The Barrie summer (June 29/2013) schedule is up -
http://www.gotransit.com/public/en/updates/seasonal2013/Table65.pdf
The Barrie schedule is very different than last summer (which is available at
http://web.archive.org/web/20120904...ot/en/PDF/Timetables/CurrentBoard/Table65.pdf)
Instead of 2 trains to/from Barrie and 4 trains to/from East Gwillimbury there is a much simpler schedule of 4 trains from Barrie. And the GO Bus schedule has been completely rearranged to feed the GO Trains rather than compete with them. Looks like a significant improvement! Though ironic (like last year)that you can catch a train from Barrie to Toronto on Saturday/Sunday evening but not Friday evening. I'd have thought a simply running the late Saturday/Sunday train on Friday's as well would have worked well with this.
Still, it's a step forward. Should be year-round. And should be done on all lines!
Indeed, it looks more useful than last year's schedule despite the lower frequency in the GTA. When I heard about bidirectional Barrie Line weekend service last year I thought I'd maybe take a day trip to Barrie, but the schedule made that extremely impractical.
I think it would help if they skipped some stops, making the train more attractive as an intercity service. Based on the schedule, the train takes 1h38 from Toronto to Barrie, averaging only 62km/h.
Since they only run a single trainset for most of the day, every minute cut from the trip time is two minutes improvement in frequency. It would probably also reduce operational costs, since it takes a lot of energy (fuel) to accelerate a 10-12 car bilevel train from a stop.
- Rutherford Station could be skipped since it serves largely as an overflow parking lot for Maple GO station, and there is no capacity shortage on weekends.
- East Gwillimbury serves the same function for Newmarket GO Station and could be skipped as well.
- Although it is the station I use, York University GO Station could be skipped, based on the very low ridership i witnessed in last year's trial. I really had to question the value of the stop when I was the only person getting off a massive 12 car bilevel train with 2 locomotives.
- Barrie South station or King City station could possibly be skipped as well, but I don't really know what ridership they generate.