http://toronto.transitcamp.org/METRONAUTS1/Regional_Rail

1 GO trains do stop inside the Toronto boundaries: The Lakeshore stops at Longbranch, Royal York, Exhibition, Union, Danforth, Scarborough, Eglinton, Guildwood and Rouge Hill, in fact only one station on the original Lakeshore East Line was outside Toronto and that is Pickering. The Milton Line only has one stop besides Union and that is Kipling but Georgetown has Etobicoke North, Weston, and Bloor. The Bradford line only has the stop for York University and the Richmond Hill line has stops and Oriole and Old Cummer. The Stouffeville line has Miliken, Agincourt and Kennedy so there are 18 stations in Toronto besides Union Station. Only the Lakeshore line and the CP line to Milton are double tracked for most of their run in Toronto. The other lines are basically now just industrial spurs with only one or two freights a day. There is room to double track most of these lines IF you can get rid of the industrial spurs. There is no room for 4 tracks in most areas except the CP North Toronto Sub North of Dupont St. but it is CP’s main freight line through Toronto.

The Airport express line is, as near as I can find, going to operate with a single Budd RDC car rebuilt in Moncton on a 15 minute headway maximum so it would need about 6 or 7 cars for an effective spare ratio. It would not make any stops except maybe the Bloor GO station bewteen the airport and Union Station if it ever gets built. It would not have room for other passengers. This group would not want to ad stops or cars as it would increase there travel time, stops and expenses while not increasing their revenues enough to cover costs.

As I said on Steve Munro’s site I still believe that the best thing to run in the Weston Corridor in the 416 and airport area is a standard gauge electric line with GO style self propelled electric cars running off catenary. I know that some one keeps saying that you cannot mix high level cars and overhead but there are electric line in the US, specifically the North East Corridor and the IC and South Shore in Chicago, and I find it hard to believe that they never have high cars operating on or across them. These MU cars with their better acceleration could operate to the airport with a transfer connection in Malton to the diesel hauled coaches to Georgetown which could operate express to Union. They could also have more stops to provide a service between subway and current GO operations.

I don’t believe that this corridor lends itself to LRT or HRT easily but I believe that the electrified GO service would succeed. Electrification should be at 1500 to 3000 VDC to reduce overhead clearances required as CN will never run 25 000 VAC on this line. I think that you have to keep the low platform loading of the GO coaches so that stations could be used by either service. As this is more of a suburban service than a local one you should have a higher seating to standing ratio than the TTC has on LRT or HRT. I don’t care if you paint them green or red; the operator is irrelevant, as long as the service is provided. By running GO style equipment you would cut down on the spare part inventory required. Electrify one line to Willowbrook and the heavy maintenance could be handled there or you could haul the coaches behind a locomotive.

I feel like I am fighting a one person crusade here but having ridden the suburban rail systems in Sydney Australia (City Rail) and in Melbourne I believe that there is another option that we are missing. Since GO owns the Newmarket Sub maybe this would be the thing to do. You could probably electrify the entire line and run a decent headway all day to the 407 for less money than will be spent on the subway extension. It would also provide a faster downtown connection to North York. Sorry York U but I am sure that an LRT line could be included for little more than the subway extention.

I beleive that this could also be run, in Toronto, on the Bradford and Stouffeville lines but the Richmond Hill line would not be very usefull as it runs in the middle of the Don Valley for much of its rout and its two stations are near the Yonge and Sheppard Subways. The CP line to Peterborough and Havelock would make a good line as it would serve the new development in the North end of Scarborough and Durham region. It could come Downtown by either joining the Stouffeville line in Agincourt or following the CP mainline, if you can get CP to let you on to their main freight line and down through the Don Valley. This line would need to be rehabilitated as it has a 10 or 15 mph limit for mosyt of ots length.

A single ticket cost something like three times as much as a TTC fare, but it was so worth it. With the TTC fare increases since then, it looks as though the price difference is much lower now.

I imagine it’s still possible to do this. Even if they’ve managed to eliminate the ticket-taker in the mornings (which might be difficult under the union contract), someone with a monthly pass should be fine.