GO Transit

[ijmorlan]

And we have that key phrase - double track. It's hugely important for both speed and throughput, and the faster we get started, the better.

The Grand River crossing near Breslau is probably the most challenging, though central Guelph will also be interesting. At least the viaduct over the Eramosa has supports for two tracks, they just have to build the spans.

Central Guelph is easy. There used to be two tracks from the junction to the station, and in fact the second track is still there for most of the route, just not everywhere in very good shape. The tricky bit is needing to double-track the bridge east of the station. Except that it should be OK for there to be the occasional single-track bridge. Until we have many more trains, the two directions can take turns going through single-track segments. Personally if I were planning it I probably wouldn’t double-track any bridges at all until substantially more service was planned. There are lots of railways in Europe that are single-track with passing sidings and I’m pretty sure they have more service than is planned anytime soon on this line.

And before the Kent St. thing comes up again, the problematic bit is one and a half blocks long, has precisely two crossings, and is sufficiently close to the station that train speeds will be extremely low no matter how much improvement is done to the right of way. So it’s not really a problem — they should be able to just re-instate the second track and fix up the crossings a bit.

Or not re-instate the second track — the last (speed * headway / 2) of a line can be single-tracked, so depending on the exact assumptions hourly service can probably be supported with only single track west of Guelph as long as the right of way is upgraded significantly.