Also took advantage of the comp ride, and a couple of free beers from Mill Street and Union before and after...

Very pleasant ride (smooth except for the first bit out of Union to about King Street) and it is certainly a fast way to get out to T1. Trains are spacious and seating comfortable as advertised. Seemed to be a fair number of arriving and departing people with luggage using the train today. The price didn’t seem to be a deterrent to those riders. The Union Station platform is airy and spacious, coffee bar (Balzac) and a Mill Street pub along side. Lots of staff on hand at both ends, and on the trains, though this is likely not to be the case on normal days...otherwise they're way overstaffed!

The YYZ platform runs north of the inter-terminal train….there’s an inclined walkway from the end of that platform up to the UPX area. Nice views from the elevated tracks leaving and arriving YYZ. Tickets can be bought online and either printed on captured on a smart phone or tablet like a boarding pass. Using a Presto card you tap it on one of the units by the platform entry. On the train, an attendant will scan the card to see if it was tapped. (Attendant also scans paper or mobile ticket.) On leaving the platform at the other end, you tap the card on a Presto unit. Lots of ticketing machines at both ends, a staffed ticketing/help desk at Union, Presto units at both entry/exit points.

I live city centre, about a 20-minute walk to Union station. Will use it if I have early morning flights, particularly on Sundays since the subway doesn’t run until 9a (first UPX train is 5:30a), and when I get in really late at night to get home quickly (last train from YYZ 1a). However, the TTC is still more convenient and a lot cheaper. Generally takes me a bit over an hour from hopping my local bus or streetcar to the subway, get to Kipling and onto the 192.

I can see heavy use in bad weather and during rush hour periods when even expense account types can make it to/from YYZ without the hassle of a limo crawling through traffic, and if within the city they can use the PATH system to get to offices or hotels.

Like AC, PD and now YYZ, there is also a UPX magazine designed by the folks who did the PD one -- and similar to the AC YYZ-YUL mini-mag and the new YYZ one -- and handled the overall design elements for the UPX, Winnipeg expat Tyler Broulé's WINKEATIVE (Monocle, Wallpaper). PD even ran a "welcome" ad in the Toronto dailies yesterday.

Station at Bloor and Weston are not finished yet and it looks like it will be at least another year before there's a weather-protected walkway between the Bloor station and the Dundas West subway station. This is a huge oversight since the entire purpose of the Bloor station was to provide an easy/fast connection between the two systems. And the Mill Street lounge upstairs overlookng the Union platform is still not finished. Though question who'd want to spend an hour in the lounge if the whole point is getting to YYZ quickly? (Maybe if you're waiting for friends at Union instead of going out to the airport to meet them?)

I suppose time will tell how many riders will be taking the train, though with no dedicated airport bus to downtown any longer, there'll be a few hundred at day. Check back in 6 months' time.

From the Toronto Star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015...he-public.html