[roger1818]

It took me a few days but I finally got caught up on this thread after finding it the other day and here are some of my thoughts.

I strongly agree that we should work towards re-instating a Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton train, but it needs to be done right. You only have one chance for a first impression and we can't blow it. Before we can invest that kind of money into this project, we need to get the majority of Canada's population on board. That is where HFR comes in.

If you ask the average Canadian their thoughts of rail travel, while they might have some romantic feelings about it from the glory days, in general most believe it to be an antiquated mode of transport. You can't really blame them with half of VIA's fleet dating back to the 50's, a third from the 70's and the remainder used rust buckets bought from the UK that don't quite work with the rest of their infrastructure. The speed of the trains in the Corridor isn't bad (always room for improvement though), but the on time performance is abysmal and on most routes, it is too infrequent to be convenient (Toronto-Ottawa being an exception, but still isn't optimal).

The new fleet will help with VIA's image, but it won't do anything for the other issues. That is where HFR comes in. With dedicated tracks, VIA has complete control over their schedule and don't have to wait for freight trains.

Another important benefit of HFR is while currently there are 3 independent routes (Montreal-Ottawa, Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto). Boosting frequency on any 1 of those routes will do nothing for the other 2. By having one Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto route, they all help each other. This way by using the about same amount of equipment (and labour) as the current 10 trains a day from Ottawa-Toronto, 6 trains from Montreal-Toronto and 5 trains from Montreal-Ottawa, they can have 16 trains a day on all three legs. That improvement in frequency alone will make the train much more popular.

Once almost half of the country's population sees how good trains can be, the electorate will be behind motions to improve rail service in other parts of the country. Currently, any opposition to rail service for Calgary would be more on the lines that "trains suck" than we don't want to support Calgary. By changing people's attitude about trains, it changes their desire to support it.

As for servicing smaller markets, I have seen a lot of "we need to do it to cut our GHG emissions" arguments. For those small markets, that argument doesn't hold water. Trains are big and heavy and as such are heavy emitters of GHG. Their saving grace is that they can carry a lot of people so if it is full (or close to it) the per person emissions are small, but if it is nearly empty, its per person emissions become very large. For small trains, using DMUs can help, but their emissions are still larger than that of a bus. If the train is empty enough, its per person emissions can be worse than a single occupant vehicle.

The other issue with longer distance rail travel is it isn't economically competitive with flying. While fuel costs are lower, both infrastructure and labour costs are higher. I won't get into infrastructure costs, but if you assume a train requires just as many employees (on a per passenger basis) as an airplane, but the train takes 4-6 time longer than flying, the labour costs end up being 4-6 times higher (assuming equal salaries). That extra cost becomes very significant in the cost of the ticket. If it is an overnight train, costs get even higher with rotating shifts and sleeper cars carry less than half the number of passengers as a coach, not only increasing infrastructure costs, but requiring more employees per passenger (each car needs a steward).

As much as I would love to see the return of rail travel all across the country, I am also realistic about where it is feasible and where it isn't

And before people jump to conclusions about my bias because of my location. I was born, raised and educated in BC and only moved to Ottawa after I graduated from University. I am very well aware of western alienation, but also now see that while there is a grain of truth to it, much of it is caused by sentimentalization by politicians and the media. Building a rail-line when the people are asking for a pipeline is like Marie-Antoinette saying "Let them eat cake" to her starving subjects (granted BC doesn't want the pipeline, which is the crux of the problem).