Peter Kuitenbrouwer Apr 26, 2011 – 7:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Apr 25, 2011 11:03 PM ET
GO Transit, named for its owner, the Government of Ontario, moved 57 million passengers last year, up from 36 million in 1998. Now in its 44th year, GO is Canada’s busiest railway, far outstripping VIA Rail in ridership numbers. With this story Peter Kuitenbrouwer begins a four-part series about the GO way of life.
Darcy China wants to snap my suspenders.
On a recent Monday morning in Ajax, Ms. China, a mother of two grown children who works in a tower above the Eaton Centre, boarded a 7:01 westbound train on GO’s Lake Shore East line and sat down, as is her habit, on the upper level, fourth coach from the front. She joined her gang, a group of GO Train riders she calls “Train 49,” a riff on an old Global TV show about GO train passengers.
GO Transit put me in touch with the Train 49 gang when I inquired about clubs on the train; I boarded at 6:53 a.m. at Whitby. Seven a.m. is an ungodly hour for rowdiness for most souls, but this group is up and at ’em.
“Go ahead,” I invite. “Snap away.” She snaps. Such is Ms. China’s reputation — the lively morning train rider — that she has become famous, even off the train. One of four sisters who ride different GO trains to downtown Toronto jobs, Ms. China is the most rambunctious. “I have actually had people come up to me on the street and say, ‘I cannot believe how much energy you have in the morning,’ ” says Ms. China, who works in insurance. “If you want to sleep, this is not the car.”
A woman sitting near the Train 49 gang confides to me that, “a lot of people ride in another car because of this group. This is one of the emptiest cars on the train, because of them. Or people take an earlier train or a later train to avoid them. But I don’t mind.”
GO Transit moved 57 million passengers last year, up from 36 million in 1998. For a growing number in greater Toronto, GO trains are a way of life. The trains are packed; at rush hour only two of every three passengers get a seat. (GO recently ordered 50 new bi-level passenger cars from Bombardier, for $125-million; the coaches are under construction in Thunder Bay and will begin to arrive later this year.)
In contrast to VIA trains and TTC buses, GO train seats face one another in sets of four. The trains never turn around — engines push them one way, and pull them back — so the design ensures half of GO’s passengers face the direction of travel. A side effect is that people make friends. But not everyone likes the train gangs.
“On the 4:53 and the 5:10 [p.m. trains heading east on the Lake Shore line] are the same bunches of clowns every day,” says Cindy Smith, a web designer who lives in Courtice, about 75 kilometres east of Toronto, and rides the train from Oshawa. “They are screaming, loud talking, swearing, you feel like you’re at a bar or on a patio.”
GO riders may go further; some brag of a “Corridor Club,” the GO equivalent of a Mile High Club, meaning they have sex in train bathrooms. But Ms.Smith doubts anyone is getting it on.
“No one will give up their seats,” she says. “I don’t even think they will give up their seat for free sex. Even if you say you can rock my world between here and Serbia, I’m not giving up my seat.”
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While they appear to draw the line at train sex, the Train 49 gang finds many ways to stay amused. They dress up — for Halloween, Christmas, even St. Patrick’s Day. Thrusting their cellphones towards me, they show me pictures of Ms. China and Pam Sidell Martin, another gang member, dressed in huge “beer” sunglasses, with Ms. Martin sporting a green wig, for St. Patrick’s Day. Neither woman is Irish.
“We don’t need a holiday,” says Ms. Martin. “We just need an occasion.” On April 1, they convinced one member that GO Transit was paying out each passenger $10 to compensate for delayed trains. She went to the ticket counter at Union and told the ticket vendor: “I heard you owe me $10.” The woman looked at her blankly; her friends, waiting nearby, explained, “April fools!”
For birthdays, they decorate a section of their coach with streamers and balloons. They bake cookies, read horoscopes aloud and lead the coach in singing Christmas carols.
“We all kinda had our little groups and then we blended,” says Ms. China. “We picked up other people along the way.” On the Saturday before I met the group, 14 of them, including spouses, went bowling in Oshawa. They hold retirement parties at the Portly Piper pub in Ajax. They form a support group, too, displaying a caring that surprised Ken Waugh, (gang nickname: ‘Killer Ken’ from A Fish Called Wanda) an IT worker.
“When my father passed away recently, this group were the ones who cared for me,” says Mr. Waugh. “Not only did they show up at the funeral home, but they sent flowers.” (The bowling outing had been particularly poignant; he wore his recently departed father’s bowling shoes). As he continues, two seatmates wipe away tears. “These are people that I see for 45 minutes in the morning, but they are the nicest people I know.”
“You’re giving me goose bumps,” says Patty Blimkie, another club member. “We have fun and laughs, but when something happens, we are there for each other.”
At 7:38 a.m. at Union Station a raging river of commuters sweeps up the train gang, carrying them north through the underground city. Beth and John and Ken and Larry and Patty peel off, one at a time, each caught by an eddy leading up to one or another tower of the financial district. Calls of “Goodbye!” get swallowed by the thumping from thousands of shoes. The gang rides a variety of evening trains; they will reconvene at dawn tomorrow, for more fun on the GO.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/04/26/peter-kuitenbrouwer-get-up-and-go-in-the-morning/
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