Anna de la Cruz of Scarborough sent me a letter she wrote to GO
Transit at the end of May: “For the last several months, I, and
everyone on my train, have been quietly seething at the fact that
our train is late at least 4 out of 5 days a week, and for at least
10 to15 minutes, sometimes more!!!
“We take the 8:33 a.m. Lakeshore East train to Union from Guildwood
and we seem to be the only morning train that keeps having the
service disrupted. We haven't heard of any of the earlier trains
being chronically late. Believe me, I would take an earlier train if
I could but I can't.”
Ms. de la Cruz reports things haven’t been as bad since she
complained, but Don Maxwell of Pickering is also a regular on this
same run and has updated me on several cancellations. He writes, ”We
all know that we should expect delays from time to time. But when
the delays are virtually daily, and affect the same scheduled train
and the delay is for the same amount of time, then that's far too
coincidental for us to believe there isn't something else going on.
While GO has stopped providing what everyone knows are generally
bogus excuses, we want to know what is going on.”
This train, identified by GO as number 407, is chronically late
because it runs at the end of rush hour, according to agency chief
Gary McNeil. It is delayed at least five minutes almost 50 per cent
of the time, he says, and has one of the worst records of all GO
trains.
There is so little time between trains that small delays during
peak hours get compounded, he says. “It’s symptomatic of the
majority of the GO system, especially along the Lakeshore line and
the Georgetown line and Richmond Hill lines. We are operating at
capacity, from a train movement perspective. Everything has to
function to 100 per cent in order to keep all the trains on
schedule. There’s literally no slough in any of the times.”
GO Transit packed its schedule with trains over the last decade,
partly to make up for a lack of new tracks and infrastructure, but
the result is that brief holdups can begin a cascade effect. McNeil
admits the recent change from two locomotive engineers on Lakeshore
trains to one has cost precious minutes when trains turn around.
McNeil says this problem should “evaporate” when a new crewing
contract begins next year. As for train 407, GO has asked CN Rail
for permission to shift an earlier run by three minutes to ease the
pressure on the schedule. Will that be enough to get our readers to
work on time? We shall see in September.