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hot off the wire…

News Release
Metrolinx Rail Purchase Means Better Service for Riders

September 24, 2014

Ontario Improving Public Transit, Creating Jobs

Ontario is taking the next step towards two-way, all-day Regional Express Rail service along the Kitchener line, with the purchase of a 53-kilometre section of CN's Guelph subdivision rail line used primarily for GO Transit service between Kitchener and Georgetown.

The line runs from west of Main Street in Georgetown to Park Street in Kitchener. Metrolinx has also purchased property in Kitchener for the future site of a train-layover facility.

Regional Express Rail service will mean faster, more frequent trains, operating in both directions throughout the day, in the evenings and on weekends. By increasing Metrolinx's ownership along the Kitchener rail corridor, GO Transit will be able to improve service, control operations and make infrastructure upgrades needed to support service expansion, including morning inbound trains to Kitchener and evening outbound trains back to Toronto.

Building public transit and creating jobs are part of the government's economic plan to invest in people, build modern infrastructure and support a dynamic and innovative business climate.


QUICK FACTS

GO Regional Express Rail would provide faster, more frequent service on GO corridors, in both directions, all day long.
With this purchase, Metrolinx now owns 80 per cent of the rail corridor over which GO Transit operates, up from 67 per cent.
GO Transit will be doubling train service between Kitchener and Toronto in 2016.
On a typical weekday, GO runs almost 250 train trips and over 2,500 bus trips that carry about 250,000 passengers.
GO Transit carries approximately 66 million passengers per year.
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Good to hear, but now we are left with a gaping hole in terms of GO ownership of the Kitchener line, between Georgetown and Bramalea. I wonder how that section will be acquired since it's part of an important freight corridor.
 
nfitz said:
Good news - but wasn't this already announced (with less detail) in the spring budget?
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Pretty much. As far as I see it, the only new information (to us forum frequenters) is the precise detail of the start/end points.

salsa said:
Good to hear, but now we are left with a gaping hole in terms of GO ownership of the Kitchener line, between Georgetown and Bramalea. I wonder how that section will be acquired since it's part of an important freight corridor.
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Some have suggested an epic freight line viaduct parallel to the 407.

Ultimately, the de facto solution will likely to be to squeeze the most number of tracks possible into the corridor, and deal with it.
 
Markster said:
Ultimately, the de facto solution will likely to be to squeeze the most number of tracks possible into the corridor, and deal with it.
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Pretty much the only option. Perhaps widen the ROW at bottlenecks. I wonder if it would make sense to simply reserve 2 tracks for freight, and do a grade-separation at one end or the other, to essentially give CN a 2-track ROW where GO never operates, and let GO do their own thing otherwise. CN might for for it for enough $$$ if they had no interference from VIA/GO operations and simply had to arrange for the occasional off-peak access to freight spurs on the Metrolinx side.
 
I guess I have a slightly different view on this track purchase. Obviously I was not in the room but I wonder If I would have paid CN a nickle for this stretch of track if it did not include the key part between Georgetown and Bramalea. All that seems to have happened is that CN have monetized a less valuable piece of track but hung on to the part they view as key....and seeing is it is right in the middle between two GO stretches what really does this do for GO? Sure they can move forward with the improvements they will ultimately need between GTown and KW but it doesn't allow them to do much service wise with CN controlling the bit in the middle.

So in the last couple of months, CN has gladly taken ML's money for stations and less valuable track....but in this card game they are still holding all the aces.
 
Allows GO to upgrade tracks for higher speeds, before that was under CNs control. CN sold it as GO likely offered them more money than they would ever get leasing it out to the short line railway. Their mainline will likely never sell, its core to their business. GO will have to deal with that like how they plan to deal with CP on the Milton line, that is to build 2 additional tracks in the corridor directly beside the tracks CP uses.
 
TOareaFan said:
I guess I have a slightly different view on this track purchase. Obviously I was not in the room but I wonder If I would have paid CN a nickle for this stretch of track if it did not include the key part between Georgetown and Bramalea. All that seems to have happened is that CN have monetized a less valuable piece of track but hung on to the part they view as key....and seeing is it is right in the middle between two GO stretches what really does this do for GO? Sure they can move forward with the improvements they will ultimately need between GTown and KW but it doesn't allow them to do much service wise with CN controlling the bit in the middle.
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The biggest barrier to all-day service to Kitchener, as far as I understand, is double-tracking of the line. The portion still owned by CN is already double tracked. This purchase will make it a lot easier for Metrolinx to do the double-tracking and grade-separations that they want to get all-day service. Yes, grade separations are planned.
 
mpd618 said:
The biggest barrier to all-day service to Kitchener, as far as I understand, is double-tracking of the line. The portion still owned by CN is already double tracked. This purchase will make it a lot easier for Metrolinx to do the double-tracking and grade-separations that they want to get all-day service. Yes, grade separations are planned.
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Metrolinx have told me they need to triple track to provide all day service.
 
TOareaFan said:
Metrolinx have told me they need to triple track to provide all day service.
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Surely their comment was not explicitly stating that they needed to triple-track all the way to Kitchener? Mount Pleasant, for sure, but I can't imagine that they need it tripled beyond Georgetown, when they own the line, and dictate the schedules.
 
Markster said:
Surely their comment was not explicitly stating that they needed to triple-track all the way to Kitchener? Mount Pleasant, for sure, but I can't imagine that they need it tripled beyond Georgetown, when they own the line, and dictate the schedules.
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The question I had posed was before RER was announced so, yes, the context was to Mount Pleasant.....but in the context of discussing increased service on the line....you can't get to the GTown-KW stretch without going through the Bramalea-GTown stretch....so if they think/know they need 3 tracks through there....how can get to all day 2 way service without that middle bit.
 
Of CN's 13 miles between Georgetown and Bramalea, half is double-tracked and half is already triple-tracked. It only has four grade crossings. It's 28 minutes currently.

Virtually all of the 33 miles between Kitchener and Georgetown are single track, with very few sidings. There are nearly 30 grade crossings. It's 59 minutes currently.

I think it's safe to say that for Kitchener to get good (frequent and decent speed) rail service, a lot more of the infrastructure upgrades are going to need to happen on the portion that Metrolinx just purchased, versus CN's portion.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Allows GO to upgrade tracks for higher speeds, before that was under CNs control. CN sold it as GO likely offered them more money than they would ever get leasing it out to the short line railway. Their mainline will likely never sell, its core to their business. GO will have to deal with that like how they plan to deal with CP on the Milton line, that is to build 2 additional tracks in the corridor directly beside the tracks CP uses.
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Not to get too off-topic, but I'm curious as to how Metrolinx is planning to deal with the section of track on the Lakeshore West line between Aldershot and Hamilton, specifically the portion that runs next to/under York Boulevard. There doesn't appear to be much if any room there to expand beyond the 2 tracks already in place, and that's a pretty vital freight corridor that I don't see CN or CP (willingly) giving up.
 
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