GO Trains return to Stratford, but what about Ottawa?

The recent news that Metrolinx is once again extending its GO Train service to Stratford, Ont., well west of Kitchener-Waterloo, got me to thinking about Ottawa's beleaguered rail transit service. My thought was, if GO Trains can regularly operate between Toronto as far west as Stratford, what's preventing Metrolinx from applying the same logic to Ottawa? 

A shot of an evening GO Train making its way through Stratford in summer 2023. That pilot service was cancelled soon after this photo was taken.

For those who might not know, the province agreed to working with Ottawa so that Metrolinx would take over operation of the O-Train. That arrangement has led Metrolinx to send new axles for Line 1 O-Train sets that had been damaged due to spalling issues. We need not get into the many, many issues that have plagued Ottawa's east-west Line 1, formerly known as the Confederation Line. Rails not properly installed, axle issues, catenary failures, door jamming problems and weather delays are just a few problems that have reduced the line's schedule many times since it launched. 

The end result is the city's electrified rail transit line is notoriously unreliable and the winters make the problem worse. The state of the line is such that, trains now have to slow at various curves to avoid derailing and causing further damage. The trainsets, which were once coupled end to end, are now single sets, due to the same track issues.

The eastern extension of Line 1, all the way into Orleans, is set to open this year. The western extension, which will reach as far as Crystal Beach at Corkstown Road, will take more time. 

 

A commuter waits for the next eastbound trainset on Line 1 in March.

So, here's my thought. How about some sort of GO Train service here in Ottawa?

The city has already committed to seeing the second phase of the Line 1 extension through to completion, essentially linking Orleans with Crystal Beach. Fine. The missing piece here is how to serve the booming west end of the city, namely Kanata and Stittsville? Also, how to properly serve Barrhaven, which is a city in and of itself?  

Metrolinx knows how to do this. I'm not saying that we should see massively long double-decker GO Train consists like we do in the GTA, but who's to say we couldn't extend diesel service throughout the city along our lightly used tracks?

Possibly the answer would be to use the existing diesel trainsets that are currently in use on Line 2, or the Trillium Line, which now runs from Bayview all the way out to Riverside South. 

A northbound diesel O-Train makes its way past the Walkley Diamond en route to Bayview Station in early spring 2025

This is why I think it could work, if there was a will. Consider the trackage we have in the city that is greatly underutilized, to say the least. Using the city's Via Station on Tremblay Road as a possible starting point, consider the possibilities of heavy rail going west. The one challenge would be to time all diesel O-Train runs between Ottawa's westbound corridor train departures in the morning and its eastbound arrivals in the evening. This is possible, as Via has installed a passing siding at Wass, and there is also a possibility of holding trains at Federal Junction, where the Beachburg Sub connects to the Smiths Falls Sub.

Using the Beachburg Sub from Tremblay through to North Kanata*, Ottawa has the potential to connect vast neighbourhoods with hundreds of thousands of people.

Beachburg could easily host stations where the tracks pass over Merivale Road, Woodroffe Avenue and possibly Greenbank Road. After Greenbank, there would be a possibility at multiple points to connect Bells Corners, after which the train could make its way to March Road via the Renfrew Spur (* Then, if there was a will to reconnect the line from the old Nepean Junction, the Beachburg Sub could link North Kanata, where many people work in the North Kanata Business Park). 

Easy, right?

No. 

The bridge over Carling Avenue that once took the Beachburg Sub into Kanata and beyond is gone. The rails from Nepean Junction running northwest are long gone. That part of the plan would require time, money and planning.

I haven't even mentioned the Smiths Falls Sub so far, but I don't think it's unreasonable at all to assume that diesel service couldn't be extended to Fallowfield Station, as there is already a Park and Ride facility there. Fallowfield Station was originally designed to be a commuter rail stop anyway. Why not use it for its intended purpose? The passing siding is already there.

What about laying tracks on the former Carleton Place Sub, which would link Bells Corners to Stittsville, where tens of thousands of people could make use of a link to the downtown? That old trackage was initially acquired by the former Ottawa-Carleton region as a possible commuter option. 

A meet between two Via corridor trains in May 2023 shows that this station was originally designed to be a frequent stop for commuter rail. Its name was meant to connect it to the Fallowfield Park and Ride facility, where people can park and take the bus.

 

The Barrhaven part of any diesel extension would be far easier to accommodate, as the rails are in place and the station is well established, with perhaps only some small changes to be made on the platform. You can see how Via stations operate side-by-side with commuter trains throughout the GTA and even at Dorval in Montreal.

 

I guess my point is, before the city doubles down on its electrified O-Train service, which most agree has been a failure, why not extend a proven technology? Diesel O-Trains work well and are almost never out of service. They can withstand the Ottawa winters. There is no catenary to maintain.

 

Better yet, Metrolinx knows how to operate diesel commuter service in the GTA. Why not let this organization do what it can do here in Ottawa?

 

How could it possibly be worse than what we have in place now?