Raise the Hammer

Metrolinx recently teased images of electric trains with West Harbour and Stoney Creek GO; hopefully that's for RER II (next 10 year plan), 2025-2034. In more than two dozen cliparts, they were German's Stadler KISS trainset pictograms, rather than classic Bombardier BiLevels.

(This is included as part of my upcoming GO article for RTH I've promised to Ryan...)

Of two of most interesting Hamiltonian note:

Electric train at West Harbour:

Electric train at Stoney Creek:

(see the catenary -- guesstimate 2030-2035? Once they finish electric 15-min all day Burlington as planned by the first half of 2020's, then Hamilton is a no-brainer once they figure out the freight contention issues.)

Although official plan is only hourly diesels, technically the door is open as the Lewis layover yard is electrification-ready (in official government documents). So theoretically if freight contention is solved, 15-minute all day 2-way service is doable with West Harbour GO/Gage GO/Stoney Creek GO -- this theoretically becomes our 2nd "surface crosstown subway" in parallel to the LRT, and also makes us a commuter destination (for the rest of Lakeshore line) instead of just a bedroom community. But Hamiltonians would perhaps also use it as another way to commute crosstown in a more express manner than the LRT, as well as to commute to waterfront businesses.

In combination with the A-Line LRT serving the mountain (and another Mountain crosstown LRT in BLAST plan), it could also serve Mountain residents needing to commute to a future waterfront CBD.

Related topic -- Over the years, it will be critical for HSR to overhaul the Hamilton transit network install many new north-south bus routes as connectors. Including Lower City lines Like a Sherman bus line, Gage bus line, to allow east-west crosstown rail users far away from the A-Line to transfer to north-south destinations not near a rail/LRT station. (Even lower city north-south buses that serves Sherman and Gage).

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-08-08 16:06:03