The Union-Pearson Express

On Sunday, September 06, 2015 I continued exploring/studying Union Station and the “UP” express..

Day or night my little point’n’pray camera gets befuddled. Last Tuesday it was with the bright lights at nighttime. Today it is with bright light of daytime!

I climb the stairs from the GO Bus terminal, the third time in eight days.

I have mounted the stairs and am facing west; through the swing doors is Platform 3.

On the side wall, difficult for you to see in this photo, is a sign pointing towards “UP”.

Yes; it’s platform 3 alright.

Away in the distance is the little twin rail-car set called the UP Express.

I recall 1962-63 building plastic kit models of Railcars that ran on British Rail for low-volume passenger routes; local feeder routes, probably.

As I draw closer the train pulls out; every fifteen minutes.

A red cone marks the doorway through which we are forbidden to pass. The door is locked; “An alarm will sound ...” etc.

And here is a close-up. Beyond lies the PU-PU express.

Note the red signal light telling the VIA rail drivers not to get too close!

I am walking back the way I came, looking backwards. The sign on the wall is one of legion which makes the unsuspecting passenger think that they can get to the UP Express this way.

These doors tell us we can get to the UP Express, but first we have to make our way to, and then through, the York Concourse.

What a devious way to shepherd people who arrive by GO bus and want to catch an airplane!

You think you can get to the walkway between the station and UP Express/Skydome through these doors, but you can’t; they are locked. Both of them.

I took this poor photo in an attempt to show that the public is walking past, just on the other side of the door. Why lock the door that claims to give access to a public area.

Service is not a strong point of Public Transit in Canada’s greatest city.

This ramp would fool even a person in a wheel-chair; they would get to the door at the foot of the ramp and find that that door too is locked.

I would imagine it is tricky reversing a wheelchair backwards up a ramp.

I make my way to the Great Hall having chatted with four employees along the way. The Departures board says 11:25, but the clock says 9:05. One employee says it has been like that for two months, at least.

Why can’t Union Station send someone to Wal-Mart for a new clock?

Or at least some rechargeable batteries?

I had conversations with several employees.

On Platform 3 a Union station guy spent about fifteen minutes with me explaining why the door to UP is locked; it is because UP is NOT part of Union Station, VIA rail, GO or anything else. He agreed with me that passengers coming in by bus (practically the only way of getting into town on a weekend) would be helped if they could walk onto the UP platform, especially since UP already has signs saying “Pay before you board” or similar.

He agreed that “UP” sounded confusing when allied with “sub-way”; then he volunteered that “VIA Rail” was confusing too, you can go via Cobourg to get to Port Hope.

Same guy also went off to see why the doors were locked; he assured me that they should have been unlocked. I gave him ten out of ten.

A security guard downstairs agreed that it was a weird way to get from platform 3 to York Concourse, the signage sending you through the VIA rail sheep pens southwards, then west, then north again. A regular maze is how he described it. He also agreed that the (literal) double-orange line that marks the boundary of us (UP Express) and them (all the rest) means nothing at all to passengers, who want a seamless way of getting about. Another instance of Transit being focused on its own belly-button instead of service to its customers.

Then I had a chat with two clerks manning one of the kiosks. They too think that the folks who ran the Cinnamon bun, lottery tickets, coffee, newspaper kiosks and the like are all out of business. There are no similar places in the York Concourse.

I stressed that it was stupid building a two-car train service that shuttled only between the airport and Union; the clerks agreed that for most Toronto residents, they still had to hop on the TTC, and therefore may as well have taken the TTC bus from the airport to Kipling and been on the subway already. One small fare.

The airport is circled in purple.

You have to wonder why one wouldn’t just make a spur, “bend the line a bit”, to make the GO trains pass through the airport:-

(1) We already have GO trains and have spare parts for them, We might have to buy a few more. The cost would have to be less than building the infra-structure for this new toy train.

(2) We already have engineers trained to drive GO trains and teams of mechanics trained to maintain GO trains.

(3) People way west of Toronto – London, Stratford etc could park their car in Kitchener and catch a train directly to the airport.

(4) People way east of Toronto – Cobourg, Peterborough etc could park their car in Oshawa and catch a train directly to the airport.

(5) People who live in Toronto could park at Guildwood, Eglinton, Scarborough etc and catch a train directly to the airport.

(6) People who live near the Lakeshore West line (Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville etc could on one ticket, ride into Union, cross a platform, and get to the airport that way.

(7) I imagine that enhanced trains to the airport might woo some folks away from flying out of London or Hamilton; that ought to be good for Pearson.

(8) And then ordinary people like me (retired and on holiday) or folks who want to visit Aunt Myrtle out in Acton could do so and boost revenues.

Still, that’s just me; I think like a passenger.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

I wandered around and explored a bit more. At three in the afternoon a train pulled in; eighteen passengers got off, and one minute before departure twenty-four were seated.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Emboldened by my new knowledge collected two days ago I made another trip.

Here is a shot taken from the south-east corner of York and Front streets. Union Station (and hence the GO Train concourse known as “York”) are off to the left; that’s a corner of the limestone building that is Union Station peeking in at the top left.

I am facing south.

A sheltered pedestrian corridor runs across York street on its way to the UP-platform, the CN tower and Skydome.

The UP platform is in the building on the right-hand side of the photo, essentially behind the trees, but starting where the lamppost is and moving off to the right-of-photo from there.

The Toronto Transit Commission subway platforms are waaaaay off to the left of my photo. I have previously stepped out the distance from the entrance/exit of the UP Express platform to the first Toronto Transit Commission ticket wicket – 500 paces!

Taken from the same spot but looking down one level.

I am still facing south.

These stairs are the counterpart of the stairs at the eastern end of the building, the stairs we used to take to get to the old Bay concourse – now sealed off for renovation.

The couple have exited Union Station; I will enter through the doors behind them, deke left and then up to the York Concourse to get my Presto card up-funded at the GO Train Ticket wicket, after which I’d like to visit the UP express.

Last Saturday I managed to get three different security chaps in three different locations to agree that the signs for the UP Express are confusing.

I am leaving the GO concourse and would like to get to the UP Express platform.

I am now facing North. My first two photos were taken from a spot one floor up and roughly forty-five degrees to my left.

The arrow that says “York Street” is actually pointing to where I’d like to be – to the west of this spot, but the UP sign points to the right.

Sigh!

I walk forwards a few paces and look to my left (“York Street”). Through those glass doors, down a few stairs, across York Street and up a few stairs and I’ll be walking along the pedestrian corridor behind those trees, almost at the UP Express platforms.

But I faithfully follow the arrow that points off to my right (east) and will end up at that “yellow wall” at the far end of the corridor.

Here is a detail from the photo above; from where I stood the (purple-circled) sign is illegible, but when you get up close it reads “UP” and has a wheelchair symbol.

The escalator goes UP (if English is not your first language) but best of luck getting onto it in a wheelchair!

This is the only UP Express sign along the corridor; there are no re-assuring signs along the way.

I fuzzed this shot; there are too many people in it. Off to the left a young lady is asking a security guard for directions; she is confused.

The lady in the white jacket is just standing still; she is probably so confused that she has decided not to get lost again.

I walk on and take the escalator (out of sight, still, but off to the left once you reach the yellow wall)

At the top of the escalator the Front Street entrance at the western end of the north face of Union Station shows on the right of this photo.

A pillar on the left tells me to head left, west, to get to the UP Express platform.

That’s right!

I have walked east underground, come up one level, and must now walk west PAST the spot where I stood one floor below and four minutes ago!

The York Concourse was opened for the Pan-Am games this year after what seems like a million years construction.

I wish that they had asked me.

I would have painted broad coloured lines on the floors, inlaid tiles, illuminated glass floor tiles, SOMETHING that was tied to each service:-

(1) Follow the Red lines to get to the TTC

(2) Follow the Yellow lines to get to VIA Rail

(3) Follow the Blue lines to get outside into the fresh air

(4) Follow the Green lines to get to GO Transit

(5) Follow the Purple lines to get to the nearest washrooms

(6) Follow the Brown lines to get to the UP Express.

You get the idea.

Why doesn’t management?