Richard White
Senior Member
I'd also guess that Amtrak doesn't refund your entire ticket price if you are 15 minutes late.
Neither does GO if you use any of the weekend or GO/WEGO passes. Found that out this weekend.
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I'd also guess that Amtrak doesn't refund your entire ticket price if you are 15 minutes late.
Nitpick: Amtrak locos have a top speed of 79mph when operating anywhere without cab signalling / PTC / ATS. That includes in Canada.Remember as well that GO has a lower top speed than VIA / Amtrak services, which can operate at 166km/h when GO tops out at ~144km/h.
I can’t see any type of elaborate higher order transit being affordable for Niagara Falls. The most possible arrangement might be bus combined with fleeted GO service to spread the crowd out timewise…. But even that asks a lot of CN and the Seaway. And if that actually grows the business further…. waiting for a bus may just have to be.
Schedule padding is essential to having reliable service. If you don't have any, then even the slightest delay will be unrecoverable. And with trains, delays cause other delays, as trains are not in their planned slots and have a greater chance of conflict with other trains.That’s terrible. So just like the TTC, GO pads their schedule to avoid paying the date refund vs actually providing faster service.
Remember as well that GO has a lower top speed than VIA / Amtrak services, which can operate at 166km/h when GO tops out at ~144km/h.
Schedule padding is essential to having reliable service. If you don't have any, then even the slightest delay will be unrecoverable. And with trains, delays cause other delays, as trains are not in their planned slots and have a greater chance of conflict with other trains.
If you don't have padding, your trains will not run on time.
Besides the Niagara train, is there any specific service you think has excess padding?Do you not feel that GO's current schedules carry 'excess' padding?
Besides the Niagara train, is there any specific service you think has excess padding?
I regularly use the 21, and Milton and Lakeshore lines. I do not find the schedule for any of those has excess padding.
I do. It is always a balancing act between speed and reliability, but GO's rail schedules do indeed feel like they're too padded, causing most trains to run much slower than they otherwise could have.Do you not feel that GO's current schedules carry 'excess' padding?
I do. It is always a balancing act between speed and reliability, and GO's rail schedules do feel like they're too padded, causing most trains to run much slower than they otherwise could have.
But I can't objectively say that it's "too much" padding because I don't know how severe the consequences would be if the amount of train delays increased. Especially on the single tracked routes where delays on one train get transmitted directly to the train in the opposite direction, it is possible that speeding up the schedule would be no better for passengers, with the travel time savings being offset by increased wait times (delays) and reduced consistency.
Lakeshore trains going east wait at Burlington for up to 3 minutes, it can be cut down significantlyBesides the Niagara train, is there any specific service you think has excess padding?
I regularly use the 21, and Milton and Lakeshore lines. I do not find the schedule for any of those has excess padding.
Well, hold on here.Schedule padding is essential to having reliable service. If you don't have any, then even the slightest delay will be unrecoverable. And with trains, delays cause other delays, as trains are not in their planned slots and have a greater chance of conflict with other trains.
If you don't have padding, your trains will not run on time.
Well, hold on here.
There is padding, and then there is schedule recovery time. They are two different things, although they can be used to the achieve the same goals.
Many of the mid-day services on GO are heavily padded. Crews regularly operate the trains at not their maximum capabilities, and sometimes station dwells get extended because of it.
And yet, the same crews complain that there is not enough recovery in certain places such as West Harbour to be able to turn a train around and still meet the schedule.
Historically at GO, padding gets added to a schedule when a certain threshold of trains arrive late over a period, regardless of what the cause of those delays are. And GO has not been great at removing that padding if the cause gets removed.
Dan
The problem is that to a scheduler (and to the crews using the schedules), the two terms mean completely different things.In my post I was using the term 'padding' to refer to any form of additional time in the schedule above the expected travel and terminal times. Including both running time padding (en route) and recovery time (at the terminals and some stations).
The question was regarding the amount of extra time in the schedule, not the location where that extra time was added.