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Metrolinx should get involved

February 27, 2018   ·   0 Comments

EDITORIAL

THE PENDING LOSS of Cando Rail Services Ltd. as operator of the Orangeville-Brampton Railway and its popular Credit Valley Explorer tour train must not mean the end of local rail service.

Although Cando has served notice that it plans to stop providing freight service as of June 30 and apparently has no plan to continue running the Explorer, it is apparently trying to assist Orangeville in searching for another short-line operator and a spokesperson says that if that fails, “we’re willing to stay on if we have to.”

It strikes us that there are several options that should be available. One would be for the Town to become the owner-operator, but that would require the purchase of a locomotive as well as the hiring of some staff.

Far preferable would be an agreement with Metrolinx that would see the line sold to GO Transit and the long-awaited restoration of some limited passenger service that would give  area commuters a means of avoiding GTA gridlocks.

Although there’s obviously not a need for GO Transit’s double-decker trains, we see plenty of potential for self-propelled rail diesel cars of the sort CP Rail once used on the line.

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