Lakeshore West line

History

The Lakeshore West line is the oldest of GO's services, opening as part of the then-unified Lakeshore line on GO Transit's first day of operations on May 23, 1967. The first train left at 4:50 am from Oakville bound for Toronto, ten minutes before service began out of Pickering. During the three-year experiment, all day GO Train service ran hourly from Oakville to Pickering with limited rush hour train service to Hamilton. The experiment proved to be extremely popular; GO Transit carried its first million riders during its first four months, and averaged 15,000 per day soon after.

Service began running west from Union, stopping at Mimico, Long Branch, Port Credit, Lorne Park, Clarkson, and Oakville. Rush-hour trains ran to Bronte, Burlington and Hamilton, at the former CN railway station at James Street.

GO trains started serving the Canadian National Exhibition in August 1967 from an older platform just west of the Dufferin Street bridge over the Lakeshore West line and the Queen Elizabeth Way. For the 1968 Exhibition season, temporary booths were set up to handle passengers, which topped 24,000 on the season's busiest day. This prompted the need for a proper station with additional capacity, and by the 1968 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, the current Exhibition GO Station was built and put in service.

Lorne Park Station closed within the first year of the line's operation. Burlington was re-located approximately 750 metres eastward in March 1980. Appleby GO Station opened on September 19, 1988, followed by Aldershot on May 25, 1992. The opening of Aldershot coincided with the extension of all day and weekend service from Oakville to Burlington, however, this was reversed due to budget cuts on July 3, 1993.

Service to Hamilton was re-routed from the James Street station to downtown, at the current Hamilton GO Centre on April 29, 1996. All day service to Burlington was restored on May 1, 2000, and extended to Aldershot on September 7, 2007. On June 29, 2013, all day service was increased to operate trains every 30 minutes.

A third track was added between Sixteen Mile creek and the Port Credit station. Combined with additional work undertaken since the early 1990s, this gives the Lakeshore West line at least three tracks from Union Station through to Bayview Junction.

West Harbour GO Station opened in July 2015, serving as a second Hamilton terminus for rush-hour train service. This new station was built adjacent to the former CNR James Street station used by GO until 1996.

Lakeshore West trains have become more and more crowded at rush hours, even though trains are often only ten minutes apart. This has led to increasingly serious planning of electrified trains on the Lakeshore corridor, often termed GO Transit Regional Express Rail.

An April 2011 report stated that the Grimsby Subdivision of the Canadian National Railway was the preferred corridor for service to the Regional Municipality of Niagara. The other option was the Hamilton Subdivision of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Service

On weekdays, trains run on the Lakeshore West line every 30 minutes or better between approximately 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. eastbound from Aldershot, and between approximately 6 a.m. and midnight westbound from Union. Service start an hour or two later on weekends and holidays. On weekdays, six trains serve Hamilton directly in the morning and the evening rush hour, four at Hamilton GO Centre and two at West Harbour GO Station. At other times, buses connect Hamilton GO Centre to Aldershot and Union Station.

Since 2009, GO Transit has operated excursion trains to St. Catharines and Niagara Falls on summer weekends and holidays. The train makes limited stops along the line (Exhibition, Port Credit, Oakville and Burlington) before continuing around Burlington Bay and heading east into Niagara Region.

On May 26, 2015, the Government of Ontario announced that service would be extended to Confederation GO Station in Stoney Creek. Construction is expected to begin in 2017, with the extension completed in 2019. In June 2016, Ontario Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca announced the line would be extended to Grimsby, with the Grimsby GO Station expected to open in 2021.

In 2008, Metrolinx published its regional transportation entitled The Big Move. As part of this, the agency identified an express all-day service between Hamilton and Oshawa (via Toronto Union) as one of its top 15 priorities. Metrolinx has also committed to eventually providing service every 15 minutes on the line, as well as electrifying railways. This project, dubbed Regional Express Rail, is expected to reduce some trip times by 20%.

Ownership

In order to facilitate service expansions, GO Transit's parent agency Metrolinx has slowly acquired portions of all corridors of the GO Transit system from the freight railroads, Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). Most of the Lakeshore West line operates along the Oakville subdivision, and until 1998, it was completely owned by CN.

The first segment of the Oakville subdivision, between Union Station and 30th Street in Etobicoke (just west of GO's Willowbrook yard), was acquired from CN on March 31, 2010. On March 27, 2012, a second segment was purchased to the west, to a point just west of Fourth Line in Oakville. On March 22, 2013, Metrolinx completed a third segment purchase westward to a point just east of where the CN Halton Subdivision joins the line in Burlington.

These three segments represent Metrolinx's current ownership of the line. CN continues to own the tracks between Burlington and the Desjardins Canal, as well as the Grimsby subdivision that carries trains into Niagara. CP owns the tracks between the Desjardins Canal and the Hamilton GO Centre.