News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 8.5K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
EarthCam Time-Lapse Documents Rafael Viñoly-Designed New Stanford Hospital Construction
 39K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
Resort Town
 4.8K     0 

crs1026 said:
Yeah.... my point was more, which does Milton need more? A new GO station (the old one is adequate) or the same money spent on extending two trains a day to Cambridge?

GO should not be spending its money on stations right now.

Trackage, Trackage, Trackage ! (or even Wires, Wires, Wires!)

- Paul
Click to expand...

As a daily user of the Milton GO line getting on from Milton GO station, I would argue the opposite.

Currently there are I believe 8 trains that leave Milton GO station every morning heading to Union. By the time the 4th train has left (7:26 am), the Milton parking lot is 100% full. For the remaining 4 trains your only options are to (i) be dropped off by someone, or (ii) take the local bus transit. I can tell you from experience that for many people, neither of those two options is always feasible. The Milton local transit is a far cry from being fully developed and is not reliable. Even if a group of individuals wanted to do everyone a favour and carpool to the station, there is no point because there are no spots left in the parking lot after a certain time.

As a result, the 7:37, 7:47, 7:59 and 8:26 trains can only be utilized by a limited number of people. Adding more trains is useless at this point as people cannot really figure out a way to get to the station in a feasible way. In my case I get dropped off by a family member - but not without having them waste half hour of their morning and crowding the streets the way back from the GO station. If we had more parking, this would make mornings for my family much less difficult.

The point being that focus on trackage should not come at a legitimate need of stations like Milton which are literally bursting at the seams.
 
musafir said:
The point being that focus on trackage should not come at a legitimate need of stations like Milton which are literally bursting at the seams.
Click to expand...

Fair point about parking, to a point. As has been debated here extensively, free parking is a feed-the-bear trap that doesn't make for wise transit spending. And, some tension is needed in the system with 'last mile' solutions so that people do consider getting a ride, using transit, or whatever. It's wrong for GO to just roll over and promise a parking space for all. It's not a bad thing if people taking the later trains worry whether there are any parking spots left.

The other thing about parking garages is - they take only a couple years to build, and don't require any big vision or extensive engineering. So it's low hanging fruit to build these. Easy to tell if construction is being executed as planned. And easy to declare victory when they are done. Whereas adding track is closer to five years, has intricacies of design, approvals, and negotiations. Unforeseens and bad decisions that create delays or cost escalation are much harder to spot. The whole plan can lose focus or just get parked. So, as a matter of accountability, adding track is a more demanding performance metric for ML and one that is more worthy of our attention if we are asking whether our pols are delivering as we want them to. And ML tells us nothing about how this is going.

You built parking garages? Pfffft. Ten unidirectional trains, bursting at the seams, making only a 32 mile trip each morning, is no better than stations that are bursting at the seams. Sure, we need them.... but nothing to take credit for. Show me the track.

- Paul
 
^ I don't really get this:

Belaieff had more to say about all-day GO train service.

Metrolinx is still negotiating with CN over right of way on local tracks. The plan, Belaieff said, is still to run it through the Hamilton Centre GO station, rather than the new West Harbour GO station.

Metrolinx also plans to open the Centennial GO station in 2019, followed by the Casablanca GO station in Grimsby in 2021, and GO to Niagara two years after that.

Metrolinx still doesn't know whether those will see all-day trains, Belaieff said.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't they have to negotiate with CP Rail as well for more service to Hamilton Centre GO? So does this mean the tunnel doesn't need a second track? Maybe Mark can shed more light.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
All day go service will run out of the Hamilton go center and not west harbour.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/metrolinx-update-1.4404064
Click to expand...
That's already been known and proposed for the last 2 years, but the actual writing on the wall is extremely muddy. Other sources say that roles of stations are still potentially subject to change.

Ultimately, by 2041-2051 both station will probably end up having allday 2-way service of some form or other, but the big question is what happens before 2025.
 
Allandale25 said:
Wouldn't they have to negotiate with CP Rail as well for more service to Hamilton Centre GO? So does this mean the tunnel doesn't need a second track? Maybe Mark can shed more light.
Click to expand...
A second tunnel track isn't needed for hourly all-day 2-way (it would definitely be needed for 15-min RER, though).

Currently, the single-track section is only 1 kilometer (trench and tunnel) but can be shortened to 500 meters (tunnel only).

Only a few freight trains a day. It can be time-shared with freight trains, as it is an extremely short section, relatively speaking.

Interruptions by freight trains could theoretically be made relatively rare via a scheduling agreement, as well as multiple switching opportunities before or after a long freight train (between the junction and tunnel entrance). Given sufficient reimbursement to CP (for costs of occasionally interrupting/slowing down the odd early/late freight train) -- they'd do it -- but Metrolinx is currently sensitive of overpaying CN/CP (overcharge controversy).

To add even better operational flexibility, one may still need to add extra track from the junction area on the east side/north side (Hamilton Junction / Bayview Junction) to near the tunnel entrance. The existing trench, all the way to the tunnel entrance, has room for 3 tracks, so an extra track can be added. It is two tracks to Locke, and one track to Queen. Afterwards, it could become three tracks to Locke, and two tracks to just before Queen. One bridge (Pearl street) will need to be re-pillared to make way for an additional track that probably would switch onto the solo track just before Queen. If this trackage is needed, I would guess that this is a project announced during the 2018-2022 election term, once they're finished with the extra track from the junction to West Harbour GO.
 
Allandale25 said:
^ I don't really get this:



Wouldn't they have to negotiate with CP Rail as well for more service to Hamilton Centre GO? So does this mean the tunnel doesn't need a second track? Maybe Mark can shed more light.
Click to expand...

mdrejhon said:
That's already been known and proposed for the last 2 years, but the actual writing on the wall is extremely muddy. Other sources say that roles of stations are still potentially subject to change.

Ultimately, by 2041-2051 both station will probably end up having allday 2-way service of some form or other, but the big question is what happens before 2025.
Click to expand...
mdrejhon said:
A second tunnel track isn't needed for hourly all-day 2-way (it would definitely be needed for 15-min RER, though).

Currently, the single-track section is only 1 kilometer (trench and tunnel) but can be shortened to 500 meters (tunnel only).

Only a few freight trains a day. It can be time-shared with freight trains, as it is an extremely short section, relatively speaking.

Interruptions by freight trains could theoretically be made relatively rare via a scheduling agreement, as well as multiple switching opportunities before or after a long freight train (between the junction and tunnel entrance). Given sufficient reimbursement to CP (for costs of occasionally interrupting/slowing down the odd early/late freight train) -- they'd do it -- but Metrolinx is currently sensitive of overpaying CN/CP (overcharge controversy).

To add even better operational flexibility, one may still need to add extra track from the junction area on the east side/north side (Hamilton Junction / Bayview Junction) to near the tunnel entrance. The existing trench, all the way to the tunnel entrance, has room for 3 tracks, so an extra track can be added. It is two tracks to Locke, and one track to Queen. Afterwards, it could become three tracks to Locke, and two tracks to just before Queen. One bridge (Pearl street) will need to be re-pillared to make way for an additional track that probably would switch onto the solo track just before Queen. If this trackage is needed, I would guess that this is a project announced during the 2018-2022 election term, once they're finished with the extra track from the junction to West Harbour GO.
Click to expand...
It's seems not difficult to build one short section of track, so why is the province stalling. CP can't charge that much can they?
 
Progress on the Stouffville line (via this tweet):

2AtaMcg
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top