Thursday, March 5th 2009

By sam colbert

Early on Monday morning, media gathered to witness the maiden voyage of a new GO Transit train route out of Hamilton. After taking questions from local media and posing for photographs, Hamilton City Councillor, radio personality and GO Board member Bob Bratina boarded the 7:17 Lakeshore West train out of Hamilton. He got off in Aldershot, thereby completing the new extension of the route to Union Station in Toronto.

Also in attendance at the event was Ted McMeekin, Ontario Minister of Government Services. The news of the updated train timetable is big, especially for Hamilton’s many daily commuters; GO transports a total of about 215,000 passengers on a typical workweek day.

The new trip is the fourth morning run from Hamilton on weekdays, and it arrives at Union Station at 8:32 a.m. The train makes all of the regular stops from Hamilton to Oakville, then travels express to its Toronto destination. The route was already in existence starting in Aldershot, but now it stretches back to the Hamilton GO Centre downtown at 36 Hunter Street East. There are also four evening trips that return to Hamilton for the after-work commute back from Union Station.

This scheduling change is part of a larger effort by GO Transit improve its train service throughout Ontario. “We realize there’s a demand there, and we’re trying to offer more service to our customers,” said Vanessa Thomas, Media Relations Coordinator with GO. “Obviously it’s good news for the city and it’s good news for the rush hour commuters.”

Although this is the first new rail service to come to Hamilton since 2000, GO has been making significant changes to many of its stations.

One notable project is the recently constructed layover site at the Hamilton GO Centre, which is responsible for the new departure time. “The Hamilton layover facility means that we’re able to store trains instead of having to move them to Hamilton in the morning or move them to Aldershot in the morning,” explained Thomas. “We can now store them in Hamilton, and those trains would depart from Hamilton.” She also believes that this feature adds flexibility and efficiency to the Hamilton train schedule.

On Feb. 17, 2009, the governments of Canada and Ontario announced a joint investment of up to 500 million dollars to support GO Transit’s infrastructure projects. This was a landmark in GO’s recent burst of updating and expansion initiatives. 75.5 million dollars of the investment is allocated for the Hamilton Junction Project, which is a rail-to-rail separation project that will prevent GO trains from having to wait for CN/CPR trains to pass, as they sometimes do at points where their tracks cross.

In addition to the more major alterations, GO has taken steps to improve its signage, install a snow melting system for busy areas at its stations, equip its vehicles and facilities with defibrillators and increase station accessibility. Also, 12-car trains, which hold about 300 more passengers than the typical 10-car trains, are gradually becoming more popular with GO. Platforms have been altered to accommodate these longer locomotives. The 12-car trains were introduced in April of 2008 to provide more space for the daily floods of commuters and is the type of train being used for the Hamilton extension.

A third rail track has also been added to the Lakeshore West line in the hopes of improving service. The track runs between Union Station and Port Credit, and also between Kerr Street in Oakville and Hamilton. In the spring of this year, an addition on the third track will be built between the Port Credit GO Station and the one on Kerr Street in Oakville. This means that the track would run continuously from Hamilton to Union Station. “By adding this third track, it will give us the flexibility to add more service and capacity,” said Thomas.

GO Transit’s train service began on the Lakeshore line in May of 1967 as a three-year experiment. Now, the company runs 183 train tips on seven Ontario lines every weekday, as well as 2,074 bus trips throughout the province. With the recent activity, these numbers look only to be increasing.

Tags: extension, Go transit, train