77% Trains On Time, that means almost 25% are late

This stat alone is a cause for concern, but given that last year for the same quarter they were 96% on time it shows an even greater issue.

If looking at the numbers it means the trains were a minute or 2 late per trip than that is ok it happens, the issue I have is when people are running up the platform for the train and when they arrive the train is still on the platform waiting for signal for sometimes 5 minutes and they keep the doors shut. Why not let us passengers on, you are waiting for a signal anyways. Its not like its just sometimes that they do it, the doors close at exactly 5:19 or 5:34 but the train may not leave until 5:25 or 5:40. I think this is very inconsiderate, especially given that the train are late almost 25% of the time. That means 25% of the time passengers will arrive at 5:20 and the train is still there but they have to wait for the next one.

On the Lakeshore line its not too bad the next train may be only about 15 minutes away but on lines like the Milton line it could be almost an hour for the next one.

Hopefully Go Transit will take this into consideration when pondering their delay numbers.

Go-Transit Leaves Connecting Passengers Freezing

I guess the first place to start is to say the train that normally arrives in Burlington at 6:55 was delayed 10-12 minutes at the Snake. Normally this train
connects with the train leaving Oakville at 7:30. Being late we arrived at Oakville at exactly 7:30. The dispatch decided that they would let the Oakville train leave ahead of ours, so the passengers connecting to the all-stop train at Oakville missed their train. Had they let us leave first on our express train then those connecting passengers would not be caught out in the cold at Oakville Station.

As well this delayed our express train as we had to wait for it to make all its stops. Our engineer negotiated with dispatch so they would let us pass the all stop train near Port Credit.

The interesting thing is, I went to Customer Services to confirm that my facts above were correcet and that they did indeed miss the train. They had no idea, they called upstair to what I assume was dispatch and they flatly denied that the 6:55 train was delayed at all. It makes you wonder how many other train delays are not documented or reported and that is why when Go-Transit publishes their reports they see minimal delays for passengers. It is the hopes that someone in management at Go-Transit will look into this. That extra minute holding that one train back would make a lot of commuters happier and since its so cold out a little safer too.

Interestingly enough, in the past Go-Transit has delayed trains so they meet up with the bus I guess possibly it was a simple mistake in this case. If it is a policy change it is the hopes they change it back.

Its the little things that make the difference.