I will be in Toronto for a few days in August. I thought of riding the GO Transit trains somewhere but with several lines I don’t know where to start. Any advice on the following?
Which route is the most interesting in terms of the end destination or from a train-watching standpoint?
Which route has enough service that I could leave Toronto Union Station in the morning and be able to come back that afternoon?
When I was last in the area there were a few motels in walking distance of the Aldershot station which appears to be also in walking distance of the famous Bayview Junction – great park overlooking the tracks and Hamilton Bay and the junction where CN from Toronto splits, one line going up the escarpment to Dundas and London, the other going to Hamilton and Niagara Falls. I hope everything’s still unchanged.
www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/003/267fuvtf.asp
www.gotransit.com/publicroot/home.asp
www.proximityissues.ca/english/maps1.cfm
Enjoy your stay. Shoot anything you want (with your camera).
You can take the train to Milton but you may want to book a room there because the GO service is still in development so their are few trains yet.
The reason I say this is a good spot is the CN Halton Subdivision and the CP Galt Subdivision go through this town. There is an area of the town where there is a parkinglot next to both CN and CP lines. CN bridges over CP and is not uncommon to see CN and CP trains at the same time. Very, very busy at times; the combined traffic is about 60 trains a day.
Another possibility is Georgetown which I believe GO train goes to. You see a few VIAs, GO trains I am pretty sure, plenty of CN as it’s their Halton Subdivision and Goderich and Exeter trains. There train or trains is very long and use 3 or more locomotives to pull it-I believe they go directly to MacMillan Yard for their interchanging.
Not near Toronto but highly recommended is Cobourg, Ontario which you need to take the VIA from Toronto to get there. A trip to check out the rails on the eastern side of Toronto without getting arrested. You can see the Don Yard near the Gardener Express which serves mostly as storage and I believe it is industrial staging for Redpath and a few other industries. Anyways, Cobourg station isn’t the most served VIA place so you will need a hotel again but my goodness, what a train bonanza. The VIA station is on the busiest CN line in Ontario; the Kingston Subdivision. Tons of CN trains including plenty of intermodal action. Also plenty of VIA trains running through at up to 100mph-stay back! Behind the station, directly behind is CP’s busiest line in Ontario, the Belleville Subdivision. It is really a great place I must go to once I get the time.
Trains there go really fast often and are really, really long. CN trains can be as long as 193 cars.
If you like watching passenger trains Mimico station is good. At rush hour there are lots of passenger trains, GO, VIA, Amtrak and Northland. CN freight trains too but not likely at rush hour.
Oshawa has some long freight trains go through. The freight yards are visable from here but rather inaccessable. 150+ car CN freights at up to 60 mph go through here. If you have a telescopic camera lens you can see the CPR trains on a very bussy single track bridge over the tracks east of the station.
Let me add to what has been said. I think if you go somewhere from Union you should pick a spot on the Lakeshore service as it operates hourly or more frequently during rush hour. If you go on one of the other lines the service is weekday only and oriented to inbound in the morning and outbound (from Union) in the evening. On the Lakeshore you can always go back relatively soon if you don’t like the location but on the other lines you would be trapped there for a long period between the morning and evening services. Be sure to look at the timetables at the site listed in one of the other messages.
If you want to see freight, GO and VIA Oshawa would be the spot as well as Aldershot.
Should you pick Mimico, be sure to walk to the Islington Avenue overpass where
you can see the GO facilities and what’s left of the VIA Toronto facilities.
If the weather is foul, you can go on the skywalk from Union and see the trains from “under cover.”
On the train iteself, I would suggest going to the end of the platform and riding in the cab car. Many times you can look out the door from your seat and get what amounts to a cab ride. Be sure to observe any signs about seats being reserved at the end of the cab car for train crew.
Dale
On weekends ride the train from union station to pickerin and back . Thats what I do you can do the same on weekdays trains are more frequent on the lakeshore run. rambo1…
Most of the lines are designed to get workers from the suburbs to the city in the morning and back out again at night. Lakeshore runs everyday in both directions (may not go all the way to the end of the line!) and Georgetown has partial service during weekdays.
Buy a daypass – same price as two single tickets but has no time restrictions and doesn’t need to be stamped. make sure your ticket covers the route you’re planning to use. There are no ticket takers – fare is checked by security at random times and the fine is around $100.
Check www.gotransit.com for schedules and fares.