GO Transit Gets Better Wheels
Posted January 16, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Even Premier Dalton McGuinty couldn’t make the GO trains run on time for a big announcement about increasing ridership.
McGuinty was about 17 minutes late pulling into Union Station on Tuesday in the first of 27 powerful new trains the Ontario government purchased for GO Transit.
The province spent $143 million for the fuel-efficient (MP40) locomotives, which are able to pull longer trains carrying about 300 additional passengers.
McGuinty said the new trains are “quieter, faster, stronger, more reliable and more efficient.”
Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said they’ll help GO increase train ridership from its current 200,000 passengers a day by about 15 per cent, or another 30,000 riders.
The first of the new locomotives will be in service in about two months, with all 27 expected to be hauling commuters within two years.
They will be put into service along GO’s Lakeshore and Milton lines.
W ith files from The Canadian Press
