GO Transit

[KevinL]

Everything in this announcement was about Georgetown to Kitchener; they're noticeably silent on Bramalea to Georgetown, the actual bottleneck. :/

[KevinT]

A fly-over or duck-under would help to get GO from the south side of CN's freights to the north and a lot cheaper than the complete freight bypass. Not nearly as transformative long term though, I'd still much rather have the bypass.

[danbrotherston]

A fly-over or duck-under would help to get GO from the south side of CN's freights to the north and a lot cheaper than the complete freight bypass. Not nearly as transformative long term though, I'd still much rather have the bypass.

Not just less transformative, more disruptive and politically difficult as widening would be happening in the middle of towns.

And worse in general as we will still have diesel freight trains polluting inside dense city areas, that could have moved out.

[KevinT]

Agreed, a mere grade sep would be horrible, but I do suspect that its what the PCs have in mind.

[danbrotherston]

Agreed, a mere grade sep would be horrible, but I do suspect that its what the PCs have in mind.

I'll be honest, what I think the PCs have in mind is not being in power when it happens.

The liberals will either have to face massive delays by doing it the right way...which, frankly, is a recipie for failure because the PCs will probably cancel it again, or face massive public backlash over doing it the wrong way.  Frankly the biggest argument against this being the intention is that it's an awfully clever political strategy for the PCs and involves looking years, a decade even in the future, not a skill I'd associate with conservatives.

Yeah, I'm real prickly about this whole thing.

[jeremyroman]

Came across a regional rail enhancement proposal from the Toronto Region Board of Trade calling for better regional train service, including on the Kitchener line: https://www.bot.com/Portals/0/PDFs/Getti...20Rail.pdf

[danbrotherston]

Came across a regional rail enhancement proposal from the Toronto Region Board of Trade calling for better regional train service, including on the Kitchener line: https://www.bot.com/Portals/0/PDFs/Getti...20Rail.pdf

Thanks for posting this, I've seen it referenced a few places.

I'm not totally understanding this though, this is a proposal, not by any government AFAIK, but by some third party organization right?

While it sounds like it's a good proposal (caveat: second hand, I've not read it yet), I don't see that it's at all meaningful, unless the government decides that they want to actually do it.

[ac3r]

And we all know the government isn't going to do that.

[KevinL]

The TBoT has been working on a series of papers in an overall transit proposal - they had one a few months back proposing a fare-zone arrangement, and there are others to come later this year.

[ijmorlan]

The problem now for example, is that the only efficient way of commuting to toronto is via the 401. Increasing the speed of GO trains dosen't solve this problem. My dad would drive from kitchener to brantford to catch the GO train there cuz it had less stops.

I don’t understand what you’re getting at here. If GO took 60 minutes to get from Kitchener to Union, it wouldn’t be an efficient way of commuting to Toronto? And that’s not some pie-in-the-sky number; as far as I can tell if it were electrified and all the track were improved, plus additional tracks built and schedules organized to avoid waiting for other trains, that could be easily achieved since it’s only about 101km along the track from Kitchener to Union.

Now obviously improving the existing GO routes don’t cover everybody; but they don’t have to cover everybody to be a better option than adding a lane to the 401, they just have to be a more efficient way to move one lane’s worth of people.

[tomh009]

The problem now for example, is that the only efficient way of commuting to toronto is via the 401. Increasing the speed of GO trains dosen't solve this problem. My dad would drive from kitchener to brantford to catch the GO train there cuz it had less stops.

I don’t understand what you’re getting at here. If GO took 60 minutes to get from Kitchener to Union, it wouldn’t be an efficient way of commuting to Toronto? And that’s not some pie-in-the-sky number; as far as I can tell if it were electrified and all the track were improved, plus additional tracks built and schedules organized to avoid waiting for other trains, that could be easily achieved since it’s only about 101km along the track from Kitchener to Union.

I expect Bjays is referring to the stops (and level crossings!) slowing the trains down, even if the top speed is improved.

Today's GO running stock could do a non-stop trip within 45 minutes, I think, without any electrification, assuming track availability and elimination of level crossings. That's a theoretical best-case scenario, but the point is that it's not really the top speed that's driving the trip times.

[Bjays93]

The problem now for example, is that the only efficient way of commuting to toronto is via the 401. Increasing the speed of GO trains dosen't solve this problem. My dad would drive from kitchener to brantford to catch the GO train there cuz it had less stops.

I don’t understand what you’re getting at here. If GO took 60 minutes to get from Kitchener to Union, it wouldn’t be an efficient way of commuting to Toronto? And that’s not some pie-in-the-sky number; as far as I can tell if it were electrified and all the track were improved, plus additional tracks built and schedules organized to avoid waiting for other trains, that could be easily achieved since it’s only about 101km along the track from Kitchener to Union.

Now obviously improving the existing GO routes don’t cover everybody; but they don’t have to cover everybody to be a better option than adding a lane to the 401, they just have to be a more efficient way to move one lane’s worth of people.

What i was getting at is there is no way GO can get to Toronto in 60 minutes with the current number of stops, even if it was sped up. If it could get to Toronto in 60 minutes it would absolutely be a worthwhile substitute, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Having an express route with limited stops would be ideal, and there's the psychological component, no matter how illogical, that if you are moving the whole time, even at a slower pace, you feel like the route is faster/more efficient than if you are moving super fast but constantly stopping.

[Bjays93]

I don’t understand what you’re getting at here. If GO took 60 minutes to get from Kitchener to Union, it wouldn’t be an efficient way of commuting to Toronto? And that’s not some pie-in-the-sky number; as far as I can tell if it were electrified and all the track were improved, plus additional tracks built and schedules organized to avoid waiting for other trains, that could be easily achieved since it’s only about 101km along the track from Kitchener to Union.

I expect Bjays is referring to the stops (and level crossings!) slowing the trains down, even if the top speed is improved.

Today's GO running stock could do a non-stop trip within 45 minutes, I think, without any electrification, assuming track availability and elimination of level crossings. That's a theoretical best-case scenario, but the point is that it's not really the top speed that's driving the trip times.

You replied exactly at the same time as I did and said it much better than me lol. 

This exactly what I meant

[jwilliamson]

I don’t understand what you’re getting at here. If GO took 60 minutes to get from Kitchener to Union, it wouldn’t be an efficient way of commuting to Toronto? And that’s not some pie-in-the-sky number; as far as I can tell if it were electrified and all the track were improved, plus additional tracks built and schedules organized to avoid waiting for other trains, that could be easily achieved since it’s only about 101km along the track from Kitchener to Union.

Now obviously improving the existing GO routes don’t cover everybody; but they don’t have to cover everybody to be a better option than adding a lane to the 401, they just have to be a more efficient way to move one lane’s worth of people.

What i was getting at is there is no way GO can get to Toronto in 60 minutes with the current number of stops, even if it was sped up. If it could get to Toronto in 60 minutes it would absolutely be a worthwhile substitute, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Having an express route with limited stops would be ideal, and there's the psychological component, no matter how illogical, that if you are moving the whole time, even at a slower pace, you feel like the route is faster/more efficient than if you are moving super fast but constantly stopping.

Let's say any rolling stock can run at 160 km/h the whole way if there are no stops. That gives us 38 minutes from Kitchener to Union Station. If it takes 45 seconds to decelerate and then accelerate back to speed and a 1 minute dwell at each station, we could keep every existing station and make the run in 56 minutes.

[Bjays93]

What i was getting at is there is no way GO can get to Toronto in 60 minutes with the current number of stops, even if it was sped up. If it could get to Toronto in 60 minutes it would absolutely be a worthwhile substitute, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Having an express route with limited stops would be ideal, and there's the psychological component, no matter how illogical, that if you are moving the whole time, even at a slower pace, you feel like the route is faster/more efficient than if you are moving super fast but constantly stopping.

Let's say any rolling stock can run at 160 km/h the whole way if there are no stops. That gives us 38 minutes from Kitchener to Union Station. If it takes 45 seconds to decelerate and then accelerate back to speed and a 1 minute dwell at each station, we could keep every existing station and make the run in 56 minutes.

But it will never take a mere 45 seconds to decelerate and accelerate, nor will it only ever stop for a single minute. Also it cannot feasibly run at top speed through the whole track anyway,  even if stops were optimized, significant upgrades would be needed for the train to go at its top speed the whole way. I'd love to see the province invest in those upgrades but they aren't. 

Theres a reason it takes ~2 hours to get there right now, its not simply fixable by running the trains faster or that would be done