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not from my understanding.

The friday peak train also lost the "super express" stopping pattern that weekend Niagara trains have - which have the bonus of ~40 minute travel times to Burlington. I have to admit I've used them once or twice just for that, which is a very, very competitive travel time.

Long term I would love to see all service extending beyond Aldershot to have the super express stop pattern to make more competitive travel times. It would probably deliver a pretty safe sub-1 hour travel time to Hamilton, and better times to the Niagara Peninsula. I'm not sure there is the track capacity for it at peak hours though.
 
Long term I would love to see all service extending beyond Aldershot to have the super express stop pattern to make more competitive travel times. It would probably deliver a pretty safe sub-1 hour travel time to Hamilton, and better times to the Niagara Peninsula. I'm not sure there is the track capacity for it at peak hours though.

I was once on a nonstop express GO train between Union to West Harbour that made it in a mere 47 minutes -- an actual special GO train.

It was one of those PanAm 2015 Games express trains, that had a 30-minute late departure. It nearly completely made up for that time.

I'll never forget that memorable rocket powered GO train!


According to my calculations, Union-Hamilton in just 42 minutes is possible within the current rail limits with the infrastructure improvements between Bayview Junction and West Harbour. Realistically, any express won't be that fast, but it certainly tested how fast an express GO train could be between Toronto and Hamilton.

Has that been built now?

Not yet. They were working towards it by replacing the John Street bridge -- that was a necessary pre-requisite that was under construction to prepare for precisely this!


Then the pandemic slammed Hamilton and GO's budget. So a bit of a 1-or-2-year punt on the next stage, probably.

IMHO, they should have included that in the 2015 contract...
 
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Good to see Saturday/Sunday/Holiday trains back, but previously, there was a Friday late afternoon train as well. I guess the service is geared to daytrippers right now.

The bus schedule has not changed, meaning a long slog on the all-stops Route 12 otherwise.
Last year when I was returning from Niagara, there were enough people that were headed back to “Toronto”, so they automatically made an extra express bus from there to Burlington, aka bringing back the 12B for a brief moment. I feel like 2021’s overall summer is going to drive a lot more traffic compared to when we were in the early stages of the pandemic, and it has been proven seeing the 401 and QEW/403 be a absolute disaster once again at mostly all times. That being said, the traffic to Niagara will probably be massive that they would need to simultaneously run a train and an unscheduled 12B in order to keep the traffic flow bearable.
 
I just hope they run 12 car service to Niagara this year. That service is always packed.
12-car trains are much slower to accelerate than the 8-car trains they normally run on that service. They would need to add several minutes to the schedule to accommodate that, providing a worse service for passengers.

If we are consistently able to fill 8-car double-decker trains on the weekend, surely that is a justification to increase the service above the present 4 trains per day.
 
An earlier Toronto bound train for Niagara passengers would probably be a good addition - right now the earliest train arrives after noon.
Yeah I have previously pondered about using a trainset based in Lewis Yard for a couple of additional round trips for the weekend Niagara Service, to provide said morning trip as well as to improve headways from every 4 hours to every 2-3 hours:

nf-future2-jpg.260502
 
This is worth a mention:


Because the Cambridge-Guelph train proposal drops passengers in the middle of nowhere and requires the Cambridge LRT to take them somewhere useful. And since the LRT is over a decade away, that means it will be long time before the Cambridge-Guelph train will be built as without the LRT, it doesn't have a hope of succeeding, and that is completely negating the superiority of a potential bus service instead of the train.
 
This is worth a mention:


Because the Cambridge-Guelph train proposal drops passengers in the middle of nowhere and requires the Cambridge LRT to take them somewhere useful. And since the LRT is over a decade away, that means it will be long time before the Cambridge-Guelph train will be built as without the LRT, it doesn't have a hope of succeeding, and that is completely negating the superiority of a potential bus service instead of the train.
Except the 302... well... exists, and can easily supplement the LRT (like it already does)
 
12-car trains are much slower to accelerate than the 8-car trains they normally run on that service. They would need to add several minutes to the schedule to accommodate that, providing a worse service for passengers.

If we are consistently able to fill 8-car double-decker trains on the weekend, surely that is a justification to increase the service above the present 4 trains per day.

Maybe so but with Covid restrictions, they cannot cram people as tightly as they would in previous years. I wonder if they will have trains on stand-by for crowding purposes.
 
From a Metrolinx blog post, about speed tests this Sunday through Guelph:

on Sunday, experts will operate the test GO Train through the City of Guelph to move through level crossings where new signals have been installed – Glasgow St., Yorkshire St., Edinburgh Rd and Alma St.

Trains currently travel this section at around 16 km/h. The test train will move incrementally faster with each test through this section, up to 80 km/h.

Holy smokes, are they really going to move that fast through there? The curve east of Gordon / Norfolk will certainly be a limiting factor, but somehow it's unfathomable that they'd be permitted to go that fast where the tracks parallel Kent Street.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this, I just have little faith in residents / politicians swallowing that pill.
 
Maybe the 50 mph is just for testing purposes? The article states that the scheduled train speeds are expected to increase "incrementally" in Fall 2021, so perhaps that's referring to the 35 mph.

Either way, it doesn't really make much difference whether the Kent Street segment has a 35 mph or 50 mph limit, since it's right next to Guelph Station where all passenger trains stop.
 
^As I understand it, the purpose of the exercise is to calibrate the new gates and crossing signals which have been installed recently.

It’s unlikely that the official operating speed will be raised as high as 50 in the near term, but it’s sensible to ensure the gates can handle excess speed as well as the normal speed, just in case.

- Paul
 

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