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GO Transit
If you read through the Kitchener GO Twitter feed, you'll see a broad variety of reasons for the delays, including freight train traffic west of Georgetown (and the very obscure "heavy passenger volume in Acton", whatever that means).
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(03-05-2019, 04:39 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(03-05-2019, 03:07 PM)bgb_ca Wrote: I only quickly read the article, but they are doing to just throw a few sidings in? Won't that make times worse if they do manage to get cn to allow all day?

More or less, the main way to save time right now is eliminating slow zones due to deferred track maintenance.  They also want to remove and improve some (like 33) level crossings.  Those things would definitely improve speeds.

Does anyone know of a map that shows all the level crossings on this line?
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Google maps?

W -> E:
Kitchener:
St Leger
Lancaster
Lackner/Bingeman's Centre Drive

Breslau:
Woolwich
Wurster Pl
Shantz Station Road
Woolwich Guelph Townline

Guelph:
Speedvale Ave
Wellington Road 32
Alma St
Edinburgh Rd
Yorkshire St
Glasgow (anecdotally, saw a car with the gate on it's roof as I passed by on the GO a few weeks back)
Dublin Street
Watson Rd
Wellington Rd 29


Rockwood:
3rd Line
Fourth Line
Main Street
Harris Street
7th Line
Eramosa-Erin Townline

Acton:
Dublin Line
Main Street / 25
Highway 7
Eastern Ave
Wastewater Treatment driveway
3 Line
4th Line

Georgetown:
Trafalgar

Mt. Pleasant:
Winston Churchill
Heritage Road
Mississauga Rd

Brampton:
(Rail crossing)
Mill Street
John Street

Bramalea:
Torbram Road (Grade separation in progress)
Scarboro Street

I probably missed a few, but you can see, there's quite a number in play here. A handful of those would be quick wins (Lackner has some elevation you could use, many of the crossings in the country), and some would be painful (Guelph).
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Looking at the country crossings between Kitchener and Guelph, I'm not sure there are really any wins there in terms of closing.

* Breslau can't be closed.
* Wurster Place can't be closed. [Just two houses on the other side, but its a dead end road.
* Townline / Speedvale -> Could maybe close these two roads. I think there'd be pushback since some of the detours required would be long - but it affects a relatively small number of people.
* Wellington Road 32 definitely can't be closed.

Basically I feel like closing roads is going to be pretty hard and a lot of tunnels/bridges are going to be needed.


* Note that Shantz Station road is already a bridge, so nothing needed here.
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(03-05-2019, 11:52 PM)SammyOES Wrote: Looking at the country crossings between Kitchener and Guelph, I'm not sure there are really any wins there in terms of closing.  

* Breslau can't be closed.
* Wurster Place can't be closed. [Just two houses on the other side, but its a dead end road.
* Townline / Speedvale -> Could maybe close these two roads.  I think there'd be pushback since some of the detours required would be long - but it affects a relatively small number of people.
* Wellington Road 32 definitely can't be closed.

Basically I feel like closing roads is going to be pretty hard and a lot of tunnels/bridges are going to be needed.


* Note that Shantz Station road is already a bridge, so nothing needed here.

Improving level crossings doesn't have to be eliminating, many of those crossings have no gates or even no bells/lights. I don't think the intention is to tunnel any but to add these features.
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The Record article says Metrolinx wants to close roads at level crossings, not improve them.
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The CTC installation earlier this decade added bells and lights to all level crossings along the line with gates at most.
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I was thinking quick wins in terms of feasible grade separations.

Closures might be ok in Guelph where there are many crossings in a short distance.
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(03-06-2019, 01:16 AM)Bob_McBob Wrote: The Record article says Metrolinx wants to close roads at level crossings, not improve them.

I haven't read the record article but I was at the town hall. They said they wanted to look at all of them, improve some and close some. 

I'm not sure if the record article makes that clear or not.

Speaking of reporting the CTV article here https://www.facebook.com/327478883970745.../?sfnsn=mo

Reports that Metrolinx is acquiring from Georgetown to Kitchener which AFAIK is completely wrong, they already own this section, it was bought under the liberals no?  In fact they have ceased all work on acquiring more track.

Today is a day I'm disappointed in reporters.
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(03-06-2019, 08:10 AM)timio Wrote: The CTC installation earlier this decade added bells and lights to all level crossings along the line with gates at most.

Not all the crossings have bells and lights including this one where a truck driver was killed in a collision with a Via train:

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4874427,...312!8i6656

There are definitely a few others, but I don't think any of them appear on street view as they are always very minor roads or even private driveways.

I do question however, what improving these crossings would achieve, certainly safety, and that's a worthy goal, but in terms of speeds, are trains required to slow down for level crossings?
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(03-06-2019, 08:21 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(03-06-2019, 01:16 AM)Bob_McBob Wrote: The Record article says Metrolinx wants to close roads at level crossings, not improve them.

I haven't read the record article but I was at the town hall. They said they wanted to look at all of them, improve some and close some. 

I'm not sure if the record article makes that clear or not.

Speaking of reporting the CTV article here https://www.facebook.com/327478883970745.../?sfnsn=mo

Reports that Metrolinx is acquiring from Georgetown to Kitchener which AFAIK is completely wrong, they already own this section, it was bought under the liberals no?  In fact they have ceased all work on acquiring more track.

Today is a day I'm disappointed in reporters.

It was absolutely acquired by the Liberals. It's not even the section with the freight bottleneck.
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(03-06-2019, 12:38 PM)trainspotter139 Wrote:
(03-06-2019, 08:21 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: I haven't read the record article but I was at the town hall. They said they wanted to look at all of them, improve some and close some. 

I'm not sure if the record article makes that clear or not.

Speaking of reporting the CTV article here https://www.facebook.com/327478883970745.../?sfnsn=mo

Reports that Metrolinx is acquiring from Georgetown to Kitchener which AFAIK is completely wrong, they already own this section, it was bought under the liberals no?  In fact they have ceased all work on acquiring more track.

Today is a day I'm disappointed in reporters.

It was absolutely acquired by the Liberals. It's not even the section with the freight bottleneck.

Thanks for clarifying, I was pretty sure, but I the suggestion that CTV got wrong who owns a section of track (and put it in the byline of the facebook post no less) is so disappointing, I second guessed myself.

The discussion on the town hall, I don't think was totally crystal clear, it bugged me a great deal that it was played up as an insurmountable obstacle that CP owns the Milton line, to extending service to Cambridge, but for the Kitchener line, nah, CN will totally play ball on their mainline.
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It helps that the line through Kitchener isn't CN's mainline. The piece between Georgetown and Silver Junction is CN's however, and a part of their mainline. Westbound CN trains enter from the north at Silver and depart south after Georgetown, and crossing them over is a problem for GO. I've heard there was talk in the town hall about a fly-over/fly-under there, that would help a lot.

For Cambridge/Milton, CP is a mainline, and there's nowhere for them to park a 2 km long freight train between Milton and Ayr without blocking a level crossing. That means in order to let a GO train through, they have to park the train very very far away for a considerable length of time. That's an obvious non-starter for them. I think they _may_ be able to sneak a lengthy passing track under the Hwy 6 bridge, but that's purely based on staring at Google's satellite view which is hardly conclusive.

You can argue that there used to be GO storage on the Milton line west of Milton at Campbellville, and long before that there were CP passenger trains through Cambridge, but freight trains were a lot shorter and more frequent back then. Now that CP has slashed their costs by running extra long trains less frequently with fewer crews, there's no going back to 'the good old days'.

Edit to add: Well, crush their palm with silver, but if that didn't happen under the Liberals it surely won't happen under Doug Ford.

Second edit: Okay, Google maps shows that they have a passing track just west of the Hwy 6 bridge that's almost exactly 2 km long. Clearly I've mis-remembered something I read elsewhere. Maybe it's just that CP feels they need even more passing capacity beyond that.
...K
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Okay, there's the kicker, they exceed 2 km long these days:

National Post: How long can trains go?
...K
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(03-06-2019, 01:10 PM)KevinT Wrote: It helps that the line through Kitchener isn't CN's mainline.  The piece between Georgetown and Silver Junction is CN's however, and a part of their mainline.  Westbound CN trains enter from the north at Silver and depart south after Georgetown, and crossing them over is a problem for GO.  I've heard there was talk in the town hall about a fly-over/fly-under there, that would help a lot.

For Cambridge/Milton, CP is a mainline, and there's nowhere for them to park a 2 km long freight train between Milton and Ayr without blocking a level crossing.  That means in order to let a GO train through, they have to park the train very very far away for a considerable length of time.  That's an obvious non-starter for them.  I think they _may_ be able to sneak a lengthy passing track under the Hwy 6 bridge, but that's purely based on staring at Google's satellite view which is hardly conclusive.

You can argue that there used to be GO storage on the Milton line west of Milton at Campbellville, and long before that there were CP passenger trains through Cambridge, but freight trains were a lot shorter and more frequent back then.  Now that CP has slashed their costs by running extra long trains less frequently with fewer crews, there's no going back to 'the good old days'.

Edit to add:  Well, crush their palm with silver, but if that didn't happen under the Liberals it surely won't happen under Doug Ford.

Second edit:  Okay, Google maps shows that they have a passing track just west of the Hwy 6 bridge that's almost exactly 2 km long.  Clearly I've mis-remembered something I read elsewhere.  Maybe it's just that CP feels they need even more passing capacity beyond that.

I'm sure there are some technical issues, but also solutions, some level crossings could be closed, the section that is single track is less than 30 km long, which should take 20 mins or so to traverse.

But that's kind of beside the point I think. The panel suggested the issue was not capacity between Milton and Cambridge, but on the existing section of the Milton line.  They repeated a line that I've heard before, that if they could get more capacity, it would already be eaten up by existing demand on the existing segment. So that would suggest that the limitations extend beyond Cambridge to Milton.

I will note, ironically, that I'll give them some credit saying that the line is already over capacity at Milton, so extending it isn't that helpful (although, I'm sure many drive from Cambridge to Milton), whereas we see in Toronto, severe overcrowding on the Young subway, while politicians plan extensions to the north that will only exasperate the issue, because it's only a political game.
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