03-06-2019, 01:50 PM
(03-06-2019, 01:10 PM)KevinT Wrote: It helps that the line through Kitchener isn't CN's mainline. The piece between Georgetown and Silver Junction is CN's however, and a part of their mainline. Westbound CN trains enter from the north at Silver and depart south after Georgetown, and crossing them over is a problem for GO. I've heard there was talk in the town hall about a fly-over/fly-under there, that would help a lot.
For Cambridge/Milton, CP is a mainline, and there's nowhere for them to park a 2 km long freight train between Milton and Ayr without blocking a level crossing. That means in order to let a GO train through, they have to park the train very very far away for a considerable length of time. That's an obvious non-starter for them. I think they _may_ be able to sneak a lengthy passing track under the Hwy 6 bridge, but that's purely based on staring at Google's satellite view which is hardly conclusive.
You can argue that there used to be GO storage on the Milton line west of Milton at Campbellville, and long before that there were CP passenger trains through Cambridge, but freight trains were a lot shorter and more frequent back then. Now that CP has slashed their costs by running extra long trains less frequently with fewer crews, there's no going back to 'the good old days'.
Edit to add: Well, crush their palm with silver, but if that didn't happen under the Liberals it surely won't happen under Doug Ford.
Second edit: Okay, Google maps shows that they have a passing track just west of the Hwy 6 bridge that's almost exactly 2 km long. Clearly I've mis-remembered something I read elsewhere. Maybe it's just that CP feels they need even more passing capacity beyond that.
I'm sure there are some technical issues, but also solutions, some level crossings could be closed, the section that is single track is less than 30 km long, which should take 20 mins or so to traverse.
But that's kind of beside the point I think. The panel suggested the issue was not capacity between Milton and Cambridge, but on the existing section of the Milton line. They repeated a line that I've heard before, that if they could get more capacity, it would already be eaten up by existing demand on the existing segment. So that would suggest that the limitations extend beyond Cambridge to Milton.
I will note, ironically, that I'll give them some credit saying that the line is already over capacity at Milton, so extending it isn't that helpful (although, I'm sure many drive from Cambridge to Milton), whereas we see in Toronto, severe overcrowding on the Young subway, while politicians plan extensions to the north that will only exasperate the issue, because it's only a political game.