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EnviroTO
Senior Member
In the Fantasy Maps thread?? 
enter username
Active Member
Metrolinx has a subway + GO train map for Greater Toronto and Hamilton at Pearson terminal 3 from 2019 showing connections and peak service patterns. Would be so nice if this was kept up
Willybru21
Active Member
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Has the UP Express service plan for the opening of Mount Dennis been shared or discussed? I think logically the Mount Dennis stop would make more sense than Weston because of Line 5 and the likelihood of buses leaving from the Mount Dennis bus terminal that would get people to Weston easily, but since Weston is open I would imagine that it would not be popular to remove UP from Weston. All current indications are that UP will not stop at Stockyards or Liberty Village, so can we assume that Weston will stay? Originally there was discussion that Woodbine Raceway would be the stop for transfers to the airport (VIA/GO and UP) but that would add two stops to the Union trip.
JasonParis
Moderator
I think we can expect Weston to be both a GO and UPX stop until GO RER is fully operational on the corridor.
MrGoose
Active Member
I wonder if there is the ridership for a more frequent GO service along Niagara through Hamilton and then goes west to Brantford.
Obviously no need for 6 trains per hour from Union to Niagara Falls, but maybe there is potential for 6 trains per hour from Hamilton to St Catharines?
Obviously no need for 6 trains per hour from Union to Niagara Falls, but maybe there is potential for 6 trains per hour from Hamilton to St Catharines?
innsertnamehere
Superstar
why would there be?
Anything with an origin/destination in Toronto would be far higher than Brantford, which is the only differentiating population centre between the two potential routes.
Anything with an origin/destination in Toronto would be far higher than Brantford, which is the only differentiating population centre between the two potential routes.
MrGoose
Active Member
More frequent service from Brantford to St Catharines to promote Hamilton as a secondary hub in its own right?
Admittedly that would be fighting the prevailing trends of centralization around downtown Toronto
Sunnyside
Active Member
6TPH is not gonna happen- least of all here with the track use challenges. The demand also definetely does not exist, and that’s as a massive Hamilton booster.
Making the city a secondary GO hub is not a bad idea, if not solely because Hamilton’s railways were built to go to Hamilton, not Toronto, so there’s opportunities to better serve communities with GO by terminating there instead of giving up because the route to Toronto is indirect.
Obviously true, but I’d think you’d appreciate the notion of a Hamilton-oriented commuter rail line. Tone the scope down a bit to 1-3tph as a DMU service and we might be cooking. Any version of this would require more stops than exist currently however, and customers would need to know that they can transfer to LSW in Hamilton to continue to Toronto if they please. You can likely tap into a significant market merely by offering rail access in Niagara when it isn’t otherwise available (off peak, etc) - even if it requires a transfer.
In any case, while I might want to see it, for Hamilton to become a secondary hub to Toronto would require thorough planning effort from the city coordinated with the province. You are fighting the tide; it can be done, but without effort the region will continue the status quo and subsume Hamilton.
When all is said and done, the city is geographically advantaged towards a bigger regional presence. Somehow that needs to be realized; only then can rails play a part.
MrGoose
Active Member
In my ideal world, Hamilton would become a bigger regional presence if the province and the feds embraced the "friendshoring" that the US wants to do, and SW Ontario can start hosting various semiconductor, electronics and EV manufacturing.
Any high-tech manufacturing would be bouyed by Canada's permissive immigration system for cheap labor, creation of special economic zones, and proximity to UofT, UWaterloo, McMaster and UofG for engineering talent, proximity to US rust belt for manufacturing, ??cheap?? electricity and any number of policies Canada and Ontario could implement to make Ontario more manufacturing friendly.
Then Toronto would be more of the financial / software hub and Hamilton would be the manufacturing hub.
I mean, it would require a ton of support, a total mind shift in Canadian rent-seeking elites and buy in from Ontario, Canadian Feds, US Feds and have to fight a million landowners, native groups, and environmental groups i.e. it would never happen.
A man can dream though.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Yes, don't steal the thunder from political announcements... it is top secret were UP will stop and whether or not Stouffville line has the capacity with increase service to be able to handle additional stops.
Is Metrolinx still going ahead with the lettered lines? In recent maps they moved from using a box that spelled out the line name to two character line names (i.e. BR, KT, LE, LW, MI, RH, ST, UP) which admittedly would never catch on in spoken communication but did serve to simplify maps. Really the ideal time to have done the switch to lettered lines would have been during the pandemic when there was low ridership but I can also see them using it to launch electric service (i.e. come try the new Line C... oooh, aaaah).
Why is line A and G separate too? It seems like it would be smarter to consider them a single line and terminating at Union as being a service pattern similar to express or going only as far as Burlington.
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EnviroTO
Senior Member
That doesn't sound like it will be news we will be excited about then. Eyes will roll perhaps.
voilan
New Member
I'm not going to read too much into the white circles (Milton Line Expansion confirmed with stations in the Junction and Lambton, LSE Coxwell/Greenwood station confirmed, Barrie Line Dundas West station confirmed)
EnviroTO
Senior Member
I'm going full controversial... Weston not a stop on UP, and Scarborough station renamed to Ford Nation Station.