Union Pearson Express gives free rides for Family Day weekend!

Union Pearson Express is offering free service during Family Day weekend, from Saturday, February 13 to Monday, February 15.

UP Express is Toronto's newest passenger train service. It opened to the public on June 6, 2015, in time for the Toronto 2015 Pan-Am Games. The self-propelled diesel powered trainsets run every fifteen minutes, seven days a week, taking 25 minutes to cover the 23.3 km between Toronto Union Station and Toronto Pearson International Airport. There are two intermediate stops at the Bloor and Weston GO Transit stations. UP Express is a division of Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency serving the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

Pearson Airport train service was controversial before it opened and has remained so, in part because of low ridership, which many have blamed on high ticket prices. The free service over Family Day weekend gives people who haven't taken the train a chance to see what it's like, or just a diverting way to spend an hour or so out of the long weekend. For railfans, it's an opportunity to collect a little bit of rare mileage; although most of the route duplicates GO Transit's Kitchener line, only UP Express trains ever travel over the 3.3 km spur to the airport terminal.

Posting by Andrew Jeanes; Images by Chris Killam (top and first three below) and Stephen Gardiner (bottom)

Click on each image for a closer look!