robmausser
Senior Member
Its my opinion that they shouldnt even attempt it until they upgrade the track. Bad publicity.
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- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Its my opinion that they shouldnt even attempt it until they upgrade the track. Bad publicity.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Maybe there is planned trackwork, you just dont know about it.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
In an old VIA annual report, they contemplated purchasing the Kitchener-London section of the Guelph sub and stated that CN would be open to selling. I assume that CN would be happy to sell it to Metrolinx, get free track upgrades, and still be able to continue to operate their infrequent freights on the corridor.
The Stratford-London track is the real issue, where VIA tops out at 60 km/h. The good news is that CTC is already installed on the entire corridor, and if the tracks are upgraded the straight corridor means you could move GO trains pretty quick.
Also, here’s something fun. VIA’s website for London Station already lists GO Rail as a service operating from the station.
rbt
Senior Member
I'm thinking this is a reactive measure to Greyhound bailing, with little to no planning involved. If there is ridership, even just 100 people per day, improvements will likely appear 5 years from now.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
I mean it's not the first time GO has done this (train service now, improvements later). They did it to Barrie, Kitchener, and Niagara too. Kitchener has had service for almost a decade now and is only really now seeing substantial travel time improvements.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
They are literally training operators on the route as we speak. The route as it currently is, without upgrades.
jamincan
Active Member
The reference to Go train service was added sometime before Sept 24, 2020, and it's been listed as a transit option for years prior (I didn't bother checking earlier than 2017).
It seems to me that if they were responding to Greyhound ceasing service, wouldn't it be easier to just add a bus route first? This smells like political meddling to me.
robmausser
Senior Member
robmausser
Senior Member
Infact a bus could even be faster considering the speed of the tracks and the milk run nature of the GO line.
Northern Light
Superstar
There's certainly politics involved; but this has been in the works for a bit, from what I understand.
CN non-renewed GEXR, and almost immediately began fixing track work.
There was no compelling reason for that, of which I'm aware, unless a major deal concerning expanded passenger service was in the offing.
crs1026
Superstar
^As it happens, I was in London yesterday, and out of curiosity I took a minute to peek at the track around Florence and Highbury, which is right next to the road so accessible without going anyplace one shouldn't go.
I was mostly looking for stampings on the rail to indicate age etc. In fact, there weren't any real markings. Enough of the tieplates were dated 1955 that I would think that's a good indication of when things were last changed out..
I pretty much immediately noticed a substantial 'ding' in the rail. This particular rail had been shifted so the 'ding' was on the outside, so it's not a safety defect per se. But that, plus the level of wear on the rail tread, would tend to indicate that the rail is pretty close to end of life. Similarly, the ties were consistently worn and cracked.... no sign of any tie renewal in the past while. Note as well the yellow temporary speed restriction sign, which ran all the way up to Clarke and Oxford. Ballast looked clean, but not as deep as one would see on a heavier main line.
CN runs its track defect detector vehicle up this line fairly regularly, so I'm confident things are safe, for the speeds allowed. But this is not in the shape that one would want for an intercity passenger line. Whether ML intends to put money into the line right away or not, one can't expect a very attractive service to appear until the line gets a good rebuilding.
- Paul
I was mostly looking for stampings on the rail to indicate age etc. In fact, there weren't any real markings. Enough of the tieplates were dated 1955 that I would think that's a good indication of when things were last changed out..
I pretty much immediately noticed a substantial 'ding' in the rail. This particular rail had been shifted so the 'ding' was on the outside, so it's not a safety defect per se. But that, plus the level of wear on the rail tread, would tend to indicate that the rail is pretty close to end of life. Similarly, the ties were consistently worn and cracked.... no sign of any tie renewal in the past while. Note as well the yellow temporary speed restriction sign, which ran all the way up to Clarke and Oxford. Ballast looked clean, but not as deep as one would see on a heavier main line.
CN runs its track defect detector vehicle up this line fairly regularly, so I'm confident things are safe, for the speeds allowed. But this is not in the shape that one would want for an intercity passenger line. Whether ML intends to put money into the line right away or not, one can't expect a very attractive service to appear until the line gets a good rebuilding.
- Paul
Bordercollie
Senior Member
New sleepers, ties and new track and ballast would be required. Maybe they could increase the speed by replacing the sleepers that are in the worst shape. Leave the bolted track in place.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
It’s not nothing, but installing CWR along the corridor is a doable proposition. The benifits of being able to run GO trains at 120km/h to 150 km/h would far outweigh the costs, and significantly cut travel times.
robmausser
Senior Member
As well it benefits VIA too. Could be a joint (or a non-joint, get it get it) effort
reaperexpress
Senior Member
I agree with @crs1026 that we should do it once and do it right. The whole line is falling to bits, and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Let's build it up to a 95 mph (153 km/h) standard, just like the Lakeshore West and Lakeshore East lines already have. The alignment is good enough to support it, and the distance between stops is long enough that it would be worthwhile.
The faster the service can be, the more profitable it will be (least subsidy). Speed is critical on this line, since the potential ridership comes specifically from London, Stratford and Kitchener, with very little population in between. We need the service to be as attractive as possible to people in those cities. This is in contrast to the Kitchener-Toronto segment which generally has enough population dotted along the line that even a slow service can attract a respectable amount of ridership without achieving a very high market share in any given town/city.
Upgrading it to its full speed potential from the start also makes it possible to run a regular hourly service in both directions. Doing so requires sidings located precisely every 30 minutes along the line. Once those sidings are introduced, the travel times will be locked in. If you later reduce the travel time on one of the segments from 30 minutes to 25, the train would then need to wait 5 minutes in the siding for the train to show up in the other direction anyway.
Haha, nice. I think that really depends on the medium-term plan for who will be operating what service (if any) along the London-Kitchener and Kitchener-Toronto corridors. Like I said earlier there is a case to be made that GO temporarily take over the entirety of the north mainline operations for the short/medium term, since this would vastly simplify scheduling through the CN-controlled segment between Bramalea and Georgetown as well as the single-track lines west of Georgetwon. It would also simplify the purchase and upgrade of the London-Kitchener line since Metrolinx could do it entirely on their own terms.
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