GO Transit

[Bytor]

Of course, I think we should have both Guelph and Milton, and the Lakeshore West Hamilton→Brantford extension that takes back the Paris rail trail and loops up to Cambridge.

You don't have to take back the Cambridge to Paris rail trail, the old line through Branchton and Harrisburg to Lyndon will get you to the same spot in Cambridge without the time consuming jog through Brantford. Will it ever happen? No.

You can have trails beside active rail lines. You could easily shift the walking trail over with enough width for double-tracking all the way from Cambridge to Paris.

And with a proper 110mph (177km/h) intercity rail system, it's not a time-consuming jog through Brantford.

Cambridge → Paris ~21km, ~8 minutes
Paris → Brantford, ~12km, ~6 minutes
Brantford → Hamilton, ~36km, ~13 minutes, using the Hamilton-Brantford rail trail right of way.

With a 1 minute dwell time at Paris and Brantford, that's 29 minutes.

Going through Branchton, Harrisburg and Lynden instead 

Cambridge → Harrisburg Wye, 22km, ~8 minutes
Harrisburg Wye, 2km, 2 minutes
Harrisburg Wye → Lynden ~6km, ~ 4 minutes
Lynden→Hamilton, ~30km, ~14 minutes

With a 1 minute well time at Lynden, that's also 29 minutes. Again, the 90° curves around the RBG and Main / Dundurn, but also a very tight wye track at Harrisburg to turn towards Lynden which reduces one's speed significantly. And that means from the wye to Lynden the train can only get up to ~55mph (87km/h) instead of 110mph.

I rounded the Lynden mileage down and the Brantford route up, and it also depends on the actual geometry of what that wye through Harrisburg was, which I was also generous as to speed for it. It could ad as much as 5 minutes instead of 2 onto the Cambridge to Lynden portion.

So, overall, If both routes existed with modern electric inter-city rail, you'd probably get to Hamilton 5 minutes faster going through Brantford if all these rails had not been abandoned and had been kept in use and upgraded over time.

[coriander]

We could have a bus service to Guelph tomorrow...the fact we aren't shows we're either bad at this, or not serious about this.

But we _do_ have a bus service to Guelph -- GO Transit route 17 (admittedly, only hourly on weekdays): https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/uploa...ABLE17.pdf

In addition to, of course, the GO Kitchener line trains. It may be inadequate, but it's not non-existent.

Edit: Unless you mean Cambridge-Guelph specifically, which yes, is lacking. (It's hard to tell, because a similar point was made in the Hwy 7 thread.)

GO route 17 is painfully slow getting into Guelph. Moving between the universities and Guelph Central takes up a literal hour, or three times longer than the train travel time between Kitchener GO and Guelph Central. Adding additional rail service is leaps and bounds better for the speed alone.

[tomh009]

But we _do_ have a bus service to Guelph -- GO Transit route 17 (admittedly, only hourly on weekdays): https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/uploa...ABLE17.pdf

In addition to, of course, the GO Kitchener line trains. It may be inadequate, but it's not non-existent.

Edit: Unless you mean Cambridge-Guelph specifically, which yes, is lacking. (It's hard to tell, because a similar point was made in the Hwy 7 thread.)

GO route 17 is painfully slow getting into Guelph. Moving between the universities and Guelph Central takes up a literal hour, or three times longer than the train travel time between Kitchener GO and Guelph Central. Adding additional rail service is leaps and bounds better for the speed alone.

That's not an apples-to-apples comparison, though: from Victoria/Frederick to Guelph Central seems to be about 32-34 minutes.

If you want to compare train travel time then you need to add the 15 minutes (plus connection time) for the LRT as well--or the bus ride from Laurier.