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.
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) but the cars with the green seating seemed to have had complementary paneling, trim, and carpeting too so they likely had fully refurbished interiors.
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