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Quote:

Originally Posted by movingtohamilton (Post 7054882)

^^ May we assume that the existing train schedule to/from Hunter GO will remain in place?

The reference to "the 6:30 a.m. trip from Aldershot GO" initially seems confusing, since the current Lakeshore West schedule only has a 6:27 a.m. trip from Aldershot GO, and that route originates at Hamilton GO Centre at 6:12 a.m. — but they're rejigging the schedule:

Changing Service

Lakeshore West GO Train
• The weekday eastbound 6:12 a.m. trip from Hamilton GO Centre will depart twelve minutes earlier at 6:00 a.m. and arrive at Union Station earlier at 7:13 a.m. Times at other stops will also be earlier.
• The weekday eastbound 6:32 a.m. trip from Hamilton GO Centre will depart two minutes earlier at 6:30 a.m. and arrive at Union Station earlier at 7:41 a.m. Times at other stops will also be earlier.
• The weekday eastbound 7:05 a.m. trip from Hamilton GO Centre will depart five minutes earlier at 7:00 a.m. and arrive at Union Station earlier at 8:12 a.m. Times at other stops will also be earlier.
• The weekday eastbound 7:25 a.m. trip from Oakville GO will depart five minutes earlier at 7:20 a.m. and arrive at Union Station earlier at 8:06 a.m. Times at other stops will also be earlier.
• The weekday eastbound 7:07 a.m. trip from Aldershot GO will depart seven minutes earlier at 7:00 a.m. and arrive at Union Station earlier at 7:57 a.m. Times at other stops will also be earlier.
• The weekday westbound 5:25 p.m. trip from Union Station will depart two minutes earlier at 5:23 p.m. and arrive at Aldershot GO earlier at 6:21 p.m. Times at other stops will also be earlier.

So morning rush rail will eventually be:

6:00 am Hamilton GO Centre → Union Station 7:13 am
6:16 am West Harbour GO → Union Station 7:24 am
6:30 am Hamilton GO Centre → Union Station 7:41 am
6:46 am West Harbour GO → Union Station 7:57 am
7:00 am Hamilton GO Centre → Union Station 8:12 am
7:15 am Hamilton GO Centre → Union Station 8:32 am

And evening rush rail will eventually be:

4:30 pm Union Station → Hamilton GO Centre 5:45 pm
4:47 pm Union Station → West Harbour GO 5:59 pm
5:00 pm Union Station → Hamilton GO Centre 6:15 pm
5:23 pm Union Station → West Harbour GO 6:32 pm
5:37 pm Union Station → Hamilton GO Centre 6:52 pm
6:30 pm Union Station → Hamilton GO Centre 7:45 pm

Note that the scheduling shifts take effect June 27, 2015 (meaning June 29 for Hamilton trains), with the West Harbour GO apparently starting service two weeks after that.

35 days!

^^ Just saw that schedule rejig.I often take the 7:15 from Hunter, which seems unchanged for now. The 7:05 is now departing at 7:00.

Posted today on GO Transit web site:

Quote:

On July 9, 2015, the new West Harbour GO Station is set to open at 353 James Street North in Hamilton. This project was initiated to provide special train service for select Pan Am events in Hamilton, support growth and to meet future ridership demands for Hamilton and the surrounding area.

Regular service start date: July 9
Pan Am service start date: July 11

On opening day (July 9), the following will be open for public use:

North track;
Station building – including washrooms, ticket booth, TVM machines, Presto Machines;
A portion of the public landscaped plaza.
Following the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games, work will continue on the following until 2016:

South track
Pedestrian bridge from Bay St.
Parking lot with approx. 300 spaces
Bus loop
Kiss N’ Ride
Pedestrian/bicycle pathways

Man, thanks for the pictures and info all of you are posting...Hamilton is slowly having a real renaissance...

What I'm most excited about is the 5:50pm non-stop express GOtrain that runs during weekdays during PanAm (July 13-17, 20-24).

A completely non-stop GO train that makes no stops between Toronto and Hamilton (West Harbour)!

Temporarily, it will be my evening commute from Toronto work back to Hamilton home. I've purchased a SoBi bike-share membership (1 month at $15) so I can test leaving my car behind at home, instead of driving to Aldershot. SoBi is good for 1-way bike commutes so I can choose to take the bus in the other direction if the weather is bad, and I'm allowed to dock the bike nearer my home sometimes (SoBi permits off-station docking at any pole such as a stop sign). I often work too late to make the last 6:30pm Hamilton train back to downtown, but it's summertime and I have additional incentives to catch the PanAm express.

Wish this West Harbour nonstop express GOtrain continued after PanAm, but I'll be taking advantage of it during my evening commute back home to Hamilton!

While on the subject of PanAm and GO trains -- panam tix behave like daypasses for almost all of GTHA transit. Do a bunch of free GOtrain rides to Toronto with some PanAm tickets. Some of the cheaper PanAm games tickets cost less than a round-trip GO ride from Hamilton!. Do couple or three GO train trips in one day! Or four. Regardless of whatever boondoggles PanAm went through I might as well support cheering on some disabled ParaPanAm athletes or aspiring athletics university students, in a fun crowd. I also have PanAm tix (for some events) and apparently, it's essentially an unlimited GTHA-wide daypass, so you can GTHA-hop everywhere for any reason, before and/or after the games (Metrolinx and TTC confirmed on twitter when I asked, yes, it's like a daypass. They want you to keep your car at home even if you use your ticket to travel for other reasons than PanAm before&after your ticketed game event). Find a cheap tix, take a day off and tour GTHA for free all day, no car, no gas, no transit cost. HSR, MiWay, TTC, GO, all free all day long. Or just piggyback your work commute onto it.

Here's some stuff I've learned about related improvements, from the UrbanToronto forums.

-- Stoney Creek GO is the next stop past West Harbour GO
The $150 million dollar Confederation GO train station is the next stop past West Harbour, and is now funded.
Date: Construction begins 2017, finishes 2019.

-- Under-Construction Rail bridge over Centennial Parkway has room for built-in GO platform
The rail overpass over Centennial Parkway is already under construction and will include room for the Stoney Creek GO platform. If you drive to Walmart in Stoney Creek you've already noticed the road bypass near Walmart is already built, and they're building a new rail bridge. They are dragging their feet with the construction, but this overpass rebuild is a pre-requisite of the $150M Stoney Creek GO station, since the bridge will contain built-in space for a GO platform. That link is an old 2011 plan and Metrolinx purchased the land for the Stoney Creek GO already, but only recently got the green light to proceed.
Date: ~2017-2019

-- Overnight parking for GOtrains for West Harbour isn't ready yet until 2016.
This is the Lewis Road Layover Facility past Stoney Creek, but they were not able to finish it on time for PanAm. So we are only getting 2 trains added this year. Once Lewis Road is complete, we'll gain a few more additional trains to start off morning Lakeshore West peak service. They will be able to park 4 GO trains overnight here, so that means 4 West Harbour morning trains in 2016+ and there is room to expand to 8 GO train overnight parking.
Date: 2016

-- Niagara Summer Trains stopping in Hamilton later this decade.
The $150 million funding for Stoney Creek GO also enables Niagara Summer Trains to make the West Harbour stop. Right now, West Harbour is a dead-end spur, but the Stoney Creek funding converts West Harbour into a bidirectional station.
Date: Between 2016 and 2019

-- New Hamiton LRT
The new Hamilton LRT has a 1.5 kilometer A-Line stub that connects the two downtown GO stations (Hamilton Downtown and West Harbour), in addition to the main ~13km B-Line route of focus. The second mini LRT route will shuttle people back and fourth on James.
Date: Tenders 2017, Construction starts 2019, Finish ~2023.

-- All-day 2-way GO service will incrementally come to Hamilton over 10 year period
Over a 10 year time period, it ramps up to hourly all-day long, with 15-minute electricified train service at Aldershot/Burlington. info. Logistical complexities, due to CN/CP ownership and Canada's busiest rail crossing (Hamilton Junction). But they did use an electric train in the Stoney Creek PowerPoint slide, so I'd expect they'd eventually figure out how to solve that problem. Long wait, so we'll have to tolerate a gradual ramp-up.
Date: Gradual ramp up, to full hourly 2-way downtown Hamilton service by ~2024

-- Nearby Burlington is getting the equivalent a "surface subway" to Toronto
Burlington will get 15-minute-frequency all day electric GO train service by the mid 2020s -- it was announced as part of the $13.5 billion GO electrification project earlier this spring. The reason why it doesn't extend to Hamilton is GO only owns the railroad to Burlington. Beyond that, it's CN/CP freight owned railroad, which is why the trains frustratingly come less often to Hamilton.

Further increases to GO service to Hamilton are contingent on many things:
- CN/CP agreements (Metrolinx only owns the railroad to Burlington).
- Extra track, some of which is currently funded, and some under environmental assessment, or part of lineitems of other station projects ($115 out of $150 million for Stoney Creek GO is infrastructure/track additions).
- Lewis trainyard is still under construction.
- If push came to shove, a rail-to-rail grade separation, to prevent crossing freight train tracks -- the corridor ownership and the Hamilton Junction (one of Canada's busiest rail wyes) is why the planned electricified GO service stops in Burlington. This item is not currently budgetted (yet), probably beyond the current 10 year timescale.

Picture of a test train at the new Harbour West GO Station.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CIs2CCeVEAI5a0_.jpg

Picture by Kyle Ford Twitter

They really need to get all the cabs painted in the same colour scheme.

Quote:

Originally Posted by king10 (Post 7080321)

They really need to get all the cabs painted in the same colour scheme.

It's going to take time. GO has 75 locomotives and 615 passenger coaches. I think they're repainting many of them as they go in for refurbishment... some of the ones I've ridden on with the new colours also had green seating instead of the traditional blue, but I believe I've also seen the blue seats in a few newly painted cars too so maybe it's a mixed process.

interior rebuilds happen every 18 years, so its going to be a long while before the interiors are done. Paint jobs are probably done every 5 or 6 year.

Not digging the silver window trim against the grey cladding....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere (Post 7082085)

interior rebuilds happen every 18 years, so its going to be a long while before the interiors are done. Paint jobs are probably done every 5 or 6 year.

Thanks - makes sense. They usually do swap out the seating when that wears out (some of the new blue-patterned seat pads are very square and firm; they even make that rubbery squeek :haha:) but the cars with the green seating seemed to have had complementary paneling, trim, and carpeting too so they likely had fully refurbished interiors.

I've been more aware of the paint on the coaches this past week... quite a few with the old colours are very faded and due for a repainting.

They've started landscaping work. In 12 years that area will have a nice bit of greenspace ahahah

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