Robert Wightman sent in this update:
Since I retired again on May 31st (I do this every 6 months or so) I have been driving around and have a few observations on GO construction:
The three track section on Lakeshore West from Burlington to Bayview Junction is finished and new signalling has been installed. The signals are no longer searchlight but three (or in some cases two) aspect LED signals. They look quite sharp. The north track only goes up the Dundas sub and the South track only continues into Hamilton whilst the middle track can go to either.
Most of the track on the Barrie extension has been relayed with 115 lb. continuous welded rail. Every level crossing is having crossing gate installed including the one that runs about 200 yds to a farm house. The Station area at Allendale (Barrie) is all fenced off and levelled. There is a concrete foundation for what appears to be a sub station behind BDO Dunwoody. It looks like the parking lot here will be 200 to 300 feet wide and a mile long. Maybe they will have one long loading platform and you can park either beside where you get on or where you get off. All the new stations on this line are architecturally similar to the original stations which have been completely refurbished. The station in Bradford has, it appears, just been refurbished including the pole that held the train order semaphores. This line is supposed to open later this year.
The track work on the Georgetown line from Bramalea to Mt. Pleasant is proceeding as almost all of the bridges have been widened and in some places grading has started for the additional track. CN has started to replace the existing signals with gantries to hold the signals for the extra track and all the heads are 3 aspect LED signals like on Lakeshore.
They are going to have problems at the Brampton Station — is it is effectively one track east of the station and you very seldom get two trains passing there. People have gotten used to running behind the trains as soon as it has cleared Church Street to get to the train. When it is two tracks some one is going to get killed as they get hit by a through freight going the other way. They have had police out telling people that it will soon be two way all the time but it won’t help. It will be interesting to see the platform on the South side as it will be at street level at the West end and elevated at the East end, the Brampton EL, or is it L?
I do not venture out to the East end much so I have no idea what is happening there. The GO trains have disappeared from Guelph Junction so I assume the new storage yard in Milton is built. I have seen work going on at the Lisgar Station and it is supposed to be open in the fall.
If I see anything new I will report.
Robert Wightman
Anyone with news of events in the other half of the world is welcome to add to this post.
Steve Munro 
People already get killed at the Brampton Mill Street crossing (west end of platforms). If an eastbound train is waiting for the single track to clear, They can get rolling while the GO train unloads and frequently come through the crossing just after the GO clears. If they don’t have to wait for the single track it may even be safer.
As for modifying the bridges to double track, most of them over streets have some provision, usually concrete abutments, already. The bridge over Queen Street is double width already (has been since we moved here almost 30 years ago) but was between two river bridges (former Etobicoke Creek and the post-war diversion) that were single track. One of those was replaced and the other is being worked on.
LikeLike
It seems that GO is building the GO station in Barrie too far south of downtown, reducing its attractiveness over Highway 400 and requiring excessive amounts of parking. 200-300 ft x 1 mile is a very large amount of parking. I hope that Barrie Transit beefs up service to and from the GO station – perhaps it should run rush-hour express buses from downtown to the GO station via Highway 400, in addition to diverting local routes to the station. I think that GO should build a second station closer to downtown near Allendale Station, with limited parking, for the benefit of transit riders.
LikeLike
The reason why GO built the station at Mapleview Road – at the far, far southeast corner of Barrie was for the parking. They have “studied” the idea of having a station at Allandale, but Mapleview’s all Barrie’s getting. It will mean congestion through there as the trains arrive in the afternoon, and few opportunities for attractive bus connections, GO or Barrie Transit.
But I’m not sure GO knows how to build an urban station, or even serve non-car drivers well. Here’s a telling quote from Gary McNeil, the General Manager (earlier this year in the Star): “We’ve embraced the car by providing more parking lots,” said McNeil, who said GO added 8,000 spots over five years to bring the total to more than 45,000. “We’re probably the largest parking authority in the GTA.”
LikeLike
On the Stouffville line (my home line, although I’ve never used it), a new yard has been built 2km north of the terminal station. It’s right beside a planned new station (Stouffville North), which is in the community consultation stage of development. It’s expected to have a large parking lot and bus loop.
LikeLike
David Youngs said …
As for modifying the bridges to double track, most of them over streets have some provision, usually concrete abutments, already. The bridge over Queen Street is double width already (has been since we moved here almost 30 years ago) but was between two river bridges (former Etobicoke Creek and the post-war diversion) that were single track. One of those was replaced and the other is being worked on.
I never mentioned double tracking any of the bridges I said that they have to widened. You are correct in saying that all the road bridges were already two tracks wide but the problem is that they all have to be triple track except Queen Street and Main street which now have single track but will be doubled very soon .It wasn’t double tracking the road bridges that was needed it was triple tracking. The bridges over Kennedy Road and McLachlan needed to be triple tracked and the railway right of way under Highway 7 had to be cut back at the south side where it was banked to put in the third track. The bridge over Fletcher’s Creek had to be tripled and the bridge over Etobicoke Creek had to be double tracked.
LikeLike
I used to live in Brampton, and still have an interest in what is going on out there. Last Wednesday I want to a PIC at City Hall on the proposed Brampton Transit route changes and the Acceleride “BRT”. I came away pleasantly surprised.
Brampton Transit had over 12% growth in ridership, and service has been improving to what I would almost call an acceptable level of service. The latest changes involve getting buses into the brand-new subdivisions as quickly as possible to build ridership, and to address crowding on the busiest routes. Route 11 Steeles, for example, will go to 6 minute peak frequencies in September, which has got to be one of the highest, if not the highest in the 905 (but perhaps 20 TTC surface routes beat that).
BT went from one person who had service planning in his job description to a team of seven in just over two years there, and the planners ride the buses and talk to the operators, so they were able to explain very well to me the various changes they wanted to do, and spent lots of time with each individual that dropped by answering questions and listening to comments. They are limited by resources, like the TTC, but they seem to be doing with what they can with limited city funds, a 12% ridership increase and growth of the suburban sprawl.
As for Acceleride “BRT” (it isn’t really BRT, but what should be called quality limited-stop bus service), it seems to make a lot of sense, and won’t be over-the-top like Viva. Like Viva, it will be a separately branded system with a “premium” image. It will use signal priority and queue-jump lanes (of which several are already built and in operation on Queen), a “premium” bus (diesel-electric) with more comfortable seats, noise suppression and free of exterior ads and wraps), and large, heated shelters with data screens for real-time displays. Unlike Viva, it will be operated by BT employees, not use off-board fare collection (supposedly relying on the new Smart Card) and will likely be less expensive buses, not VanHools.
The Acceleride Corridors will be on Main and Queen, two of the main corridors in Brampton, and operate at 5 minutes in peak, and a maximum frequency of 15 minutes (late evenings, Sunday, etc), and will open in 2010, with completion of Phase I in 2012.
What also impressed me was the planners saying that they want to get customers to real destinations, and not dump people at the city borders to make connections. The optimum terminal for the Queen route is York University (connecting to the Sorbara Subway once it is complete), and for Main Street, Square One. They are negotiating with Mississauga and York to do this.
Robert gave a very good analysis as to what GO’s doing in Brampton. I noted that there’s a few highrises being built downtown, a market rental tower almost finished, one condo about to go up, another in sales, a third in the approval stage. Maybe, just maybe, Brampton is seeing the light on transit.
BT publishes their ridership stats online:
http://brampton.ca/transit/stats.tml
LikeLike
Andrew C said, “On the Stouffville line, a new yard has been built 2km north of the terminal station.”
I was wondering what they were doing with the trains!
For some time now, they have been running 10-car trains on that line and just this Wednesday, I had to pass through Stouffville just before 6 pm an noticed that the earlier trains were not parked visibly north of the station as they were in the past.
Also on this line, construction is well under way into building an underpass below 14th Avenue and CN’s York subdivision.
I know that the triple-tracking from the TTR tracks around Union to Scarborough station are well underway, if not nearly complete. This includes upgrading the track to the south of the existing tracks between TTR and Danforth, and adding a new track from there to Scarbourough. The bridges over Warden and Danforth were twinned for the third track and the small bridge on Woodrow Avenue (between Birchmount and Kennedy) was replaced.
LikeLike
Also, like Sean M, i used to live in Brampton but i still pay attention to what is going on….
I was there when the system transformed on the MAY 16th 2005! It was a turning point when the system went almost all GRID Based….From that point onwards, it was clear that things will be good….
Queue Jump lanes are on Queen from 410 to around Torbram but more importantly, Brampton is thinking AHEAD and they already placed some new queue jump lanes on bovaird between 410 and Chinguacousy Rd (New Sprawling area)…
For the Acceleride, it will increase the frequency in my area (Hwy 7 & Weston) As i would have both VIVA and Acceleride BRT (not to mention the Subway Ext close by)
One problem, if fare is not off the bus POP then the bus would be delayed like normal routes since people individually pay and fumble for change and such….a very annoying part of transit….VIVA allows you to just hop on like a subway….
Brampton is really doing very well in its downtown but its sprawling areas are getting worse. More and more traffic lights (due to developers being CHEAP) and not enough basic road capacity (like bovaird being a 2 lane country road until recently)
Transit however should help especially when Acceleride is implemented.
LikeLike
Hi Steve:-
An east end update. The triple tracking around Danforth has not quite happened yet. The roadbed has been ready for some time (about a year) and there has been a stack of switch panels south of the row and west of the Main Street bridge too, which I presume are for an enlarged interlocking plant here. Recent progress though shows at the Danforth Station with the third platform, to the south of all of the others and its elevator shaft well underway. There too is an earth berm growing just north of the fence between the Railway and Ted Reeve’s ball diamonds.
Trains have been whistling west of Woodbine for a week or two, so there might be something happening around Greenwood. Of course, Woodbine, Coxwell, Greenwood, Gerrard, Carlaw, Dundas, and Queen already have 4 track bridges in place over them and the south roadbed was cleared, cleaned and reballasted for the new line.
Exciting times for transit in Toronto. Now if they could only get their heads around improving Newmarket Line interregional service to York U and leave us in Toronto alone to do our thing properly……!
Dennis Rankin
LikeLike
On a more minor note, they’re building a bridge between the Richmond Hill VIVA/YRT station and the Langstaff Go station. It’ll also connect the VIVA station with the big box retail, but it’d be a really, really long walk to anything past the Home Despot. According to the spring YRT newsletter, the bridge will be done by late fall and will include elevators at either end.
LikeLike
I recently moved to The Junction, pretty much as close as you can get to the actual junction.
The crews are hard at work doing the grade separation there, even on the weekends. Saturday night I came home at almost midnight and they had set up high powered lighting and were still working away.
Does anyone know what the timetable for this project is?
Steve: This is rather odd considering that the EA for the Weston Corridor is still in progress.
LikeLike
As I understand it the work in progress at the Junction is specifically preparation to facilitate the grade separation later. Certain buried utilities are being relocated and the north/south freight interchange track has been temporarily removed. All of this certainly suggests that the grade separation will be forced through no matter what the outcome of the EA though. Kinda like when the historic West Toronto Station building was demolished without permission at that location this is another example of ‘just do it and screw public opinion’! While I think the grade separation is a good idea, I don’t believe its approval should be tied to approval of the rediculous plan for the Weston neighbourhood nor to approval of the Airport Link.
What drives me nuts is that there’s probably enough room throughout most of the length of the corridor for TEN tracks but for some reason we are being forced to have the GO and Airport services share the same tracks. What we should have is electrified light or heavy rail on its own tracks. And on a related note the entire GO system should be based on electric cars like SEPTA’s commuter system. Then we can have shorter trains of self-propelled cars with fast acceleration/braking and frequent headways. That should be the inter-regional counterpart to a blanket of LRV lines.
LikeLike
Jonathan said …
Steve:
Robert: I believe that this was “soil testing” to determine the suitability of the region for the grade separation which I believe will have the Weston Sub go under the North Toronto Sub. CP has no through track from their line South of the North Toronto Sub to the line North of it. GO’s web site states the following this will make it interesting for the new Bolton service; especially if it is electrified.
Steve: Just because the Weston sub dives under the CPR doesn’t mean that the Mactier sub will do the same. It would not make sense for the CPR to sever this connection. However, operationally, this would mean that the Bolton trains would still be subject to holdups at West Toronto. The question now is whether we can link the CP and CN north of West Toronto so that the Bolton service can use the Weston sub south of St. Clair.
LikeLike
The Mactier Sub starts at the North Toronto Sub. It is the Galt Sub that goes down to Union Station. There used to be a connection from the Galt Sub to the Mactier Sub that had a diamond with the North Toronto Sub. It was removed years ago as the Mactier Sub is freight only and there are no CP freights going through Union Station to the Mactier Sub. I also suspect that CP wanted to make it difficult for any plans to run GO trains on it. There already are connections between CP and CN in the Weston corridor but they are mainly for freight interchange.
There is lots of room put in high speed connections north of the Junction so the fact that CP does not have a through connection should not be a problem. What might be a problem is capacity on the Weston Sub south if Bolton, Georgetown and Airport trains try to run on one pair of tracks. I hope that they have made this underpass wide enough to handle the potential traffic. This is probably why they plan to run this line onto the North Toronto Sub. Have you seen if they will have an interchange station at both Spadina and Yonge Subways? They need both if the system is to be fully integrated.
Steve: At this point, all that I have seen is an announcement, no details. Thanks for reminding me about the layout at West Toronto.
LikeLike
Dennis Rankin said …
> The triple tracking around Danforth has not quite happened yet. The roadbed has been ready for some time (about a year)
I guess it’s been ready for that long between Danforth and the Don, but not between Danforth and Scarborough. Work on that stretch has been taking place in recent months. Much of it has been completed, but there’s still a gap, starting just west of the new Warden Ave. bridge span, and extending roughly halfway to Victoria Park. The rail line is on an embankment here, and this will need to be widened by adding fill (and perhaps a retaining wall) before the new roadbed can be finished.
There are also spots where there are signal standards and other lineside obstructions where the new third track is going to be laid, so these will need to be moved.
Dennis …
> Recent progress though shows at the Danforth Station with the third platform, to the south of all of the others and its elevator shaft well underway.
Is there going to be a third platform at Danforth? My guess was that the existing south platform would be turned into an island platform between tracks 2 (the existing south track) and 3 (the new track), and that the elevator shaft was just to give access to this platform to pedestrians arriving from the south.
The diagrams at the public information sessions before this project began showed Scarborough and Eglinton stations being modified to provide a platform next to the centre track of the Kingston Sub. I don’t see any sign of this work starting, though. Has this been dropped from the project?
LikeLike
March 2, 2009.
In regards to GO Barrie, a second station was to be added at the Allendale site. This would have required the full restoration of the former CNR station, expanded parking and storage tacks for trainsets laying over. Future expansion of line back up to Orillia over former roadbed being studied. This line should have never been ripped up by CN, but railbanked for future use. It cost about a million dollars a mile, to relay the track. It is ironic that, CN was quick to rip up track that was not making any money, and not thinking that, future trainsit could have been used on that line.
LikeLike