High Speed Rail Forum!

[FFX-ME]

The point I'm trying to make is that we need dedicated tracks, not high-speed rail. It would only cost 4B$ to get dedicated tracks for the entirety of the QC-Toronto corridor, plus 2B$ to electrify it. Compare that with 15B$ to get HSR between London and Toronto. It would serve way more people, a far greater distance, and cost 1/4.

[haljackey]

It's a valid point that passenger rail needs dedicated track.

However if we were to build one today, we may as well build for tomorrow and make high speed rather than conventional track. Higher speeds will also attract more riders which could help offset the additional construction costs a bit.

At this point I'm down for anything. Optimally you want 300km+ track / trains but at the low end I'll take dedicated conventional track. The 250km/h track proposed is a good compromise.

[FFX-ME]

The VIA project would cost about $7m/km while, typically, HSR in North America costs about $70m/km (all in CAD) and Ontario's line would be about $57m/km. Now consider that the 'HSR' option would likely run at 300km/h and that the trains on VIA's option would run at 200km/h (or up to 220 km/h) if electrified. Is that small increase in speed worth the 8 times higher cost.

Spun a different way, for X dollars we get 8 times less rail with the 'high-speed' option.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

But people still had cell phones.

Barely any comparison between a handheld touchscreen computer and a wireless telephone.

[MolsonExport]

the CN TurboTrain

I used to travel on this fairly often in the 70s...my Dad worked for CNR and we had free passage on CN, later Via, passenger trains.

Derailments were a big problem, as I recall. The trains were super cool, inside and out.
• Video Link

[Dupcheck]

If you build it and properly advertise it, people will come.

[kaiserLDN]

Referring to FFX-ME comments.

The idea of dedicated via trains are great also. However you're missing the point about why high speed rail to London Kitchener is even being considered. First of all its about rapidly growing this corridor. If the population was going to stay the same. I would agree with everything you said. However we are an hour and half away from a world class city in a country everyone wants to live in and London is the one of cheapest biggest cities in Canada if not #1. KW and London have lots of room to rapidly grow. This will make London more commutable to Toronto. This will be to hard explain to you so I found some articles explaining it also.

Note also I like high-speed rail here but I hate Wynne, and the liberals. I don't think she will make this happen. I think she is lying, and also think she will screw it all up if she does build it. But I will defend why need it. I also think we still need highway linking north London to Kitchener not everyone will take the train.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...n-ontario.html

http://www.lfpress.com/2016/04/15/vi...nst-high-speed

These articles help a bit...I just agree with these articles of why we actually need the high speed rail not some of the other stuff they say.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by kaiserLDN

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...n-ontario.html

great article

[FFX-ME]

Like I said, the LFP article states that HSR is usually not high-speed because of the stops and indeed a good portion of the journey would run under 200 km/h. The article is also misleading in stating that the VIA proposal wouldn't be faster and would use the same train. This is false. Electrified it would use faster trains with top speeds around 220 km/h, not the current 100 km/h average speed. This is a game changer. The Toronto-London route would not be halved by high-speed rail. It would be halved by dedicated rail, everything else is cosmetic.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

Like I said, the LFP article states that HSR is usually not high-speed because of the stops and indeed a good portion of the journey would run under 200 km/h. The article is also misleading in stating that the VIA proposal wouldn't be faster and would use the same train. This is false. Electrified it would use faster trains with top speeds around 220 km/h, not the current 100 km/h average speed. This is a game changer. The Toronto-London route would not be halved by high-speed rail. It would be halved by dedicated rail, everything else is cosmetic.

Since VIA is a national rail company run by the government, whose interests are in multiple provinces, we are not going to see game changing rail improvements in the near future in London, Ontario. Ontario politicians have an interest in Ontario and this is the route that makes sense for Ontario and has a greater chance of being built than VIA Rail acquiring ROW from Toronto to London. You can state this or that about technology, etc. but I don't hear VIA saying they are building dedicated tracks to London and using Electric trains. So HSR is what we are being offered and we are damn happy about it.

[FFX-ME]

True. It's a shame that they didn't propose their model for the entirety of the corridor. With rail being so flaky in Canada I don't know whether this added competition will be good or detrimental for rail transit in the rest of the country. The corridor is after all the bread and butter of VIA and helps pay for maintaining rail transportation throughout the country.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

We barely have the traffic in order to cover the costs of regular passenger rail, upgrading this to electric HSR would be unviable. The only place where the density is high enough to support HSR is southern Ontario and in that case the distances are too short for HSR to actually make a difference.

Several assumptions packed into your post. For starters, traffic today is not an indicator of what it will be in the future with VIA's HFR or Queen's Park's HSR. The faster the service (on the Toronto-London portion), the more it becomes amenable to commuters. Likewise, the faster Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montreal go, the more they compete with air travel. So, the traffic gain does not rise linearly with average speed. It rises exponentially.

Next, there's an assumption here that HSR is being built from scratch. It isn't. GO is working on an electrified regional rail plan till Kitchener (GO RER). Making that compatible with HSR is rather incremental. The stretch to London is really the only portion that's new in their plans.

Lastly, you assume the proposals are competing rather than complementary. In reality, VIA's HFR/Dedicated Tracks project along with the GO RER/HSR corridor means VIA will be able to offer a substantially faster, through service (continues through Toronto rather than terminating there). The only question here is whether the terminus will be in Kitchener or London (determined by where the electrified corridor ends).

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

It would only cost 4B$ to get dedicated tracks for the entirety of the QC-Toronto corridor, plus 2B$ to electrify it.

Where are you getting this number from? VIA claims that much just on the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal portion of their dedicated tracks project. Going west of Toronto will be substantially more expensive since it's much more developed.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Where are you getting this number from? VIA claims that much just on the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal portion of their dedicated tracks project. Going west of Toronto will be substantially more expensive since it's much more developed.

VIA's website... virtually all outlets give the same price...

Their proposal would use a lot of existing rail.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

VIA's website... virtually all outlets give the same price...

Their proposal would use a lot of existing rail.

I see the confusion here. I have been following VIA's HFR proposal for a while. When the first started the cost estimate was to Montreal. Not Quebec City. Just checked the website. They are now saying Quebec City.

I still think they are being a little optimistic. I think the costs will be going up after the estimate gets a real once-over from the CIB. For example, VIA dropped the ball on this:

http://www.cat-bus.com/2016/10/via-t...regional-rail/

How much will that cost to remedy?

Their first cut estimate seems to be very rough. Especially when we're talking about using the now defunct Shining Waters railway. It's easy to say they use "existing rail". In reality, a lot of that rail is in poor condition, converted to trails or has curve or grades that would not see them achieving desired speeds. I am eagerly waiting to see what the CIB says later this year. I think the corridor will be a lot more than $4 billion. Though $2 billion for electrification is probably accurate.

In any event, the rest of your points stand. VIA's project and Queen's Park's proposal should not be seen as competing. They are complimentary. If VIA succeeds with the Toronto-Quebec City HFR proposal, then the service will be significantly enhanced by the ability to continue through Union westward till Kitchener or London, at even faster speeds. This would, for example, even make it attractive for a traveler from Kitchener to take the train to Ottawa over a flight since the additional time of air travel would be marginal. Heck, even London to Ottawa becomes competitive with air given the required transfer at Pearson.

[MolsonExport]

I will bet you a shiny new dime that VIA would be all over this if Ontario let them run it after it was built. Call me crazy.

[go_leafs_go02]

Updated SHIFT Business Case and Report:

http://sire.london.ca/view.aspx?cabi...&fileid=292893

One thing of note, it notes the potential of a RT tunnel on Clarence south of King to go under a new high speed rail station and the CN railway.

Costs also noted now at $500 Million. Complete by 2028.

[warpus]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

Reality check. You need distance for high speed rail to make a distance

VIA rail speed on dedicated tracks: 177 km/h
French TGV average speed: 250 km/h

and so:

Toronto-Waterloo (c.a. 113 km), time savings: 9 minutes
Toronto-London (c.a. 190 km), time savings: 19 minutes
Toronto-Ottawa (c.a. 400 km), time savings: 40 minutes
Ottawa-Montreal (c.a. 200 km), time savings: 20 minutes
Toronto-Montreal (c.a. 540 km), time savings: 56 minutes
Edmonton-Calgary (c.a. 300 km), time savings: 30 minutes

To even consider the Toronto-Waterloo option is incredibly idiotic. Billions of dollars in investment to build a fancy transit line that will save 10 minutes in travel time.

Union station to London on the high speed rail line would take 76 minutes. That's about 55 minutes faster than the fastest London-Toronto VIA service currently..

So your 19 minutes is way off and I would imagine the other numbers are way off as well.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by warpus

Union station to London on the high speed rail line would take 76 minutes. That's about 55 minutes faster than the fastest London-Toronto VIA service currently..

So your 19 minutes is way off and I would imagine the other numbers are way off as well.

The comparison is with respect to conventional rail on a dedicated track, not the status quo.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

The comparison is with respect to conventional rail on a dedicated track, not the status quo.

You are assuming that conventional track is cheap to build in Southern Ontario. For VIA, they have the corridors like the Shining Waters railway which are unused. There's no such option in Southwestern Ontario that I know of. So they'd have to build a new corridor. I suspect the delta from regular rail to high speed rail is rather small when discussing constructing a corridor from scratch.