I think service increases will be incremental. I was dissapointed to see Metrolinx plans indicating that all-day hourly service won't arrive until the 2020's. And it was curious that they are making Hunter the all-day terminus, not West Harbour.
They already want to bring all-day trains to Hamilton, but one big problem is that Metrolinx
owns track only to Aldershot.
There is not enough track between Aldershot and West Harbour to sustain all-day service without interference by CN.
A single CN freight train in Hamilton
can delay a Lakeshore
East train, sometimes by more than 15 minutes. The reason is that most Lakeshore West Aldershot trains pass through Union, becoming Lakeshore East. If they make West Harbour the new terminus, they better damn very well make sure that any delays in Hamilton because of a freight train, does not interfere with the rest of the whole Lakeshore corridor all the way to Oshawa. They have no interference at Aldershot onwards because they own the whole Lakeshore east corridor east of Aldershot (except Aldershot itself, which I understand is Metrolinx built track in CN-owned rail yard).
Metrolinx wants all-day service to Hamilton. Eventually.
But they can't afford to disrupt the whole Lakeshore.
To fix this, they need to build extra track (now funded fortunately!). It's my understanding that the upcoming track around the Lake Ontario curve, and the upcoming track to Stoney Creek, are all both funded now, thanks in part due to $150 million dollar Confederation GO station announcement (only $35M is the station).
But to do Lakeshore parity (e.g. 15-min RER) they may need to add a rail-to-rail grade separation (not funded, unfortunately) because the Metrolinx track is on the wrong side of the freight corridor at Aldershot compared to West Harbour. A ~$250 million dollar megaproject, if it proceeds.
I think West Harbour will become the new attraction instead of Aldershot for a lot of Hamiltonians, since West Harbour will have a parking garage of 300 cars within a year or so, and expandable to 600 cars. It also attracts the residential areas around the harbour area, as well as the James Street developments.
I am hoping things change and Metrolinx upscales to bring all-day electricified RER service beyond Aldershot sooner than later. Bring on the post-LRT Hamilton population boom.
Currently, because of the above, this is the best we can hope for by Year 2024:
Target Year: 2024
View attachment 48199
Target Year: 2024
All because of a pesky matter of CN rail ownership that's impossible to purchase because it's their Golden Horseshoe mainline, bringing traincars of stuff to/from the USA, our exports and imports are on those railcars, and Hamilton Junction is Canada's busiest rail junction.
We're looking at least several hundred million dollars to solve a freight separation problem, to get Lakeshore parity all the way to Hamilton. Instead, we're going for the compromise of parallel Metrolinx-funded trackage built on CN-owned (West Harbour) or CP-owned corridor (Hamilton Downtown), and gaining Metrolinx-priority running rights,
except where GO trains have to cross the CN/CP mainline tracks. That showstopper (having to stop for freight before crossing the freight tracks on one of Canada's busiest freight lines) in itself, prevents trusting Hamilton departures from interfering with reliable Oshawa arrival times. Slow lumbering 100-car freight train delaying a GO train by 20 minutes, have happened in the past. Especially if the GOtrain was a little late in departing, and crashed headlong into CN/CP freight schedule, or the CN/CP freight train was late and clashed with an on-schedule GO train.
This is why the Liberal promise of all-day Hamilton GO service by 2015 is broken.
I can understand the technical details why, but the government didn't quite realize how outlandish this original promise was, without a near-GTS-league style megaproject.
Incrementally, I expect more Lakeshore West trains to go through West Harbour over time, and realistically see all-day service every 2-3 hours by 2019, when Stoney Creek (Confederation GO) station is in full service -- and all the necessary extra track is built. The Lewis trainyard (overnight train parking near Stoney Creek) can be expanded to be up to 8 GO trains, and can sustain 30-min all day service if the freight contention problem is solved, possibly via a rail-to-rail grade separation during a future budget announcement. Then nothing stops us getting electric RER trains to downtown Hamilton!