[Allandale25]

^ Great update Dan.

This was supposed to have been completed by now. I have no update other than the work started last summer.

I wasn't able to get a picture but I saw some overnight track work on the west side (former CP) tracks on the curve at the west of the West Toronto Grade Separation. Couldn't tell what they were doing. Haven't been around since. Not sure what they were doing. Has the contract been awarded?

The 4th track from Humber to Jane is currently under construction, with the section further south slated to start in the spring.

Part of the work will also require shifting an eastern bridge span a little to the east for the 4th track. The 4th track work in this area is tied to the changes to the West Toronto Railpath. There is going to be a further consultation meeting in the spring.

 

[crs1026]

Phase 1 and 2 are both under construction, with Phase 1 being further along. This is also independent of the work required to improve the stations, for which a winner has not yet been selected: http://www.infrastructureontario.ca/RER-Stouffville-Corridor/

The RFP for the stations was released in Sept 2016, so must have closed by now. I wonder why there hasn't been a tender award. Did I miss it?

They need to build a first track from Parkdale to Strachan before they can build a second track. I know that this is planned, but I have yet to see a schedule for it.

For this one, I have not seen a tender call nor RFQ/RFP. Has it been sole-sourced somehow, or did I miss it also?

There are two other important contracts for the Barrie Line. The first is the grade separation at Davenport: http://www.infrastructureontario.ca/RER-Davenport-Diamond-Rail-Grade-Separation/. The second is the building of the second track from Parkdale to Aurora (exclusive of the existing segments): http://www.infrastructureontario.ca/Barrie-Rail-Corridor-Expansion-Project/. Neither of these projects are close to under construction yet.

RFQ for the track work happened in June, RFP is said to be due before April. RFQ for Davenport was issued Aug 17 and no RFP yet.

The 4th track from Humber to Jane is currently under construction, with the section further south slated to start in the spring. The tenders to expand the stations at Weston and Bloor haven't been issued yet.

An RFQ for the fourth track went out in Jan 2017, but it only covered segments west of MP 7.2. Has there actually been a tender awarded (or even issued) for the section east of 7.2? With the consultation phase still happening, I wonder how they could have sought bids - some key details may still be up in the air (if ML actually puts weight on consultation, anyways).

Work on Confederation Station is underway, although I don't know how far along that is just yet. They don't seem to have done much for any of the supporting trackwork yet.

Which is interesting, because the Confederation Station RFQ only went out July 2017, and hasn't progressed to RFP. ML put out a tender for Engineering services for Stations and Layover Yards for the Niagara Line just before Christmas. I presume CN is the overall project manager for much of the Niagara project.

When I was in the area before Christmas, they had not started on the additional track from Bayview/Hamilton West to West Harbour.

For 2018, the only projects that will have actual shovels in the ground to watch are the Stouffville Line and Bayview-West Harbour. I wonder if either will be completed by year end. Hopefully the 401 tunnel mobilizes also, but that one will not be speedy.

I actually spent a day over the holidays trying to find the official announcements and put all the details of all the ML contracts in a spreadsheet. It's so easy for the details to be forgotten over time. The unfortunate fact with ML is, if we don't document the details ourselves, history may be rewritten, or simply fade away.

- Paul

PS - Missing in action - any confirmation that there is a contract with CP for the Bowmanville line upgrades? For the doubletracking of the Galt Sub from Dupont down to Bathurst St?

 

[Allandale25]

^ A spreadsheet would be really helpful. Maybe something on Google drive so that it could be easily viewed and shared?

 

[Neutrino]

More track will have to be built to enable expansion, at great cost and with lots of CP negotiation. That doesn't mean there will be no more trains, that means it will take a lot of time and money before more trains are added. So like I said, more trains are a matter of when, not if. It might be 2030 or 2040 but it'll happen.

As for parking, similarly as has been discussed to death, parking is the means by which the majority of GO commuters access trains. It's all well and good that you think it shouldn't be a consideration, but GO has to deal with reality, and the reality is that people like to park at GO stations. We can either build parking and get cars off the road, or we can not build parking and those cars can drive all the way to downtown Toronto and clog up streets there even worse. I don't understand why so many people hold this mistaken belief that if you stop building GO parking people will just walk, cycle, or take local transit to their stations--no, they'll just drive downtown. I think the choice is clear, and GO does too.

I'm not arguing with that and I agree with everything you wrote. I should have clarified what I meant. Won't Milton trains be ever more crowded with expanded parking? (given that there won't be more trains for some time). Wouldn't it be more logical to add train first and expand parking later?

 

[hw621]

Maybe I'm an idiot but the ROW next to the SRT looks too narrow at several points, are they gonna be tearing down fences and expropriating land?

They have been doing that for a while. Plus not the whole ROW will be double tracked.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The ROW is wide enough, but a lot of it is overgrown. A lot of neighbouring houses have also "claimed" parts of the ROW for their backyard gardens. The first phase of the double tracking went through and cut down a whole lot of trees and fences. I think they did a bit of minor expropriation here and there for very small slivers of land as well.

 

[smallspy]

For this one, I have not seen a tender call nor RFQ/RFP. Has it been sole-sourced somehow, or did I miss it also?



An RFQ for the fourth track went out in Jan 2017, but it only covered segments west of MP 7.2. Has there actually been a tender awarded (or even issued) for the section east of 7.2? With the consultation phase still happening, I wonder how they could have sought bids - some key details may still be up in the air (if ML actually puts weight on consultation, anyways).


- Paul

PS - Missing in action - any confirmation that there is a contract with CP for the Bowmanville line upgrades? For the doubletracking of the Galt Sub from Dupont down to Bathurst St?

A bunch of the smaller tenders were issued without going through IO. In some cases they can (or could) be found on Metrolinx's website here: http://www.metrolinx.com/tenders/en/tenders.aspx or through searching through MERX.

In other cases, it seems that they sole-sourced them, likely to either PNR or VIAS.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[dowlingm]

Maybe I'm an idiot but the ROW next to the SRT looks too narrow at several points, are they gonna be tearing down fences and expropriating land?

I have thought for some time that Metrolinx are Scarb subway boosters because they want some or all of the SRT ROW as soon as they can get it.

 

[Allandale25]

A few notes from the Metrolinx MERX site:

• RQQ-2017-CLSC-119: Engineering Services for Niagara Expansion Stations & Layover closing date January 30, 2018
• RFI-2017-ACS-018: Enhancing the GO–Niagara Experience closing date January 24, 2018
• RFQ SQ-2017-COCO-026: Prequalification for Early Stations’ Improvements Project closing date February 8, 2018

 

[smallspy]

Seemed to be a few industrial lots where parking lots were right up against the rails, is it the same for these?

It is. There are a couple of locations where the ROW is a bit more constrained so they're planning on narrowing the track-to-track (centres) distance to 13 feet to account for this. But along the whole of the ROW, the only property that will need to be purchased is at stations.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[crs1026]

Here's a link to the spreadsheet I have been building to track GO/ML/IO projects in progress. It's hopefully accessible by folks here and any updates or corrections would be greatly appreciated. Take no prisoners.

It has as much information as I can find through googling and checking the most important web sites. I don't intend to pay to join MERX but maybe someone on line who does have more access can add some information.

My conclusion is that none of GO, ML, or IO are all that methodical about storing this information. The GO section of the ML web site is quite out of date and there is no systemmatic referencing of EA's or of tenders by line. IO is one of the better sites but even they are not consistent in what they document with regards to tendering, or even how they classify projects (one GO project is filed under 'transportation' while the others are under 'transit"). ML issues retrospective reports every year, but these do not really show procurement in progress, just tenders currently open and tenders previously awarded. With the lengthy RFQ/RFP process, and with many tenders closed but not awarded, there is a big gap in the middle.

I did not try to include information on all the "Engineering Services" contracts that GO has awarded. The number of these and the amounts are pretty substantial. People I know who work for engineering contractors seem to know about all sorts of work under study or under way that never sees the light of day. GO must have a huge repository of engineering and consulting reports for projects that might or might not happen some day. Anyways, I only care to track work that is committed and shovel ready and not all the "what if" requests that GO may job out.

In terms of projects that this forum is interested in, some of the big information gaps are

- GO West Harbour - nothing documented about contract
- CP Galt Sub reinstatement of second track to Bathurst St - nothing documented about timing of work
- GO Confederation station - beginning of construction announced but no documentation of vendor awarded
- GO Bloomington - beginning of construction announced but no documentation of vendor awarded
- GO Hamilton Terminal - if any additional capital work is contemplated to extend hourly or better service to Hunter St, it sure isn't underway

And some of the projects that are further from being shovel ready than DD might make them sound are
- GO Lakeshore East
- GO Bowmanville

Anyways, it's the best I could manage. Hope it's of interest.

- Paul

 

[Allandale25]

^ Great initiative Paul. I'll DM you with some suggestions.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Moving from the Service thread:

Just speculating and extrapolating here but is it possible CN has told GO that they expect more freight trains with the new yard and as a result there's no point to trying to increase GO service between Georgetown and Bramalea? 'Even with three tracks/two throughout Brampton it would still be too difficult and the Bypass is the best solution'

Quite possible, yes. What's murky is how ML got from the original plan (a flyover, allowing CN to have its line to itself, with GO adding tracks alongside) to the bypass. Either a) the flyover was too pricey and/or b) GO's service plan vision expanded, and the full complement of new tracks just won't fit. Again, just speculating.

- Paul

^ And maybe c), CN vetoed the grade separation and didn't want to deal with overhead wires for GO RER and HSR for their mainline trains? (I assume if it's local switching jobs they can live with it)

What I don't get is how such a grade separation hasn't moved ahead when it can be two or three birds with one stone.

A freight bypass is going to need grade separation at Halwest anyway. There's also a future need to figure out the planned alignment of the 407 Transitway, as Bramalea is a bit north of the 407. From the 407 Transitway PIC:

So here's an idea:

• Create a GO flyunder at Halwest. CN's bridge can be wider to accomodate a wye, acting as a flyover to the south side of the corridor, and grade-separating access into the spur towards Pearson. Continue GO service to the current Bramalea, and abandon the southwest platform.
• When an agreement is struck for the bypass, it can use the existing grade separation. The widened area for the wye can be repurposed for the 407 Transitway. Bramalea Station can be relocated as per the slide above.

That means making progress sooner than later with a temporary solution, instead of waiting for these negotiations to drag on. But with a provincial election in 5 months, I doubt there will be any movement.

 

[drum118]

Needs to happen

Mayor John Tory backs costly Park Lawn GO station

 

[treplow]

Needs to happen

Mayor John Tory backs costly Park Lawn GO station

If the distance between Mimico and Park Lawn is too short, why not put the new GO station at Kingsway or Windermere?