IRSE International Convention

Monday's reception evening will be an opportunity for delegates and guests to meet each other. This starts at 6pm in the convention hotel

The Seminar day will be held at the main convention hotel, introducing the visits within the convention and highlighting other interesting features about railway Signalling, Control and Communications systems in Canada and North America.

Technical Visits include:

• Thales Rail signalling facility
  • over 1000 staff and two floors of simulators
• Metrolinx Crosstown LRT line
  • The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is a 19km 25 station LRT running East-West across mid-town Toronto with more than 10km running in a dedicated, tunnelled right of way using a GoA2 CBTC system on the mainline and GoA4 in the yard
    
  • The system has finished major construction and is expected to start revenue service towards the end of 2024
• Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) subway CBTC system
  • TTC deployed CBTC moving block GoA2 on line 1, including the TYSSE extension increasing system capacity by 25%
  • Includes visiting the Hillcrest operation and maintenance facility for the subway and LRT systems
  • Includes a ride to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre
• Hillcrest OCC & Leslie Barn facilities
  • Hillcrest Operations Control Centre is a state of the art, centralised control centre, providing the main hub for operation of all TTC Bus, Streetcar, and Subway services
  • Leslie Barns is the maintenance and storage facility for the TTC Streetcar fleet of Bombardier Flexity, low-floor, accessible vehicles
• Go Transit Willowbrook rail maintenance facility
  • Willowbrook Rail Maintenance Facility, located in an 18,600 sqm site, is the dedicated maintenance facility for the whole of GO Transit’s rail fleet of General Motors FP59H and Motive Power Industries MP40PH locomotives, and Can-Car Rail/Hawker Siddeley and Bombardier Bi-Level cars
• Go Transit Union Station Rail Corridor - John Street Tower
  • Union Station Rail Corridor (USRC) is the railway infrastructure leading to Toronto Union Station
  • This heavy rail system services approximately more than 300 train movements daily through its four interlockings and it is critical to GO Transit and VIA rail operations
  • The current wayside signal technology dates from the 1930s and consists of a complex network of approximately 275 switches and 200 signals, controlling over 4000 signalled routes from 3 electro-mechanical machines and 1 VDU controlled relay interlocking
  • John Street Tower contains 1 interlocking machine and the VDU based control system

Other technical visits are being investigated and details will be added here when agreements have been reached

The final Convention event on Friday evening will be a gala dinner in the convention hotel for all delegates and guests, finishing at midnight.

Plans change!

• Have you booked for the Convention-only and you are now able to arrive in Toronto earlier?
• Is your guest spending time with friends while you are at the Convention, but would like to join everyone for the first social event of Convention?
• Has your company paid for the Convention-only ticket but you would like to join your colleagues for the optional trip?

Tickets for the optional Niagara Falls trip are now available to be purchased separately.

Join your Convention colleagues and guests for the full day tour - Niagara Falls, Skylon Tower (including 3 course lunch), Niagara on the Lake (including wine sampling) - the coaches will leave the convention hotel (Courtyard Downtown Toronto) at 07:45

Please book your ticket here

These are ideal opportunities to get to know your Convention colleagues, make new friends and discuss business in a relaxed environment.

Activities planned are:

• The Monday evening reception to meet other delegates and guests
• An evening dinner cruise on Lake Ontairo
  • Enjoy an evening on iconic Lake Ontario with great food and company
• A visit to the CN Tower
  • The CN Tower is a 553.3 m-high (1,815.3 ft) concrete communications and observation tower in Toronto. Completed in 1976, it is located in downtown Toronto, built on the former Railway Lands. Its name "CN" referred to Canadian National, the railway company that built the tower
  • It is a signature icon of Toronto's skyline and attracts more than two million international visitors annually.
• A reception hosted by Hatch
• Friday evening of the Convention will be celebrated at the gala dinner for all guests and delegates

Delegates can book their partners onto the non-technical Guest Programme to get to know the area as well as other guests and their partners. 

This is a program of tourist activities in the local area and it includes:

• 30,000 Island Lake Cruise
  • In the Great Lakes of Ontario guests will discover the rugged beauty of Georgian Bay’s 30,000 Islands, the largest concentration of freshwater islands in the world
  • These islands, shoals and waterways support an ecosystem so unique that the area has earned World Biosphere Reserve status from the United Nations
  • Many of the paintings by the Canadian “Group of Seven” artists feature the Georgian Bay Shoreline and the adjacent windswept islands with their distinctive trees and large boulders. Believing that a distinct Canadian art could be developed through direct contact with nature, the Group of Seven is best known for its paintings inspired by the Canadian landscape, and initiated the first major Canadian national art movement. Large collections of work of the Group of Seven are located at the  Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, which we will be visiting as part of the guest programme
• Black Creek Pioneer Village
  • A living time capsule, an authentically re-created country village that transports visitors straight into the heart of 19th-century Ontario. From trades and crafts to catchy old-fashioned music, they will get an immersive experience of pioneer times
  • See their website for further details https://blackcreek.ca/
• Casa Loma 
  • Casa Loma is a Gothic Revival castle-style mansion and garden estate in midtown Toronto that is now a treasured heritage museum, landmark and one of North America’s most enchanting tourist attractions
  • Due to its unique architectural character, Casa Loma has been a popular filming location for movies and television. Each year over 650,000 visitors tour Toronto’s Casa Loma and the historic estate gardens
  • See their website for further details https://casaloma.ca/
• Art Gallery of Ontario
  • The AGO has a vast collection ranging from works by the “Group of Seven” to works by established and emerging Indigenous Canadian artists; there is a collection of close to 95,000 works ranging from cutting-edge contemporary art such as Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) by Pierre Huyghe to European masterpieces such as Peter Paul Rubens’s The Massacre of The Innocents; with a photography collection that tracks the impact of the medium with deep holdings of works by artists such as Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus; and with focused collections in Gothic boxwood miniatures and Western and Central African art
  • See their website for further details https://ago.ca/

Prices are:

• IRSE members and their guests * - Early bird rate £695 ** (approx CAD $1189) per person, £745 ** (approx CAD $1275) after 15 April
• IRSE Younger Members - £695 ** (approx CAD $1189) per person
• Non IRSE members and their guests * - Early bird rate £895 ** (approx CAD $1531) per person, £945 ** (approx CAD $1617) after 15 April
• Optional trip to Niagara Falls (limited places) - additional £95 (approx CAD $162) **

* only one guest per delegate (guests have their own programme to participate in)

** prices are per person and payment is only accepted in GDP

Click here to book your place at the Convention with the Niagara Falls trip

Click here to book your place at the Convention only

Prices are for the delegate (and guest) programmes only and do not include travel to/from or accommodation in Toronto

Bursaries are available for IRSE International Convention 2024

• 15 Hewlett Fisher bursaries are  available for early careers IRSE members to apply for to contribute up to GBP £1,400 towards travel and accommodation costs for this year's International Convention plus entrance fees to the convention and the optional Niagara Falls trip.
• IRSE Younger Members are invited to apply for one of these bursaries by completing the application form (pdf version in document library below).
• Applicants must be IRSE members with all subscription fees paid at the time of applying, and be either 35 years old or younger or be in the first 10 years of their railway control and communications engineering careers. 
• Applications close on 30 April 2024.
• Successful applicants will be reimbursed against travel and accommodation receipts.

Accommodation information:

• Delegates are reminded that the Convention starts on the afternoon/evening of Monday 26 Augusts and finishes after the gala dinner on the evening of Friday 30 August.
• There is a very competitive discount on the room-only rate at the Courtyard Downtown Toronto (the official Convention hotel) of CAD $319 per night during the Convention. Details of this will be sent on receipt of payment of booking. The number of discounted rooms available is limited and must be booked by 20 June.
• There are, of course, other accommodation providers in the area.
• Delegates are responsible for making their own travel and accommodation arrangements, and this is not within the Convention prices.