dowlingm said:
I'm surprised that guy from Brazil who was first to use UPX ex Pearson didn't have reporters asking questions like "so, you're picking the massively expensive UPX to get downtown. Are you, like, heir to a fortune or something? Because who else could possibly afford that!"
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Because it's faster and cheaper than a $50 cab ride in traffic?
 
As predicted, I see a big mix of empty trains and full trains. Some trains with 2 people, and at least one train that had standees.

There's more traffic towards Union than towards Pearson at this time.

Fodder for both pro/anti UPX. Let the blaming begin :)
 
There were 1500 free tickets given out for today, and lots of media on the trains, so today probably isn't the best day to judge ridership.
 
Megaton327 said:
Keep in mind that even with a huge arrival there is a bottleneck when deplaning, and a very significant bottleneck at immigration where they can only process so many passengers per minute total, so they will end up trickling out at a fairly uniform, regulated maximum rate. Also, the station is at one end of T1, so everybody arriving from the other end has to walk farther, some people may walk quite slowly especially if they have lots of luggage and need to wait for elevators or whatnot, and not to mention people arriving from T3 for whom all of those considerations and the terminal link train affect their time to get to the UP Express station.
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Good points, but will that be enough to throttle all passengers combined, leaving Pearson to prevent standees on every train all day long? Pearson generates enough traffic all day long that the actual exitters over a 15 minute time period greatly exceed the capacity of a 2-car UPX train. Granted, not all trains will have standees, but eventually there will almost always be at least one per day, probably.

After an awareness-raising time period, standees are going to become more frequent gradually, and that is the point where 3 car trains becomes needed. Though it will be a mix of very empty trains and very busy trains, at different times of the day for different directions.
 
LNahid2000 said:
There were 1500 free tickets given out for today, and lots of media on the trains, so today probably isn't the best day to judge ridership.
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another 2 reasons why today is not the best day to judge ridership:

1) it's a Saturday
2) it's the first day of the service!
 
smallspy said:
They are going to run 2-car trains until such a time as the equipment becomes reliable enough to run 3-car trains all the time.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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The two car trains also apparently have no bathroom. Just an FYI, I know it's only a 25 min ride, but it is something I noticed.

I know you can't judge on the first day, but I expected it to be pretty full of people with free tickets and media, but when I rode it early afternoon the trains were mostly empty. Not that every train necessarily needs to be full, just an observation. Also a good portion of riders were actually going to/from the airport with luggage, I expected more people who were just riding it for fun since they gave all those free tickets.

The ride itself is very nice. The stations are beautiful (at least the terminal ones are). The train is quiet, smooth, large windows, and sometimes pretty fast. If that's how Diesel Multiple Units are, then I see no problem with DMUs, they work great.
 
ehlow said:
The two car trains also apparently have no bathroom. Just an FYI, I know it's only a 25 min ride, but it is something I noticed.

I know you can't judge on the first day, but I expected it to be pretty full of people with free tickets and media, but when I rode it early afternoon the trains were mostly empty. Not that every train necessarily needs to be full, just an observation. Also a good portion of riders were actually going to/from the airport with luggage, I expected more people who were just riding it for fun since they gave all those free tickets.

The ride itself is very nice. The stations are beautiful (at least the terminal ones are). The train is quiet, smooth, large windows, and sometimes pretty fast. If that's how Diesel Multiple Units are, then I see no problem with DMUs, they work great.
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there really was no criteria for who/how you got those free tickets....I grabbed a pair on a "I'll see how the day develops" and as of now I am not sure I will use them.
 
ehlow said:
The two car trains also apparently have no bathroom. Just an FYI, I know it's only a 25 min ride, but it is something I noticed.
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Actually that's not exactly it--indeed, ALL of the 3 car trains will have bathrooms, however SOME of the 2 car trains do as well. The cab cars--I believe people are calling them the 'A' cars--do not have bathrooms, I was on one today that was two cab cars so yes, no bathrooms. However my first train was a cab car and what I think is the 'C' car, the one that would be in the centre in a 3 car train, so despite being 2 cars that one did have a bathroom.

I do find it odd that they'd run the service in a fashion where a passenger has no idea whether the train they're boarding has a washroom or not and it's left more or less just up to chance...very inconsistent. That said, at 25 minutes, most people really should not need to use the bathroom on board, but some people with certain medical conditions don't have that luxury so I really hope they smarten up and make it more uniform, or at least make this clearer.
 
TOareaFan said:
there really was no criteria for who/how you got those free tickets....I grabbed a pair on a "I'll see how the day develops" and as of now I am not sure I will use them.
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If you don't use them, I'm sure there are other UT folks who would be happy to have them.
 
salsa said:
If you don't use them, I'm sure there are other UT folks who would be happy to have them.
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I am sure that is right.....but by the time we decide "ah, let's not bother" it would be late in the day to get them to someone.....anyway, moot point, wife just gave in and said...."so, we drive downtown, park at your office...walk to union and take a train to Pearson...to what?"

and I said, "get back on a train back to Union"

she said, "why?"

I said...."because I want to and, besides, there might be dinner in it for you".

So it looks like we are going.
 
andrewpmk said:
Why does the GO Transit website not mention that the UP Express exists?
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On a Go train today, they did give a shoutout to the new UPE.

On another note, I know eventually they will provide all-day service on the Kitchener line, but right now I do find it strange Weston has no weekend GO trains, but do have UPE trains running 7days a week, every 15min.

Too bad GO can't work out a deal with them to provide big discounts on fares between Union/Bloor and Weston.
 
11th said:
On a Go train today, they did give a shoutout to the new UPE.

On another note, I know eventually they will provide all-day service on the Kitchener line, but right now I do find it strange Weston has no weekend GO trains, but do have UPE trains running 7days a week, every 15min.

Too bad GO can't work out a deal with them to provide big discounts on fares between Union/Bloor and Weston.
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Which puts Weston way above most of the stations on the line for rail service.....not sure what point you are making.

Anyway...on the train now enjoying free WiFi and about to depart!
 
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