3 trains run local.

 

[innsertnamehere]

only two trains an hour go past Oakville right now.

I'm hopeful service jumps to 5tph in a few years with 1 express to Hamilton, 2 local to Aldershot, and 4 local to Burlington soon anyway. I don't really understand why they hold the 4tph back to Oakville right now in general.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

There have been serious ongoing issues with this project. The primary issue seems to be staffing with the contractors, although there have also been complaints from their side that they have not been given enough access time to complete some (much?) of their work.

But a lot of it has also been the project management. They had asked Metrolinx to discontinue the late-night and weekend service in order to give them more work windows. And when Metrolinx finally obliged, they then neglected/refused to do more of that work on weekends.

Dan

I'm surprised. I would have thought actual work is the issue. Kind of shocked this is popping up at this point.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Ridership is a function of service quality. If the service is too slow, it will never attract ridership in the first place. A lot of the pre-pandemic commuter ridership from places like Burlington and Oakville would not have been riding if they had to sit on a local train the whole way.

Personally I would not have jumped from 2tph local straight to 4 tph local on Lakeshore West. I would have had the hourly West Harbour service run express, and the other 3 trains run local.

Politics played a part in that 15 min service came a little too early. I agree with you, Your idea sounds great, but we're stuck here. I think once HSR adjusts and the track is fix I think it work. The station is near Lake Ontario north of downtown so that is another factor to consider.

 

[rbt]

I used to be the one guy that took the train from Hamilton to a station other than Union.. it sucked because it would involve a linear transfer onto a local train at Oakville GO to get to my destination. Do we know if there are any plans for local trains from West Harbour in the service plan?

All of the new hourly service trains are local making all stops to Union.

 

[innsertnamehere]

To be fair there are no express services right now. We will have to see where the schedule ends up as more services get introduced. I imagine we will see another big ramp up of services in the September schedules when students return to classes.

 

[reaperexpress]

That was actually how the contracts were all designed to be let and built. It was kind of like the contracts for the Crosstown - one consortium would drill the tunnels across town, and then the second would come through after the first was done, dig down and destroy the sections of tunnels where the stations would be located.

Yes, it's a bit bass-ackwards. But in some respects, it allows them to get a lot of the easy work done (grubbing, grading and building track) while the harder work is given a bit more time to fine-tune their designs (the stations) before their construction.

Dan

This is an interesting perspective. It certainly looked ridiculous how they built a second track through Milliken station and then immediately demolished it to start work on the station reconstruction, but perhaps laying three hundred metres of rails doesn't really cost that much and it was worth it for the ease of moving rail-based construction vehicles up and down the line while building the portions of double-track which are being maintained. After all, the rails and ties themselves are reuseable.

only two trains an hour go past Oakville right now.

I'm hopeful service jumps to 5tph in a few years with 1 express to Hamilton, 2 local to Aldershot, and 4 local to Burlington soon anyway.

When I said express, I meant only between Oakville and Union (with stops at Port Credit and possibly Exhibition), to avoid dropping service below 2tph for any station.

I don't really understand why they hold the 4tph back to Oakville right now in general.

I suspect it has to do with turnback capacity at Burlington or Aldershot. They need to schedule the turnbacks such that there's still room for VIA & GO thru services to pass through. This is less of a problem at Oshawa where GO's 4 local trains per hour have the line totally to themselves.

On that note, an odd characteristic of the new schedule is that Lakeshore West service drops to hourly after 19:00. Meanwhile LSE gets 2tph right up till the end of service, and even gets 4tph counter-peak. Personally I'd find it more important to maintain at least 2tph on LSW between 19:00 and 22:00 than it would be to maintain 2 tph on LSE between 22:00 and 0:30, or 4tph during the early morning and counter-peak. On weekends, LSW gets 2tph right up until the end of service.

Hopefully the lack of half-hourly evening service on LSW is just a temporary limitation related to crew availability which will be resolved in September.

 

[Allandale25]

^ In thinking about the LSE schedule, I wonder if post-covid-19 that pre-covid-19 express trip from Union to Oshawa will come back. I think it was a 6AM union departure and arrived in Oshawa in about 43 minutes or so? Always wanted to ride it for fun but didn't get the chance.

 

[reaperexpress]

To be fair there are no express services right now. We will have to see where the schedule ends up as more services get introduced. I imagine we will see another big ramp up of services in the September schedules when students return to classes.

The peak period service was 6 trains per hour (4 express + 2 local) prior to the pandemic, so I'm fairly confident we'll get at least some kind of peak-period express back (e.g. 2 express + 4 local) within the relatively near future. However, I highly doubt we will see an off-peak service pattern with more than 4 tph within the next few years.

^ In thinking about the LSE schedule, I wonder if post-covid-19 that pre-covid-19 express trip from Union to Oshawa will come back. I think it was a 6AM union departure and arrived in Oshawa in about 43 minutes or so? Always wanted to ride it for fun but didn't get the chance.

There were three morning superexpress trips to Oshawa. I doubt they will come back because I suspect there's enough storage capacity at the new Whitby yard to supply the peak-period trips.

I rode the 6:38 one for fun because I was hoping we would run in front of VIA 50/60 to Pickering, then I could film a high-speed overtake (like this one I filmed a few weeks ago) somewhere around Ajax. But what actually happened is that the GO train ran local to Guildwood to let VIA overtake us, then went non-stop to Oshawa. Which explains why that trip is slower than the 7:13 express trip.

 

[ssiguy2]

Ridership is a function of service quality. If the service is too slow, it will never attract ridership in the first place. A lot of the pre-pandemic commuter ridership from places like Burlington and Oakville would not have been riding if they had to sit on a local train the whole way.

Personally I would not have jumped from 2tph local straight to 4 tph local on Lakeshore West. I would have had the hourly West Harbour service run express, and the other 3 trains run local.

Yes, ridership is a function of service quality but that is only half the equation. Good service quality means little if the system itself is not accessible and due to the lack of fare integration, it is financially inaccessible for hundreds of thousands and especially the transit dependent.