Grade separation west of Union station

The GTHA has an interesting railway network when one includes the rail lines that are not serviced by GO Transit.  It also holds a huge amount of potential if its integration can be exploited to commuter operations’ advantage.

CONNECTING THE DOTS

Already built are a number of connections that can be of significant value to the region’s passenger rail movements.  An interlining GO service on the railways can be extremely useful in both getting more people onto the network, and also at alleviating the stress Union Station could be at significant risk of facing in the future, particularly in a fare-integrated network.

Consider the following connections that already exist in the network that can be used for future service (italics indicate locations not yet serviced by GO):

Oakville – Long Branch – Kipling - North Toronto – Agincourt (CP) - Malvern – Seaton
Existing tracks and junctions

Meadowvale – Kipling - North Toronto - Agincourt (CP) - Malvern – Seaton 
Existing tracks and junctions

Brampton – Weston – North Toronto – Agincourt (CP) - Malvern – Seaton
Existing tracks and junctions

Bolton – Weston (CP) - North Toronto – Agincourt (CP) - Malvern – Seaton
Existing tracks and junctions

Oakville – Union – Agincourt (CP) – Seaton/Locust Hill
Existing tracks and junctions

Pickering – Union - Newmarket
Existing tracks and junctions, and has been run in the past (unofficially… call it “the inside track”)

Oakville – Long Branch - Kipling – Weston – Pearson
Existing tracks and junctions except for Pearson spur

The connectivity of the network is somewhat lopsided in the west end’s favour as the connections between CP and CN lines are generally absent on the east side apart from the CP Belleville Don Branch, but exist at the West Toronto Junction (omni-directional except for north-to-east/west-to-south, which is useless anyway) and at Kipling (uni-directional (NE/SW only)), key points in the west end, allowing all current westbound (Hamilton/Milton/Georgetown) GO corridors to run into the CP North Toronto sub, and would also include Bolton service (which is a CP line anyway, the MacTier sub).

Some of the points after the jump were discussed at one of the earlier meetings hosted by Ed Drass at Metro Hall. (more…)

Barrie and Richmond Hill GO Lines

This is the final entry in the “Where do we GO?” series, as all directions from Union Station will now be covered (West and East sides were covered previously).  This post focuses on the remaining corridors of Richmond Hill and Barrie.  As promised, there’s a lot of comment on these two corridors.

BARRIE LINE

Recently extended from Bradford to restore service to Barrie (and the corridor renamed as a result), this corridor has a lot of unserviced pockets compared to other corridors, despite having more stations already added to it than other corridors in the network except Stouffville (with which it is a tie).  Long a poor performer in the network, GO Transit has been very keen on making this corridor prove its worth.  (more…)

East of Scarborough GO Station

In a previous post, the topic was about where GO Transit could add stations to its westbound train lines to increase the value and performance of the existing service area, something that should probably be done before extensions of lines takes place.  Now in this post, the same question is posed towards its eastbound lines; the Stouffville and Lakeshore East corridors. (more…)