[Electrify]

I live north of the RH GO station, about 350m away from the tracks. On rare occasion I hear the trains from inside, but it is very rare. From my distance outside, hearing them in the background ain't bad and actually creates a nice aural atmosphere imo.

I've never counted how many trains pass by, but I would roughly estimate one every 2-3 hours or so (not including GO). It's not as if there is going to be a 200 car freight train passing by every 15 minutes or anything.

 

[EnviroTO]

Considering that it is not possible for 85' long cars to use the northwest-to-east connection at Halwest, it would take far, far longer to go up the Weston.

Really? That curve doesn't look any tighter than the one from Newmarket to York sub. It looks like a longer curve of about the same radius.

 

[smallspy]

Really? That curve doesn't look any tighter than the one from Newmarket to York sub. It looks like a longer curve of about the same radius.

That's what the timetable says, or at least used to say - I don't know what the actual radius is.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Coltaine79]

I live north of the RH GO station, about 350m away from the tracks. On rare occasion I hear the trains from inside, but it is very rare. From my distance outside, hearing them in the background ain't bad and actually creates a nice aural atmosphere imo.

Thanks for all of the info, everyone.

I advised against going for this townhouse in particular. It was actually only about 30m away from the tracks, with only the strata's parking lot standing between the house and the tracks. It was priced waaay below market for the Willowdale area, and I think this was why.

 

[Platform 27]

That missing link at Barrie-Washago is daft.

They really need to put that back.

Does anyone no exactly how much of the ROW is completely screwed over in DT Barrie?

Is there a cost-effective way to fill in the missing link, I know much of the ROW is in tact, but those missing chunks would be a problem, either requiring an alternate route, or short-tunnel; that latter of which I would assume not to be cost-effective.....

The Newmarket sub RoW is pretty much off the table through Barrie... it's owned by the city and merged into the waterfront parks system. Putting tracks back there for three trains a week would be about as likely as getting GO trains to run along the Martin Goodman Trail's footprint along the Toronto waterfront.

The Canadian runs in couplet configuration on CP tracks northbound/CN tracks southbound through a chunk of its route from Bala north to Sudbury(?) for traffic efficiency's sake and I'm actually a little curious why they haven't just extended this arrangement all the way to Toronto... run the Vancouver-bound train out up the CP MacTier subdivision, keep the Toronto-bound trains running on the CN Bala sub. Backup move solved.

 

[dowlingm]

The Canadian runs in couplet configuration on CP tracks northbound/CN tracks southbound through a chunk of its route from Bala north to Sudbury(?) for traffic efficiency's sake and I'm actually a little curious why they haven't just extended this arrangement all the way to Toronto... run the Vancouver-bound train out up the CP MacTier subdivision, keep the Toronto-bound trains running on the CN Bala sub. Backup move solved.

I like this idea - anyone know a reason it wouldn't work?

Of course, my preferred option would be shorter, more easily reversible trains suitable to demand from Toronto-Edmonton with a deal being hammered out with Mountaineer so they withdraw any objection to higher frequencies from Vancouver-Edmonton rather than the current practice of making a passenger train resemble a freight movement.

 

[weekend_guy]

I like this idea - anyone know a reason it wouldn't work?

There isn't the requisite connection track from the westbound GO Weston S/D to the northbound CP MacTier S/D.

 

[EnviroTO]

I believe that there was a CP crossover from the GO Milton / CP Galt tracks to the CP MacTier tracks at the West Toronto Diamond at one point and maybe even the Railpath bridges were once CP as well. It looks like the connection has been maintained with a crossover between Denison and Lawrence.

 

[weekend_guy]

There used to be the connecting track you mentioned between Denison and Lawrence, but it has since been removed. Even if it still existed, the connecting track wasn't signalized or part of the remotely controlled dispatch for both railways. This would involve a VIA crew to come to a complete stop, receive written permission from both railway dispatchers, hand-throw both switches, clear the connecting track, then restore both switches to their mainline position. This wouldn't be an attractive option for VIA, especially because they could be stung for even more time in the event a CP freight was cleared on the MacTier.

Now, if the Newmarket S/D was still available north of Barrie, this could have been a nice option for this idea of directional running of the VIA's.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

GO transit will be building new connecting tracks to the Mactier sub at Weston since then entire Weston sub at that location has to be removed to facilitate the construction of the Weston underpass. Considering the amount of traffic on both lines, it'll definitely be controlled by CTC signals. VIA could take advantage of that opportunity, that is if CP lets them. The problem with the Mactier sub is the busy Honda plant at Alliston. Because CP build their storage yard on the west side of the tracks and the Honda plant is on the east side further up, trains going up to switch out cars at the plant end up spending a large amount of time clogging up the mainline. Back when I use to work at that hell hole, a day didn't go by when we'd just make it in and out of either yard before the next mainline freight got there. The schedules ridiculously tight and all because CP balked at paying a mill or 2 more to the farmer on the east side of the tracks, I still laugh about that to this day. Having both yards the same side of the tracks would enabled them to build a separate connecting track between them. God knows how much its costing them in lost revenues due to congestion.