T3G
Senior Member
The old cab cars are not restricted from running on any services to the best of my knowledge. I've caught them on Lakeshore West recently.
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- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
RS3488
Active Member
Willybru21
Active Member
I don’t think they’re doing that on purpose, I think they just happened to end up on 10 car trains
EnviroTO
Senior Member
What unique conditions exist here that would affect the right choice for rail vehicle other than the service we are starting with which is "low frequency rush hour commuter service" which is exactly what this project is meant to get away from?
A choice of locomotive pulled bi-levels leads to the choice of trains coming less frequently (you can carry the same number of people with less trains) travelling more slowly (slower acceleration), and trains that are slower and coming less frequently leads to less riders (less connections, less availability at the time people are making their trip, etc.). The reality is that locomotive pulled bi-levels will never provide a high frequency frequent stop urban rail service successfully in Toronto, and Alstom and Deutsche Bahn must know this. If the goal is high frequency you need to build up ridership to the point it requires multi-level trains, not start with multi-level. The entire ridership of GO Transit right now (all lines and bus routes included) is less than the RER E line in Paris which is the RER line with the least ridership. If we operate bi-levels at the beginning the frequency on the route will never get to a point that makes it competitive.
T3G
Senior Member
Those are the unique conditions I was referring to. We have almost 1000 BiLevels, the majority of which are less than 20 years old, and most of those that aren't have either been refurbished recently or are presently undergoing refurbishment.
EMUs might be the stock of choice if GO expansion ever reaches the point where wires start being strung up, but I'm sure Alstom and Deutsche Bahn are also aware of the fact that junking hundreds of passenger cars with many decades of life still available to them would be an appalling waste of money. Any plan that they devise will have to take these into account. Unless they devise a plan where long distance commuter lines like Barrie and Niagara Falls end up gobbling up the entire supply of BiLevels, don't expect EMUs to form the majority of the fleet for decades to come.
Or maybe they will. Any kind of notion of fiscal responsibility or good planning is completely foreign in this country, so who knows what they'll actually end up doing.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
That is the ONxpress contract. What GO does before the ONxpress contract delivers its electrification and signalling improvements would no doubt be extending the life of what it is doing now with marginal improvements at best.
The current plan doesn't complete until 2032. That means that somehow the existing fleet needs to live 8-9 years (plus delays +/- 100%) and handle service extensions to Bowmanville, Confederation, and the marginal improvements they will make to add service. They can't do that with new EMU equipment because Oshawa to Bowmanville, Burlington to Confederation, Bramalea to Kitchener, and the Milton, Bolton, and Richmond Hill lines will not be electrified. As a line is electrified and ready for expanded services they are going to need equipment they don't have right now which will make that loco + bi-level equipment currently running on the line available for enhancements on the other lines. Kitchener will probably still see some bi-levels 30 years from now, but not Agincourt or St.Clair-Weston. The optimal 25 year plan fleet is EMU for core services (single-deck to start, multi-deck if demand warrants it later and signalling can't achieve the headways to handle the demand) and hybrid electic / bio-diesel locomotives pulling multi-deck coaches.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
Allandale25
Senior Member
^ and the specific ad link is here:
Bojaxs
Active Member
I'm assuming Metrolinx will stick with Bi-level coaches when they switch to electric. I was watching a video about Sydney's double decker EMUs, assuming our electrified trains would look fairly similar to theirs, and I was disappointed by how slow the trains seem to travel. It would be a real shame to spend all this money electrifying the lines only to get trains that don't really travel much faster than our current diesel trains. The guy in the video said the weight of the double decker trains made them slower compared to single level trains.
What's the likelihood of Metrolinx refurbishing and painting their remaining F59's in the newer livery?
What's the likelihood of Metrolinx refurbishing and painting their remaining F59's in the newer livery?
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
As previously mentioned, GO will reduce train lengths to 4-5 cars with an electric loco. These things will absolutely rocket out of stations. Acceleration will not be an issue.
RS3488
Active Member
I wonder where the locomotives will be built. Will it be the Alstom plant in Thunder Bay or elsewhere?
dowlingm
Senior Member
If it’s an ALP-46 derivative, most likely in Kassel, Germany as NJ Transit’s were
rbt
Senior Member
No matter what it's actually based on, I'd bet they call it a Traxx Universal variant.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
The big question to me is whether there end up being any dual modes included.... I'm ever more fond of seriously contemplating electrifying the whole of Kitchener with a Bramalea - Georgetown gap given how long any of the credible options for OLE through Brampton are going to take.
dowlingm
Senior Member
When NJ Transit ran ACES trains to Atlantic City they had an ALP-44 at one end and a P40DC on the other. For some services it might make sense to simply put a diesel in lieu of a cab car to bridge electrification gaps.