The West Harbour GO Station opened in the summer of 2015 for the Pan Am Games. The station initially opened in a partially finished position with much of the landscaping unfinished, some of the interiors not quite finished, and the parking facilities still under construction. Since then the station has been completed and is serviced by morning and peak trains on weekdays.

But one train that will once again not be making a stop at the station is the weekend Niagara GO train.

To say that the station is finished is true, but some of the surrounding infrastructure is far from complete. The station, while having two train platforms, only has one functioning track. The second platform has a track beside the platform itself, but this doesn’t connect to the main line and has been uncompleted for several months. Furthermore the platforms themselves are on a siding. The track that is connected to the main line ends abruptly meaning that any train stopping at the station must then back out in order to continue east towards Niagara.

This is presumably the reason that the trains travelling between Toronto and Niagara, which pass on the main line directly beside the station, will not stop at the station.

This shouldn’t be a stumbling block though as the two trains which terminate at the station through the week, after dropping off passengers at the station, proceed to back out of the station and continue east to the train yard at Lewis Road in Stoney Creek. There seems to be little reason why this can’t be done to facilitate a stop in Hamilton for this seasonal train service.

A secondary reason for the lack of stop at West Harbour GO could stem from the “open for business” status of the station itself. The ticket booth and the station building are only open for 75 minutes a day during the week. The signage on the station and on the GO Transit website lists the hours of operation for the station from 5:45 AM – 7:00 AM from Monday thru Friday. In order to have trains stop at the station there would need to be staffing on site from at 9:00 AM thru 12:00 midnight.

I’ve reached out to GO Transit to find out the reasoning for skipping the West Harbour GO Station for the third consecutive year.

UPDATE: Below is Metrolinx’s responce to the lack of service again this year. (NOTE – I am unable to decipher an answer)