[ssiguy2]

Well this is nothing but fantastic news and it seems that ML really has done their due diligence of studying other systems worldwide and adopting best practices.

Again, my only concern is that all the cars on the trains are DD. I think DD is great but with one big caveat..........they should have at least 2 cars per train that are single level. This allows for easy access for wheelchairs and others with mobility issues. It not only speeds up boarding for those users but for everyone on the other cars as you no longer have wheelchairs being squeezed in by regular passengers. People also tend to use these single level cars if they are going relatively short distances where they usually just stand around the door on DD so they don't have to go up/down stairs for a 5 minute ride. It sounds illogical but doesn't change the fact that it happens all the time whether on buses, Metros, streetcars, and ESPECIALLY DD trains where the stairs are a psychological barrier.

There is another VERY big advantage of having some single level cars...........bicycles. As ML is encouraging active mobility and installing covered bike areas, the need for easy access becomes essential. On DD entrances you could easily find yourself boarding having to negotiate around wheelchairs, people with strollers, and a couple bikes greatly increasing dwell time. Single level cars get rid of this problem.

These train set ups is what Paris is implementing on their RER system with their new Alstom X'trapolis RER NG trains

 

[reaperexpress]

New GO Expansion agreement with ONxpress Transportation Partners ushers in exciting future of faster, greener, more frequent GO Train service - Metrolinx News

GO Expansion is moving forward to the next stage of development and will transform the region in ways greater than previously imagined. GO Expansion will include infrastructure and operational plans that reduce journey times even more, add more capacity, improve on-time performance, and customer...

blog.metrolinx.com

Includes a short video with people from the consortium speaking.

Honestly the article leaves me with more questions than answers. Metrolinx has a tendency to state frequencies in total, rather than per direction. For example when they add 1 new round trip, they say "2 new trips". So when in this article they say 8 to 18 trains per hour, I think they mean 4 to 9 trains per hour per direction.

But then they go on to talk about "trains every 6 to 15 minutes, and that's surely per direction.

Which numbers are total and which numbers are per direction?

Then they go on to say:

While current GO trains can go up to 140km/h, they generally travel about 95km/h on average.

Everything about this statement is wrong. The top speed of GO trains is 150 km/h, as per GO's own website and my GPS readings aboard a Lakeshore West express train. And the average speed of GO train lines ranges from 41 km/h to 61 km/h, as I summarized on my blog (anyone can verify this by dividing the distances by the end-to-end travel times). I assume what they meant is that GO trains typically only reach around 95 km/h between stations (which is true for local trains) but that's not what they wrote.

The article seems to be including numbers just for aesthetic purposes, rather than for actually conveying accurate information.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Honestly the article leaves me with more questions than answers. Metrolinx has a tendency to state frequencies in total, rather than per direction. For example when they add 1 new round trip, they say "2 new trips". So when in this article they say 8 to 18 trains per hour, I think they mean 4 to 9 trains per hour per direction.

It also doesn't instill confidence that they say that the current top speed of GO trains is 140 km/h, while in fact it's 150 km/h.

could just be a rounding thing - GO locos are limited to 90mph from my understanding, which is 144.8km/h. Round up, you get 150, round down (which is technically correct), you get 140. It's a problem of railways operating in imperial but trying to express it in laymens terms of metric.

That said, I've definitely seen them top 150km/h before, on downhill stretches when they are behind schedule.

GO's rarely operate above 120km/h in regular service from my experience, those upper bounds of speeds are for making up lost time on express routes today.

Service, for example, on Lakeshore West, typically exits Union and crawls through the USRC, gets up to about 80km/h out to Willowbrook, then will go up to 110-120km/h between stations as it moves west.

Getting speeds up to 70km/h through the USRC as planned then right up to 145km/h for the rest of the corridor, paired with faster acceleration allowing trains to actually be at that level longer and shorter dwell times at stations from level boardings, and you can start to see how GO can achieve these seemingly impossible time savings.

 

[reaperexpress]

could just be a rounding thing - GO locos are limited to 90mph from my understanding, which is 144.8km/h. Round up, you get 150, round down (which is technically correct), you get 140. It's a problem of railways operating in imperial but trying to express it in laymens terms of metric.

That said, I've definitely seen them top 150km/h before, on downhill stretches when they are behind schedule.

GO's rarely operate above 120km/h in regular service from my experience, those upper bounds of speeds are for making up lost time on express routes today.

Service, for example, on Lakeshore West, typically exits Union and crawls through the USRC, gets up to about 80km/h out to Willowbrook, then will go up to 110-120km/h between stations as it moves west.

Getting speeds up to 70km/h through the USRC as planned then right up to 145km/h for the rest of the corridor, paired with faster acceleration allowing trains to actually be at that level longer and shorter dwell times at stations from level boardings, and you can start to see how GO can achieve these seemingly impossible time savings.

The MP40s are not limited to 90 mph, they are limited to 93 mph which is 149.67 km/h. There is no way you can round that to 140 km/h.

Heck, they wouldn't even have needed to leave their own website to find the correct numbers, even including unit conversion (though they technically should have rounded 149.67 to 149.7).
https://blog.metrolinx.com/2020/06/...-physics-that-allow-go-trains-to-speed-up-or-

 

[ARG1]

Honestly the article leaves me with more questions than answers. Metrolinx has a tendency to state frequencies in total, rather than per direction. For example when they add 1 new round trip, they say "2 new trips". So when in this article they say 8 to 18 trains per hour, I think they mean 4 to 9 trains per hour per direction.

But then they go on to talk about "trains every 6 to 15 minutes, and that's surely per direction.

Which numbers are total and which numbers are per direction?

Then they go on to say:


Everything about this statement is wrong. The top speed of GO trains is 150 km/h, as per GO's own website and my GPS readings aboard a Lakeshore West express train. And the average speed of GO train lines ranges from 41 km/h to 61 km/h, as I summarized on my blog (anyone can verify this by dividing end-to-end travel times by the distance). I assume what they meant is that GO trains typically only reach around 95 km/h between stations (which is true for local trains) but that's not what they wrote.

The article seems to be including numbers just for aesthetic purposes, rather than for actually conveying accurate information.

I think its safe to say that "trains every 6 to 15 minutes" is per direction - considering that 15 mins is their baseline frequency in the core sections. Now it could be referring to the outer sections of the Barrie/Stouffville Lines which are only planned to have 2TPH, so its 6 minutes including both directions in the core sections, and 15 minutes in the outer sections... which is certainly a claim. However when you consider the fact that they are introducing ECTS to allow for much tighter headways, combined with the peak claim of 3-8 minutes, it at the very least certainly seems like its talking per direction.

 

[reaperexpress]

I think its safe to say that "trains every 6 to 15 minutes" is per direction - considering that 15 mins is their baseline frequency in the core sections. Now it could be referring to the outer sections of the Barrie/Stouffville Lines which are only planned to have 2TPH, so its 6 minutes including both directions in the core sections, and 15 minutes in the outer sections... which is certainly a claim. However when you consider the fact that they are introducing ECTS to allow for much tighter headways, combined with the peak claim of 3-8 minutes, it at the very least certainly seems like its talking per direction.

I think you're right but it would be nice if they actually confirmed the meaning of the numbers they're touting.

 

[daniel_kryz]

Does anyone know if we'll get level boarding?

 

[generalcanada]

Does anyone know if we'll get level boarding?

were like 99% sure mx is doing level boarding. theres been documents flying around for years, theyve talked about it.

the press releases say "redoing union station platforms which is expanding them to like double width. theres a small chance they dont

theres nothing about increasing the heights of all the other stations. that may be done later, since its so quick. recent station construction and renovations have protected for higher platforms.

 

[afransen]

it's much better travel time improvements than what they were thinking of in the business case by the sounds of it too - making allusions that Oakville GO will be about 25 minutes from Union for example, compared to the expected 31 minute travel time in the business case.

This is a substantial improvement in essentially every way, and is very, very exciting.

What is odd though is that Pickering GO is alluded to also be 25 minutes from Union, despite that being the projected travel time in the Business Case. So the travel time savings clearly aren't universal across all lines.

Things like frequent, sub-1hr travel times to Hamilton, 1.25hrs to Barrie, etc. will also be revolutionary in easing travel around the region.

I wonder if this will result in dramatically better ridership than projected... is that already accounted for in the plan?

 

[daniel_kryz]

were like 99% sure mx is doing level boarding. theres been documents flying around for years, theyve talked about it.

the press releases say "redoing union station platforms which is expanding them to like double width. theres a small chance they dont

theres nothing about increasing the heights of all the other stations. that may be done later, since its so quick. recent station construction and renovations have protected for higher platforms.

I'm pretty sure it won't be included in the On-Corridor contract and will be part of the Off-Corridor package.
Here's the Ontario Government's press release...
The province is also moving ahead with the remainder of GO Rail Expansion’s Early Works as well as Off-Corridor Works projects, which include building new corridor infrastructure and improving and expanding existing infrastructure and stations.

I'm guessing we'll get to know what that consists of and looks like in the near future.

 

[EnviroTO]

If they have platforms that handle 12 car trains today, and the plan is 6 car trains... that makes it a little easier to make the transition to the 24" platform that the GO has been protecting for. They could have 12 car trains board from certain cars (some the back, some the front) at each station, and use either a 8" or 24" platform at Union depending on the train.

I really don't understand the idea of a 24" platform height though... that is like using TTC gauge rails on a conversion. The most common standards out there are (ignoring North American heavy rail doing things in inches and not using level boardings) are ultra low 180mm, low 380mm, medium 550m, high 760mm, extra high 1100mm, and ultra high 1250mm. How did Metrolinx choose 610mm??

 

[11th]

If they have platforms that handle 12 car trains today, and the plan is 6 car trains... that makes it a little easier to make the transition to the 24" platform that the GO has been protecting for. They could have 12 car trains board from certain cars (some the back, some the front) at each station, and use either a 8" or 24" platform at Union depending on the train.

I really don't understand the idea of a 24" platform height though... that is like using TTC gauge rails on a conversion. The most common standards out there are (ignoring North American heavy rail doing things in inches and not using level boardings) are ultra low 180mm, low 380mm, medium 550m, high 760mm, extra high 1100mm, and ultra high 1250mm. How did Metrolinx choose 610mm??

They can go with whatever height they want if they are doing with the half and half method as you've described.

 

[Deadpool X]

A lot of times the speeds are slow because of track geometry, not because of train's top speed limits. That won't change with electrification. Does faster acceleration alone account for that much time savings? (I don't believe in shorter dwell times theory if we are still running DDs)

 

[ARG1]

If they have platforms that handle 12 car trains today, and the plan is 6 car trains... that makes it a little easier to make the transition to the 24" platform that the GO has been protecting for. They could have 12 car trains board from certain cars (some the back, some the front) at each station, and use either a 8" or 24" platform at Union depending on the train.

I really don't understand the idea of a 24" platform height though... that is like using TTC gauge rails on a conversion. The most common standards out there are (ignoring North American heavy rail doing things in inches and not using level boardings) are ultra low 180mm, low 380mm, medium 550m, high 760mm, extra high 1100mm, and ultra high 1250mm. How did Metrolinx choose 610mm??

Because that's the height of the doors/first floor of the Bombardier BiLevel, you know, the coach we have 1000 of?

 

[ARG1]

A lot of times the speeds are slow because of track geometry, not because of train's top speed limits. That won't change with electrification. Does faster acceleration alone account for that much time savings? (I don't believe in shorter dwell times theory if we are still running DDs)

From what I understand most of the GO network is actually fully capable of running at speeds higher than we currently run them at. The reason we don't is typically A) The slow acceleration of the trains means that it usually isn't worth accelerating all the way to the max speed (as seen on LSW), and B) Conservative speed limits that are set to assume worst case scenerios. A possibly good example of the latter is the Snider grade separation on the Barrie Line, which has a speed limit of 45 mph despite being straight with a long vertical curve transition and a relative tame grade. Apparently the reason for this (and this is hearsay so don't take this as gospel) is that the speed limit is in place for a worst case scenerio situation where the train loses most of its breaks at the top of the flyover. In practice if we didn't design our operations under such horrible worst case scenerios, we could easily be running much faster in these sections. There's also a few other points to bring up, that being track maintenance standards. Every so often GO will run an inspection train to grade the tracks and the result is usually a decrease in speed. This can be seen when you're comparing older time tables with services we have today.

In 2000, it took 42 mins for the train to go from Union to Bronte, that number is 46 mins today: