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I'm dream of a world where I can hop on the train from Whitby and take it to Burlington in 45 minutes tops with an average speed for 90-100KM/H. I guess this is unrealistic?

Yes, this is unrealistic.

Such a trip would require an average speed of almost 135km/h. And no stops, including at Union. And not slowing down through all of the slow trackwork through downtown. Or frankly, anywhere else where there are slow orders.

Dan
 
Such a trip would require an average speed of almost 135km/h. And no stops, including at Union. And not slowing down through all of the slow trackwork through downtown. Or frankly, anywhere else where there are slow orders.
On the other hand, VIA's Montreal to Aldershot train about 20 years ago scheduled 56 minutes from Oshawa to Burlington, with a 16-minute dwell in Union. So if you remove 3 minutes from Oshawa to Whitby, and reduce the dwell at Union to 3 minutes, then in theory you could have run an express from Whitby to Burlington in 40 minutes - compared to 118 minutes in the current schedule. Hopefully slightly faster now with the upgraded switches around Union.

Can't imagine it would ever happen - but would interesting to see what scheduled express trains from Oshawa to Hamilton could do - rather than just running express to Union.
 
^Regardless of timing, it's hard to envision anything other than peak unidirectional express service on top of 15 minute stopping LSW service so long as there are only three tracks. Very tricky to interleave the express onto the two stopping tracks, and the crossing over would slow things down. VIA needs slots on that third track also.

While that end-to-end express service model sounds sexy, I'm not sure it is really optimal. The market for collecting riders heading for Hamilton may be as significant as the market for people wanting to fly from one end point to the other. Over the years, even the "express to Oakville" peak trains had picked up stops eg at Clarkson. With the Hurontario LRT coming on line, I can see the express justifying a stop at Port Credit also, as a major transfer point.

Right of way is quite wide enough for a fourth track Clarkson-Oakville, and that might enable something better than today, I can see the case for local trains only to Oakville with transfer there.

Lastly, the new trackage through Bayview is not high speed. Don't assume trains getting up to speed until east of about Lemonville Road.

- Paul
 
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Frankly, the end to end service might well have decent demand here, but the bus service with more complete HOV lines would make more sense for nearly any likely volume of traffic.
 
I am aware of the 2041 plan, however for various reasons I typically don't factor them when I'm discussing what active plans are for specific projects are because most of the time they're basically just saying "yes, we will have this very obvious addition to our network, and we're not going to worry about feasibility and technical issues because its 25 years from now, ANYTHING can happen by then!".
While it is true master plans are aspirational, and things gets added/bumped/removed, I need to lightheartedly scold you on complete dismissal of master plans. They aren’t fantasy maps, but have a purpose.

Refurbishments includes change for compatibility. Dozens of overpasses in Metrolinx’s network have been raised to accomodate minimum catenary heights along masterplanned routes.

I can name quite several construction projects that made things “masterplan compatible” just in case for future government administrations.

Metrolinx literally (on a smaller scale) has HUNDREDS of underrated versions of those “1918 Prince Edward Viaduct That Made 1960s Bloor Subway Possible” situations. That is one of the most famous well known masterplanning, but the Metrolinx network is full of hundreds of years-preemptive masterplanning hidden within.

Whether it’s the massively overbuilt Centennial Parkway overpass near the Confederation GO station (more info), the occasional ghost station like Garage Mahal (Bloomington) or other mostly uncelebrated build, that may become pretty prescient 25 years in the future.

Line-item accelerations beyond master plans occasionally happen: West Harbour GO. Even West Harbour was a ghost station (mostly) until roughly late 2019 when over a hundred people disembarked a single peak GO station, and now post-pandemic all day service should keep it reasonably well utilized in Hamilton’s emerging transit boom ($370M HSR, $3.8B LRT, *and* All Day GO, all announced this year).

Some of this was a side effect of some of the master planning preparations, that was then politically line-item accelerated, but at least the Liberals and Conservatives are singing off the same song sheet (without us knowing about it, or being the wiser for it). If this wasn’t happening, it would be far bigger chaos, and mindbogglingly much more expensive.

Some dissapointments like loss of Transit City over a decade ago, were resurrected by subsequent administrations, so the Transit City was already, part of the master plan, so Transit City is still happening — just more piecemeal and more slowly — but with relatively minor revisions. Ironically resurrected by the parties against Transit City, non the less!

Getting government funding successfully from multiple levels of government. The UPX and Georgeown Corridor megaproject were formerly part of long-term master plans;

We certainly can shake an Angry Monkey Fist at some prioritization bloopers that create ghost infrastructure for years, but sometimes those 1918 Prince Edward Viaduct moves work out brilliantly — like the all-day 2way coming to (slightly overbuilt too early) West Harbour GO. It’s messy, inefficient, but far less messy/more efficient than having zero master plan.

Routes from a master plan are cherrypicked and accelerated as a buffet-pick by Liberals and Conservatives. That way, both are still working off the same sheet, even though they disagree on specifics, they are at least (mostly) working off the same master plan; Whether be Smarttrack or electrification or RER or GO Expansion, sometimes there’s rebranding antics, but all of them are just all the same long-masterplanned stuff. The parties tend to be forced to sing off the same songsheet partially because the masterplan contains the obvious/cheapest routes that are quicker to get to shovel-readiness, because of all the minor moves over the years/decades that made these routes a little more ready than others.

Master plans of all kinds (city, roads, trains, transit, etc) helps guide shorter term city planning.

It is fine not to factor them short-term for the current generation, but it’s important to understand the purpose and role of master planning.

I have a TTC / Metrolinx Masterplanning Megathread here, if you want to see them, weep at them, or cheer at them — very interesting history pictures including 1980s master plans.
 
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There have been serious ongoing issues with this project. The primary issue seems to be staffing with the contractors, although there have also been complaints from their side that they have not been given enough access time to complete some (much?) of their work.

But a lot of it has also been the project management. They had asked Metrolinx to discontinue the late-night and weekend service in order to give them more work windows. And when Metrolinx finally obliged, they then neglected/refused to do more of that work on weekends.

Dan
According to my ED contacts, they've been having a lot of trouble securing materials too. Just because Metrolinx gives them a track access doesn't mean supply chain won't be an issue, especially with the Metrolinx specs.
That was actually how the contracts were all designed to be let and built. It was kind of like the contracts for the Crosstown - one consortium would drill the tunnels across town, and then the second would come through after the first was done, dig down and destroy the sections of tunnels where the stations would be located.

Yes, it's a bit bass-ackwards. But in some respects, it allows them to get a lot of the easy work done (grubbing, grading and building track) while the harder work is given a bit more time to fine-tune their designs (the stations) before their construction.

Dan
It's also to reduce estimating times and risk. Estimating everything on a giant project like the crosstown would either leave contractors escalating their risk formula, not bidding, or chasing change orders (which they do anyways, but for other reasons).
15-Minute Electric Service on CP Corridor

Path #1 Forward for CP corridor problem:
Because of the catenary disallowance on freight corridors. I believe it will wait until battery trains become practical (e.g. later in 2030s) for a GO-train-sized trainset. That way, catenary is only required to Burlington/Aldershot. Battery power to Hamilton, and recharge while under catenary to Union.

Path #2 Forward for CP Freight Corridor: The other path to this is the Canada Carbon Neutral Pledge 2050 will force government to force CP and CN to electrify their railroads (through gee-nerous subsidies & more permissive freight rules). This conceivably could be the path since this is very close to the year 2041 of the master plan of 15-minute service to Hamilton.
The freights will likely switch to Ethanol for carbon neutrality.
Should've used the TTC font for the TTC lines.
 
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