BURLINGTON, Ont. – GO train service on the Lakeshore West and East lines resumed after a pedestrian was struck and killed by a train in Burlington early Thursday morning.
The incident happened near Appleby station just before 6 a.m.
GO service resumes after pedestrian struck and killed in Burlington
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Hahaha…nice comment Simon. I just read the exact same one that you posted on the CP24 website. In case you didn’t notice, police, fire and ambulance personnel were all in attendance and they can’t do their job properly and safely if trains are still running. Does an electrician turn off the light switch to fix a light fixture? No, he turns off power to the house.
wow. how narrow minded some people can be sometimes. just think of the overall picture and guess what happend. impacts made. pain and suffering caused by one incident.
@Simon – how clever and compassionate of you! Such a relief to know there are people like you out there who can turn someone’s death into an opportunity to grumble about public transit.
While I do not use the GO, I can work on assumptions.
First, they don’t own unlimited trains and can’t move trains between lines without going through through the union station area.
Second, a train does not travel only back and forth between Burlington and Union all day long but will service other lines also.
Third, they ensure more trains are on the outer limits of their service early in the morning to facilitate inbound traffic.
With this these assumptions and a greatly reduced degree of complexity, I am going to put forth the following situation:
Go consists of 10 trains total and only the Lakeshore East and West lines exist.
Trains 1-4 are in Hamilton, Trains 5-8 are in Whitby. Trains 9-10 are outbound from Union.
Trains 1 and 8 being their inbound trips first thing in the morning. Trains 9 heads westbound and 10 heads eastbound.
On its trip in, train 1, reaches Appleby station and strikes a pedestrian, such as in this unfortunate situation, and they are forced to shut down the train lines.
Trains 2, 3 and 4 are still stick BEYOND Appleby station and can freely go back and forth between Hamilton and Burlington, but can’t get further in. Train 1 is out of commission entirely.
To pickup some of the load which exists between Oakville and Union, normally serviced by 5 trains, now only serviced by 1 (train 9, the outbound from Union station), GO is going to shift some of its trains from the Lakeshore East line onto the Lakeshore West line. A system that is normally serviced by 10 trains is reduced to 6 and the effects are rippled onto other lines to try and balance delays. Yes, everyone does suffer, not just the people on the Lakeshore West line, but the delays are much less than if they didn’t shift trains to different lines to balance lines.
Simon- You poor thing having to be inconvienced by someones death! If you had any common sense, you would know that when one track is blocked all other trains must be reallocated thus causing a delay! What a travesty when the world is not revolving around you!
I’m trying to figure out why something that happened on one line affected the entire system.
That’s GO Transit for you; if the temperature drops into the single digits or if it even looks like it’s going to rain, that throws their entire system into chaos for the rest of the day!
It’s because the trains on any particular line in the system don’t necessarily stay confined to that line. A train going east bound on the Lakeshore line may continue east to Oshawa or go up some other line. If westbound trains or trains from other lines were cancelled, it’s likely because the train that was supposed to make those trips was stuck west of the accident until the tracks opened up again.