General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[ijmorlan]

I recently moved into an apartment near the GO Transit layover yard between King and Park Streets and although it hasn’t bothered me too much, I’ve noticed that the trains parked there seem to idle all night from the time they arrive in the evening until the time they depart in the morning. 

Some articles on the issue of idling noise from when GO trains first came to the region in 2010 had quoted “GO Transit says the trains will only start up and run for 30 minutes to an hour” (https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/mobile/resi...y-1.578209). However, it appears they are idling for the entire time they are at the layover facility. 

I am a huge advocate for increased GO service from Kitchener to Toronto. However, I’m not sure why the trains need to idle all night? Unless there is a valid reason, this doesn’t seem like a good thing for both noise and pollution in the area. 

Any ideas why this might be the case? If there’s no valid reason, would there be any way to convince GO to only idle the trains 30-60 minutes prior to departure as previously stated in 2010 rather than for the entire ~10 hours at the layover facility?

It’s unfortunate that Metrolinx is not trustworthy on neighbourhood impact matters. I agree that this seems very questionable. What could have changed that requires continuous idling? Also, there are 2 categories of possible reasons for idling: either the engine needs to keep running, or systems which depend on the power generated by the engine need to keep running. If the reason for the idling is the latter, then the trains should be equipped to plug in when in the layover facility rather than running what is in effect a generator for each one. The purpose of the diesel engine is to deal with the absence of electrical power, not because burning diesel is a plus.

I have a vague recollection that idling was one of the community concerns with GO partially re-activating the Don Branch in Toronto to serve as train storage (3 trains end-to-end if I recall correctly).