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At least a real and honest answer for once.
Given the lack of progress I’ve experienced on the Stouffville line since I started using it in 2022 I’ll take every incremental win, especially on service levels after OOI fell apart.
Good grief - at that rate it will be about 2040 before the finish restoring the pre-Covid Lakeshore East service! Let alone any of the upgrades!
I was coming from the perspective of net-new service additions without thinking about lower service on the Lakeshore lines since the pandemic.
Pre-Covid there were 8 express trains per day in each direction, with a total of 6 trains per hour in the peak hour (4 express, 2 local). Local service only ran every 30 minutes during peak periods - 15-minute local service wasn't introduced until 2021 (when it was changed to 2 express, 4 local). The current peak hour service is 5 trains per hour, all of which run local.
According to the timetable archive on my computer (which is more up-to-date than the Google Drive I linked earlier), those trips appeared on the 28th of June 2025. It seems that they were added to introduce 15-minute local service from Burlington to Toronto (previously 15-minute service was only from Oakville to Toronto) and start frequent service earlier. 15-minute service now starts at 11:58 at Burlington instead of 14:46 at Oakville. They probably run the westbound morning trains express because their goal is just to get to Burlington as quickly as possible so they can start an all-stops service back to Toronto. Burlington is presumably the endpoint of the new trips since that's as far as Metrolinx owns the tracks. Continuing to Hamilton would involve expensive negotiations with CN. Ideally they would have converted the existing Hamilton services to run express while the new Burlington trains run local, but I guess they didn't do that because it would have required a more extensive rewrite of the schedule.
An express to Bramalea would have saved me when I was heading out to Ottawa on Wednesday. The VIA from London broke down, and other options weren't going to get me to Union with a wide enough buffer. I ended up driving to Pearson and catching the UP Express...which itself was delayed due to track inspections. I made my transfer, but boy, what a stressful start to the trip.
Route 48 does go GuelphU - Bramalea - Hwy 407 but it's not timed to meet trains at Bramalea and it doesn't go all the way to Guelph Central. But the deviation to Meadowvale takes so long that even with a timed train connection it wouldn't be that much faster to Guelph Central. It would be significantly faster to Guelph U, though.
And even worse, it only runs once every two hours which makes planning difficult and transfers at Union to other lines (I transfer to Barrie often) don't line up well. I avoid traveling on weekends if I can. The only slight credit I'll give to GO is that the westbound run now holds for the train with a short connection instead of the previous ~25 minute wait. They could also really use more benches for waiting instead of having to sit on the curb.
There was an express 48 that skipped the Meadowvale deviation but I think it only ran for a single school year and was Friday only.
