Train 407 Where Are You? That's Right You Are Delayed

The key to delays on our systems have been told to us over and over. Government is not giving transit enough money so they are cutting corners and having to order replacement stuff at the last minute sometimes these will create more than delay but also could be a danger to the passengers. Note in the July 5, 2007 article that the Train 407 is delayed 50% of the time and that one of the potential causes is the reduction of staff on the trains that happened in January.
But this is Go Transit you say the TTC is the Better Way. Well I have pasted in an article about that too.

The TTC is having its own issues, from the older article I found on them but the new chief over there is starting to get things going by doing much needed repairs on subway stations. Things were really starting to fall apart. The construction means delays but so be it if it means we are going to be safer. On the other hand Go Transit is delaying us, but not to make us safer.

Excerpts from July 5, 2007 http://www.metronews.ca/column.aspx?id=59806

GO
Transit packed its schedule with trains over the last decade, partly to make up
for a lack of new tracks and infrastructure, but the result is brief holdups can
begin a cascade effect.

This train, identified by GO as No. 407, is chronically late because it runs at
the end of rush hour, according to agency chief Gary McNeil.
It is delayed at
least five minutes almost 50 per cent of the time, he says, and has one of the
worst records of all GO trains.
There is so little time between trains that
small delays during peak hours get compounded, he says.
“It’s symptomatic of
the majority of the GO system, especially along the Lakeshore line and the
Georgetown line and Richmond Hill lines.
“We are operating at capacity, from
a train movement perspective. Everything has to function to 100 per cent in
order to keep all the trains on schedule.
“There’s literally no slough in any
of the times.”
GO Transit packed its schedule with trains over the last
decade, partly to make up for a lack of new tracks and infrastructure, but the
result is brief holdups can begin a cascade effect.
McNeil admits the recent
change from two locomotive engineers on Lakeshore trains to one has cost
precious minutes when trains turn around.
McNeil says this problem should
“evaporate” when a new crewing contract begins next year.
As for train 407,
GO has asked CN Rail for permission to shift an earlier run by three minutes to
ease the pressure on the schedule.

Excerpts from October 17, 2006 : http://www.metronews.ca/column.aspx?id=14002&searchtype=1&fragment=False

Quote from Bob Boutillier:

“This last year in particular has been, I guess, the perfect storm — the
retirement of old buses, late deliveries (of new buses), and on top of that we
had to do a lot of warranty work that we would not normally do
(due to a manufacturing flaw that led to small fires on some
buses).”
Next is a persistent shortage of bus operators,
aggravated
by a higher-than-normal rate of new drivers failing the training
process."

...

“There are actually seven ... command posts where you have people sitting in front of the computer — and it’s old technology.”
Some of these routes have 20 or 30 buses, and one person may handle eight or nine routes. More supervisors would mean more cost to the TTC, as would a decent notification system to tell riders why their bus is late, or why a vehicle must be short-turned. Getting the word out won’t fix the problem, but at least explain to us what’s happening."

I think that getting the word out lets people know how short changed we are when it comes to safe and reliable public transit and the reasons is our tax dollars are not going to transit. On top we expect people to stop driving and take it.