Like a broken record, the Lakeshore GO line has been plagued with broken switches. It's Groundhog Day!
It's like living in 2015 again!
There's been no outreach from GO Transit or Metrolinx to passengers who have been extremely inconvenienced by this issue. The lastest break occurred, again, along the stretch between Oshawa and Whitby. I was on the 4:30 pm train from Union last night and that train made it into Oshawa without any issues. Trains after it weren't so lucky. Crews worked all afternoon and into the evening repairing the switch.
It appears to be holding up as there were no problems this morning.
On Twitter there were lots of questions about why this is happening, why it keeps breaking, why can't it just be fixed and be done with it? I've been told it all comes down to what's needed to keep the system running in order to prevent a full scale shutdown of service, forcing passengers east of Whitby to use Whitby GO as the starting/ending point. Can you imagine? Passengers would lose their minds.
Hopefully the fact that the next two weeks should see lighter than normal passenger traffic and they can shut down the line to permanently fix the problem without inconveniencing thousands of passengers.
I don't have answers for how this is logistically done. I'm just a passenger, not a railroad expert. However, I think I could find the patience needed to figure out how to get to work if a shutdown was needed to permanently fix the problem.
3 comments:
I think everyone would be ok with a day or so of inconvenience if they actually fixed the issue. In the grand scheme one day that you can plan alternates for is better than the shit shows that keep happening.
But we all know that will never happen. They will keep slapping a bandaid on the system, inconveniencing everyone for days on end with nothing but lip service.
Because it has worked for them in the past and it keeps on working for them.
When will we actually get the torches and pitchforks? Then and only then will something happen. Right now, they know we won't do anything, because we have no power to do anything. We just sigh, roll our eyes and keep giving them money to never fix a broken system.
This should and will be brought up at the next CEAC meeting.
My suspicion is they are going to upgrade/replace the whole switch configuration at Thickson Rd. as they tie in the new rail lead to the new Maintenance Facility. I suspect they tried to get away with waiting to upgrade it until it was included in the EMF project, and it obviously has not worked out for them.
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