reaperexpress
Senior Member
There are enough sidings on the RH line to run one counter-peak train. In fact, pre-pandemic GO did operate a counter-peak run from Richmond Hill in the PM peak, albeit out of service just for the sake of getting another trip in the peak direction.Do we think there's any possibility of increasing Richmond Hill line frequency without major construction work? I know electrification isn't in the plans but as someone that works in Markham but lives in the city, it seems like there is some untapped potential of running at least one train against peak direction(NB -> AM, SB -> PM) with all of the office spaces in the area. Would this be possible with the existing single track? How much does freight impact the existing schedule? Also if ALTO decides to use the Leaside spur as the ROW in the future, would there be enough space for two GO tracks in that ROW? Thanks
Part of the limitation is that none of the stations have multiple platforms, so the counter-peak train can't really make any stops other than Union and Richmond Hill. On the single-track sections the counter peak train needs to clear ASAP to make room for the next peak direction train.
The other part of the limitation is that the counter-peak train needs to sit in each siding waiting for the next peak-direction train to pass by, so travel times are very long. Probably why they didn't run the counter peak trip in service when it did exist.
Both of those issues could be improved by extending the existing siding south of Oriole northwards through Leslie station and building a second platform there. IIRC the design of the relocated station did future proof for a second platform.
It may also be possible to build a cheap platform on the existing west track at Langstaff/RHC given there's already a pedestrian bridge.
Those two relatively minor investments would enable the counter peak run to be much more useful, making intermediate stops at Leslie, possibly Old Cummer (transfer to Seneca College), Langstaff and Richmond Hill.
However I'm not sure if even such minor investments could be justified given how slow the RH line is through the Don Valley. Outside of peak periods, it really isn't competitive with alternatives such as the Yonge subway, Barrie Line or even the existing RH bus service. So the only benefit of that infrastructure would be a couple counter-peak and potentially shoulder-peak trains per weekday.
If we're talking about rerouting the RH line onto the Don Branch (which is in fact included in the Province's GO 2.0 maps) then that's a different story. But then we're also talking about a much larger and more comprehensive upgrade to the line.
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