Union Pearson Express


Area served	Toronto, ON
Founded	2003
Fleet size	18 DMU
Ridership	N/A

The Union Pearson Express, or simply UP, is a rail service linking Union Station and Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Ontario with intermediate stops at Bloor GO Station and Weston GO Station. The Union Pearson Express shares a 22-kilometre portion of the corridor with the GO Transit Kitchener line, branching off at Highway 427 with a new three-kilometre, elevated rail spur to Terminal 1. The service offers 140 trips every day, with the operating headways averaging every 15 minutes. Travel time between Union and Pearson takes 25 minutes.

History

Engineering firm SNC-Lavalin was awarded the contract in 2003 to finance, design, construct, operate, and maintain the rail service. Early proposals dubbed the line Blue22, reflecting the time it would take to travel between Union and Pearson Airport. It was projected to begin service between 2008 and 2010, however little had been achieved by 2008. One of the early ideas for equipment was to use heavily overhauled Budd RDC self-propelled passenger cars to operate the service.

On July 30, 2010, SNC-Lavalin announced that the public-private partnership had been terminated, citing financial issues. The Ontario government turned to Metrolinx to oversee design, construction, and operation of the service, which became known as the Air Rail Link (ARL).^[1] The present name was unveiled on November 29, 2012 as part of the presentation of Metrolinx's next wave of Big Move projects.^[2]

Construction of the spur line to Terminal 1 began in 2012. Construction of the station at Terminal 1, which necessitated the shut-down of the inter-terminal LINK Train, began in March 2013. The official start of construction of the station at Union was marked on July 16, 2013.

The Union Pearson Express began passenger service on on June 6, 2015. To promote the service, 1500 free round-trip tickets were offered to the public.