GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[unimaginative2]

The problem isn't the length, it's the cars themselves. They only have two doors and they have tiny internal staircases. It takes far too long to unload and load the trains. In other cities, they have smaller cars with far more doors and better internal circulation. That's how they can dramatically reduce dwell time.

Compare these trains to our bilevels to see how they would be able to load and unload people far more rapidly.

GO shouldn't just be trying to "handle growth" though. The corridors should all be completely re-thought to provide a service standard on all lines. Say, trains every 15 minutes all day plus regional expresses to major stops and outlying destinations. It should be fully fare-integrated with the local systems. It's basically a whole new type of service, not just the same piecemeal growth of GO's commuter service.

 

[rbt]

Compare these trains to our bilevels to see how they would be able to load and unload people far more rapidly.

Yes, I've actually ridden one of the CityRail lines (and loathe the cost every time) more times than I've taken GO. The stairways do have more capacity but the doorways (2 per car) and aisles are essentially the same as GO.

GO would have essentially the same thing if they increased the width of the internal stairs, which is possible IIRC.

GO shouldn't just be trying to "handle growth" though.

Unless you propose subsidizing operations, this is all that they're going to be doing for the foreseeable future.

 

[BMO]

The problem isn't the length, it's the cars themselves. They only have two doors and they have tiny internal staircases. It takes far too long to unload and load the trains. In other cities, they have smaller cars with far more doors and better internal circulation. That's how they can dramatically reduce dwell time.

Compare these trains to our bilevels to see how they would be able to load and unload people far more rapidly.

GO shouldn't just be trying to "handle growth" though. The corridors should all be completely re-thought to provide a service standard on all lines. Say, trains every 15 minutes all day plus regional expresses to major stops and outlying destinations. It should be fully fare-integrated with the local systems. It's basically a whole new type of service, not just the same piecemeal growth of GO's commuter service.

They also use similar trains in Paris' RER system. kinda cool how it's two levels, but looks like the height one one.

 

[unimaginative2]

Unless you propose subsidizing operations, this is all that they're going to be doing for the foreseeable future.

In the short term, maybe, but I wouldn't be surprised if a proper, efficiently-run regional rail service had a comparable fare recovery to the existing GO service.

The cars in Sydney are shorter, though, are they not? I'm less familiar with them than European examples. The German S-Bahn trains are all single-level (and they all move far more people than GO) while the Parisian RER trains are bi-level in some cases, but with wide doors and shorter cars.

 

[rbt]

The cars in Sydney are shorter, though, are they not?

Yes by a bit

/digs

GO coaches are about 25m and CityRail coaches are 20m.

So, on a 300m long train (12 coaches) GO has 24 doors and CityRail would have 30 doors (15 coaches).

It doesn't really matter though. GO will not be electrifying the line and boosting frequencies with the current rolling stock anyway; they will be purchasing something new. When that time comes, hopefully they take into account higher frequency service and a shorter dwell time being wanted. Trains today unload faster than passengers can get off the platform at union.

My only point was that GO can quadruple ridership on their current equipment if necessary and that buys them a couple of decades before better flowing rolling stock needs to be considered for some lines (Lake Shore).

In the short term, maybe, but I wouldn't be surprised if a proper, efficiently-run regional rail service had a comparable fare recovery to the existing GO service.

Imagine what might have been if GO got $8B instead of Eglinton. The entire system could be fully grade separated, electrified, running 15 minute all-day service on all lines (deficit covered by interest from cash in bank) and still had money left over for crazy stuff like the Niagara Falls tunnel.

 

[drum118]

The problem with still using the 12-car trains is that they tie up so much time at Union that they wind up having comparable capacity to more frequent, smaller EMUs. Look at all kinds of systems that move far more people than GO: none of them use that kind of bi-level megatrains for that very reason.

The only time 8-15 cars train cause problems at stations, is the unloading due to lack of stairs as well being narow. Unless you are running 3-5 cars train every few minutes, you are not going to be able to carry the ridership. Math said so. Don't think about today numbers, but the 10-15 years numbers.

Until GO gets more funding as well more crews, GO cannot start moving toward the 15 minutes headway as plan. You have 5 trains on the Lakeshore for 60 minutes, need 10 for 30. Now do the math to see how many you need for 5 minute service.

I have seen photos of bi-level trains up to 10 cars in Europe.

 

[unimaginative2]

You're absolutely right that the exit layout at Union is the big problem right now, but that is getting fixed and once the revitalization is done, Union will have as many exits from each platform as any station I can think of.

Until GO gets more funding as well more crews, GO cannot start moving toward the 15 minutes headway as plan. You have 5 trains on the Lakeshore for 60 minutes, need 10 for 30. Now do the math to see how many you need for 5 minute service.

Of course you're right that costs will go up. But revenues will also go up, especially in the long run. GO remains basically a commuter service. If it became genuine rapid transit, a huge number of people would start riding it that never do today.

I have seen photos of bi-level trains up to 10 cars in Europe.

Sure, but each car is usually far shorter than ours, they move far more people than us and genuinely need the capacity, and they seem to just do a better job of managing dwell time. Another issue is that you have to wait for people to make their way up to the platform from the concourse for each train. If each line were assigned a dedicated track and the trains ran more frequently to prevent a buildup of passengers, people could just wait on the platform and board immediately when the train arrives, like they do in most countries. I do agree that platform width is an issue at Union, but not an insurmountable one.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Until GO gets more funding as well more crews, GO cannot start moving toward the 15 minutes headway as plan. You have 5 trains on the Lakeshore for 60 minutes, need 10 for 30. Now do the math to see how many you need for 5 minute service.

Exactly
5 minutes service would give you 60 trains! Reduced headways would decrease that, but running an additional service for express runs would negate that decease. And thats just for 8 hours of Lakeshore service. For that alone you'd need a crew of 180, or almost as much as we have running the entire system currently.

 

[mattbg]

Does anyone know why problematic things such as the stairwell at the east end of the new platform 26 exist? It is a stairwell that can take two people in parallel down the stairs but only one person can fit through the door to the stairwell... so you have a big bottleneck while people go through the door in single file.

I asked someone (non-official) if they had any ideas and they said they thought it was a temporary platform... but I don't get that impression.

 

[mattbg]

GO shouldn't just be trying to "handle growth" though. The corridors should all be completely re-thought to provide a service standard on all lines. Say, trains every 15 minutes all day plus regional expresses to major stops and outlying destinations. It should be fully fare-integrated with the local systems. It's basically a whole new type of service, not just the same piecemeal growth of GO's commuter service.

This makes a lot of sense to me for some lines like Lakeshore to service stations reasonably close to Union and have huge volumes.

But, I do kinda question the outgrowth of GO, though. I'm just an amateur observer, of course, but I use the Georgetown line and, personally, it already seems excessive to be running "commuter rail" to a town so far away from the city (Georgetown). The idea of extending it to Kitchener-Waterloo and the Lakeshore line to Niagara Falls seems a bit insane. How far are people willing to travel on a daily basis and do we even want to encourage those kinds of live-work arrangements?

When you consider how cramped the system already is in some places, it seems like a better idea to better service the nearby areas first before pushing the service out to far-flung regions. We already have rail service for greater distances from VIA -- not frequent, obviously, but why encourage frequent travel over these distances?

 

[mpd618]

But, I do kinda question the outgrowth of GO, though. I'm just an amateur observer, of course, but I use the Georgetown line and, personally, it already seems excessive to be running "commuter rail" to a town so far away from the city (Georgetown). The idea of extending it to Kitchener-Waterloo and the Lakeshore line to Niagara Falls seems a bit insane. How far are people willing to travel on a daily basis and do we even want to encourage those kinds of live-work arrangements?

You're assuming two things: that travel would be all the way to Toronto, and that GO is about commuters. With the expansion to Kitchener, both assumptions become less clear.

Certainly there are already plenty of people commuting by car between Kitchener and Toronto, and for them it may well make sense to take the GO train. But there are even more people commuting between Kitchener and Guelph (and vice versa), also along a congested corridor (Highway 7) or by roundabout Greyhound service. This doesn't fit GO's classic "suburb to downtown" pattern.

The other kind of trip is an intercity non-commuter trip - people travelling for occasional business or pleasure. The absence of weekend trips and limitation to four peak-direction trips is going to be a great disappointment to many of those in K-W who were excited to hear about GO train service.

As for the commuters - we're already encouraging them by having Highway 401 in the first place, and now widening it even further. Getting people riding GO instead can really undercut the case for widening the 401 and for building a half-billion-dollar new Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph.

 

[TOareaFan]

The absence of weekend trips and limitation to four peak-direction trips is going to be a great disappointment to many of those in K-W who were excited to hear about GO train service.

They would only be disappointed if they did not bother to look at what GO offers their existing riders in terms of service. They would have seen, then, that all but the Lakeshore line that is all they get at present....why would they think that they would jump the line and get anything else?

 

[mpd618]

They would only be disappointed if they did not bother to look at what GO offers their existing riders in terms of service. They would have seen, then, that all but the Lakeshore line that is all they get at present....why would they think that they would jump the line and get anything else?

Because the general public here don't necessarily know all that much about what GO trains currently do and don't do. It's the idea of an affordable train connection to Toronto that is cause for enthusiasm.

 

[TOareaFan]

Because the general public here don't necessarily know all that much about what GO trains currently do and don't do. It's the idea of an affordable train connection to Toronto that is cause for enthusiasm.

Sure, but you would have thought that they or local journos printing the stories about upcoming service would have been able to discern that GO is not, yet, a weekends and off-peak rail service.

I also think that, in general, the general public's perception of what is an affordable train connection (from anywhere really) is out of synch with what GO can, and does, offer. There is one lady here in our office who was excited when she heard about the K-W extension....she commutes from there to here by car now. She really thought that what was coming was a train that would get her here in 1 hour for "around $10"....when I told her that it already takes that train 1 hour to get here from Georgetown and she was probably looking at an additional hour on top of that and that the fare from Georgetown was $8.50 so her's was not likely to be $10....she became less enthusiastic and declared "well if it takes 2 hours and costs more than $10....who would use it!".

I kinda agree with mattbg on this (but perhaps from a different perspective) idea that extending further out is not the way to expand. I just think that the farther out you go, the less likely you are to be able to offer the kind of service at the kind of price that the commuting/travelling public is expecting....so the "capture rates" are likely going to be less. So you will be running a service that has a much lower expense recovery rate than you could achieve by deploying those resources within the existing network.

Beyond a point (and I would probably draw that line at a +/- 1 hour train ride) that service should be offered by something like VIA which can probably charge a higher fare and offer better amenities and less stops so can come closer to the mark....just my opinion though.

 

[k10ery]

This makes a lot of sense to me for some lines like Lakeshore to service stations reasonably close to Union and have huge volumes.

But, I do kinda question the outgrowth of GO, though. I'm just an amateur observer, of course, but I use the Georgetown line and, personally, it already seems excessive to be running "commuter rail" to a town so far away from the city (Georgetown). The idea of extending it to Kitchener-Waterloo and the Lakeshore line to Niagara Falls seems a bit insane. How far are people willing to travel on a daily basis and do we even want to encourage those kinds of live-work arrangements?

When you consider how cramped the system already is in some places, it seems like a better idea to better service the nearby areas first before pushing the service out to far-flung regions. We already have rail service for greater distances from VIA -- not frequent, obviously, but why encourage frequent travel over these distances?

From reading this board, I gather that GO's expansion plans reflect a desire to expand service in a way that:

1) does not require additional train crews,
2) does not add more peak trains to the USRC
3) wins votes in places that vote Conservative federally but are still maybe Liberal provincially

With those constraints, sounds like they might as well drive to Kitchener everyday.