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wait so theyre not buying any emus even to supplement? wasnt there a huge marketing push for them this entire last half decade?
This is a bit of bait and switch since we were promised some form of EMUs in all the public releases and marketing.
I doubt the average person makes any differentiation between electric locomotives and EMUs. As long as a train shows up and is frequent, that’s all anyone would really care about.
 
3.5 minutes? thats insane. if that ever happens we do not need any bi-level locomotives at all.

Seems like they may be heading in the direction of "relatively small" EMU trains with high frequencies. I'd imagine that you'd want single floor EMUs to ease loading times.;

Of course, time will tell. It's early days.
 
This is excellent, excellent news. The electrification of GO was something I was very worried that a pro-car Conservative provincial government would dump - so I guess I take my doubt back!
Kudos to Metrolinx for pushing the (very rosy!) business case hard enough and kudos to local governments for pushing for this.

Now we need to push Metrolinx (and others!) to move away from building more parking and get building TOD on the existing car parking instead!
 
With trains that frequent, the system is just begging for free transfers to/from local busses and high frequency local BRT. This is an opportunity to truly build that elusive "surface subway" and potentially create enormous ridership. How can we get local bus connections higher (much higher) on Metrolinx's radar? This will truly be the make or break piece for the immense train frequencies and I'd hate to see us stumble over something relatively trivial after the big projects are done.
 
From the Alstom press release:


“Alstom’s scope within the consortium is anticipated to include the supply of new electric locomotives, train control systems, a new traction power system and network electrification via an overhead catenary system, as well as the integration of its scope.”

Is it safe to put talk of battery-powered trains to rest? :)
Does electric locomotives mean we get to keep the octagon cars? I like the octagon cars
 
frequencies in the 3.5 minute range would require grade separation on all but the absolute lowest traffic crossings. You would probably end up with more time with the level crossing gates down then up for that level of frequency - trains would be going by every 1.75 minutes.. leaving a window of maybe 45 seconds to a minute for cars to pass.

Luckily, GO has several parts of it's network which are entirely grade separated (or are planned to be from GO Expansion), and several more which are very close to that level.

- Stouffville from Unionville to Union
- Lakeshore West from Long Branch to Union
- Barrie to Caledonia GO
- Kitchener to Malton GO
- Lakeshore East to Eglinton GO


Several other corridors mostly have minor crossings remaining, or only a handful of larger road crossings which need to be addressed:

- Barrie could probably see 3.5 minute service fairly easily to Maple, provided Langstaff and Rivermede were seperated.
- Lakeshore West could probably see it on the entire corridor provided that something was done with Fourth Line, Kerr St, and Lorne Park Rd.
- Lakeshore East could probably see it on the entire corridor already, but may need Scarborough Golf Club Road done.
- Kitchener could easily extend service to Bramalea, with only 2 small at grade crossings.
-
 
With trains that frequent, the system is just begging for free transfers to/from local busses and high frequency local BRT. This is an opportunity to truly build that elusive "surface subway" and potentially create enormous ridership. How can we get local bus connections higher (much higher) on Metrolinx's radar? This will truly be the make or break piece for the immense train frequencies and I'd hate to see us stumble over something relatively trivial after the big projects are done.
well we already have free transfers. only just recently though
TTC buses as far as i know are pretty frequent, but as everyone knows, you sometimes need to take multiple transfers to get to your house. of course a symptom of low-density....but i digress

i think we already have some great transfers, but unfortunately the low density hurts us
 
frequencies in the 3.5 minute range would require grade separation on all but the absolute lowest traffic crossings. You would probably end up with more time with the level crossing gates down then up for that level of frequency - trains would be going by every 1.75 minutes.. leaving a window of maybe 45 seconds to a minute for cars to pass.

Luckily, GO has several parts of it's network which are entirely grade separated (or are planned to be from GO Expansion), and several more which are very close to that level.

- Stouffville from Unionville to Union
- Lakeshore West from Long Branch to Union
- Barrie to Caledonia GO
- Kitchener to Malton GO
- Lakeshore East to Eglinton GO


Several other corridors mostly have minor crossings remaining, or only a handful of larger road crossings which need to be addressed:

- Barrie could probably see 3.5 minute service fairly easily to Maple, provided Langstaff and Rivermede were seperated.
- Lakeshore West could probably see it on the entire corridor provided that something was done with Fourth Line, Kerr St, and Lorne Park Rd.
- Lakeshore East could probably see it on the entire corridor already, but may need Scarborough Golf Club Road done.
- Kitchener could easily extend service to Bramalea, with only 2 small at grade crossings.
-
i mean...how long is the average streetlight?
also if the schedule is synced enough, they could probaly get the timings down to get the trains to pass at the exact same time to lower the frequency of the gates.

like when each grade separation is $100 million the value goes way down

this is in defence of cancelling the scarborough grade separation and the one in etobicoke
 
The fact that the vendor’s system can handle a 3.5 minute headway does not mean that this headway is needed.

Ridership would have to explode to need that many trains. A 7.5-minute headway would probably seem adequate.

Needing the greater frequency would be a nice problem to have…. but we will all be a lot older before that happens, even in a more crowded urban environment.

- Paul
 
The fact that the vendor’s system can handle a 3.5 minute headway does not mean that this headway is needed.

Ridership would have to explode to need that many trains. A 7.5-minute headway would probably seem adequate.

Needing the greater frequency would be a nice problem to have…. but we will all be a lot older before that happens, even in a more crowded urban environment.

- Paul
If Metrolinx wants to move away from the 12-car behemoths though, during peak periods they may get pretty close to every 3.5 minutes! Pre-COVID, LSW was sub 10-minutes at some times, and that's with 12-car trains. A shift to 6-car trains pulled by electric locomotives would mean double the frequency to handle the same demand. 3.5 mins in that case isn't much of a stretch.

The real determination on how much of a "surface subway" this will be is what the off-peak frequencies will be. Every 15 mins isn't subway-level, but cut that in half and you're getting there.
 

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