407 Rail Freight Bypass/The Missing Link

[smallspy]

Previous high speed rail studies have a high speed rail line using the exact same corridor. One of the conditions of the leasing of the 407 was to allow the construction of an adjacent railway line. I am not sure what grade issues a freight line would have in the same corridor if one were constructed. Grades can be smoothed out south of the 407, especially considering that the line would run adjacent to a hydro corridor.

A high-speed railway is nowhere close to being in the same league construction-wise as a freight line. As I wrote before, you want minimal grades on a freight line. Curvature is a bit of an issue drag-wise, but nowhere near as big. A high-speed passenger line - provided it is dedicated to high-speed passenger service - can tolerate grades as high as 4%, but you want to minimize the curves that the line will have to deal with.

And sure, the grades COULD be smoothed out on the land south of the 407 - but you're not going to be able to do that in an active hydro corridor.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[dunkalunk]

It really depends on which is considered more feasible for governments and corporations in the long run. Quad-tracking or tunnelling the existing rail corridor through the urbanized Downtown Brampton and Georgetown and still having to deal with intersections with freight traffic, Building embankments for a new rail corridor between a highway and an active hydro corridor, or endlessly investing in highway expansion. Of all of these scenarios, I see option 2 as the most preferable.

I see nothing particularly extreme elevation-wise in the lay of the land in the hydro corridor excepting where the line would cross the Credit River which would see a viaduct anyways.

 

[dunkalunk]

I never thought I'd see the day...

Area Municipalities Request Study that Could Transform Rail Network in Western GTA

Jun 24, 2015

The City of Mississauga, City of Toronto, City of Cambridge and the Town of Milton are each requesting support from their Council Members to partner on a study that could result in a transformation of the rail network in the western GTA.

“Improving rail transit in the western GTA would provide long-lasting benefits for our city. It would stimulate economic growth by attracting new talent, businesses, employers and students to the city while increasing innovation, growth opportunities and prosperity,” said Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie. “We share the same vision as our municipal partners and Mississauga is taking the lead, to bring about convenient and effective transit solutions to move people across the GTA and beyond. Similar to Mississauga’s LRT, there’s a strong foundation that supports the need for a regional rapid transit system.”

The federal government has indicated its intent to invest in transit infrastructure, including rapid transit. Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced $2.6 billion in funding for Toronto's SmartTrack transit plan, as a commitment ahead of October’s federal election.

Crombie adds, “The proposed study is called the Missing Link. It will play a crucial role in determining how our rail lines will be used to move people, goods and materials throughout the region in the future.”

The study will look at the feasibility and business case of constructing a new rail line that would connect the Milton GO line, west of Trafalgar Road in Milton to the CN Bramalea By-pass line in Brampton, beside Highway 407. This new line would relocate heavy freight rail away from the Milton and Kitchener GO lines in order to allow for two-way, all-day GO Train service on both of these lines. Another benefit would be that heavy freight would be relocated away from the most densely populated areas of the GTA, including central Mississauga.

Expanded GO service on the Milton line is a priority for Mississauga, with six of the eight Milton GO line stations (Dixie, Cooksville, Erindale, Streetsville, Meadowvale and Lisgar) located within the city.

“This is an important project that the City has a vested stake in,” said Janice Baker, City Manager and Chief Administrative Officer. “If it moves forward, there would be a lot of promising opportunities for the city. Cooksville Station is part of the Milton GO line that will eventually connect to the city’s LRT. This would make it easier for commuters to travel to, through and from Mississauga.”

The City is proposing that IBI Group be selected as the vendor to conduct the study. As the project lead, the City has tasked the IBI Group with determining the feasibility, cost and business case for the project with an eight-week turn-around time to complete reporting.

A Memorandum of Understanding (M.O.U.) between the partnering municipalities has been drafted, outlining how resources and costs will be shared. The feasibility study and business case will be finalized by mid-August.

For more information about the project: June 24 Council agenda.

http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/ci...onid=06B232AAD9DC3C6CF01F188D5A1524F7.node2-2

 

[gweed123]

I never thought I'd see the day...

http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/cityhall/pressreleases;jsessionid=06B232AAD9DC3C6CF01F188D5A1524F7.node2-2?paf_gear_id=9700020&itemId=4900716q&returnUrl=/portal/cityhall/pressreleases;jsessionid=06B232AAD9DC3C6CF01F188D5A1524F7.node2-2

Hallelujah!! I've maintained for a while now that the cost of building this freight bypass is much lower compared to expanding both the Milton and Kitchener corridors to accommodate GO RER + VIA (in Kitchener's case) + CN/CP. There would be a freight bypass along the entire northern arc of the GTA.

 

[mdrejhon]

Crossposted from GO construction thread.

It even mentions it would help make high speed rail possible, too.

However, apparently Mississauga is spearheading an effort to remove freight traffic from the Milton line.

Finally, brand new information on this. It also frees up the Toronto North Division for a future crosstown GO train line! They even mention this in the June 24th 2015 PDF on Page 55. This is probably "RER Phase II" stuff but Mississauga should get started well before the next round of megaproject funding in a future cycle.

Mississauga (and nearby municipalities) looks like they are going to be paying out of the pocket for an upcoming study ($84,000 funding for a study, page 53). My impression is that if it happens as suggestive, could potentially be an expensive multibillion dollar project to reoute the freight along the 407 beltway but they argue the following benefits that are far more valuable:

---Quoted from PDF---

Potential Benefits of the "Missing Link"

Relocating heavy freight rail traffic from the existing Milton and Kitchener GO Rail lines by way of a new rail line has many potential benefits. It would:

• Provide capacity for two-way, all-day GO Rail service on the Milton/Cambridge and Kitchener lines. Without this connection, providing capacity for two-way, all-day service on these lines would require considerable investment, including new bridges over the Credit River and additional tracks, which could end up costing more than the construction costs of the "missing link". Furthermore, upgrading the Milton/Cambridge and Kitchener lines would result in greater community disruption than with the new rail connection because these corridors are located in more dense/mature urban areas where there is limited room for expansion to accommodate the necessary grade separations and additional tracks.

• Relocate the movement of dangerous goods away from dense urban areas, such as downtown Toronto, central Brampton and central Mississauga.

• Make it much easier for GO Transit to potentially electrify both the Milton/Cambridge and Kitchener rail lines.

• Make the following rail lines (all of which are long-term corridors in The Big Move) available for future passenger rail service: the North Toronto line, the Agincourt line, and the lower portion of the Bolton line.

• Permit the construction of another link in the Don Valley between CP and CN thereby allowing for improvements to the Richmond Hill GO Rail line.

• Provide potential corridors for High Speed Rail to enter the GTA from both the east and west.

The need for two-way, all-day GO Rail service on the Milton GO line for Mississauga

After the Lakeshore GO West/East lines, the Milton GO line is the busiest by ridership in GO Transit's rail network. Of the eight stations on this line, six are located within Mississauga (Dixie, Cooksville, Erindale, Streetsville, Meadowvale and Lisgar) meaning that the vast majority of the six million annual trips on the Milton GO line are made by Mississauga residents. The Cooksville GO station, with future Council STRATEGIC PLAN: - 5 - June 12, 2015 connections to the Hurontario-Main LRT will provide access to Mississauga's Downtown and major employment areas along the Hurontario corridor. In addition, the Meadowvale GO station provides access to another major employment area of the City.

Currently, service is limited to peak-direction, 15-minute service during peak hours, and because the Milton corridor is completely owned by CP and operated as their main freight line, there is limited opportunity for service enhancements without expanding the number of tracks meaning that no future off-peak services are currently planned for this line. The need for two-way, all-day service through Mississauga to Milton and beyond to Cambridge is supported through multiple planning studies in order to support Mississauga's and provincial growth and planning frameworks, respond to growing traffic congestion, meet latent demand for inter-regional transit service as well as support economic development in Mississauga, the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), the region known as the Continental Gateway and Canada's Innovation Supercluster.

The need for expanded GO Rail service to Waterloo Region

Extension of GO Rail service to Cambridge and the provision of twoway GO Rail service to Kitchener are also fundamental transportation improvements required to sustain and enhance a vibrant broader regional economy and livable and thriving urban growth centres. These two important regional passenger rail services would be integrated with the Light Rail system in Waterloo Region, currently under construction, making it possible to travel seamlessly by transit between the GTA and Waterloo (see Appendix 3). Convenient and reliable transit which connects the GTA and Waterloo is needed to ensure that employees and business travelers can access the growing technology, financial and post-secondary sectors in both regions.
​

---end PDF---

Interesting to see that re-routing freight may actually end up being cheaper than upgrading Milton to permit 2-way all day service. Very good reason to trade the freight train companies a free (billion dollar league) new rail line in exchange for a massive goldmine of a rail route rededicated 100% to commuter service. If the federal NDP gets voted in, this could gain a lot of traction.

The Ontario GO RER announcements shunning Milton has woken up a few within Mississauga council, and hopefully some traction can occur. The spinoff benefits of resurrecting rail lines back to passenger service is massive over the timescale of a century, and would be a cheap solution "when looking back in the rearview mirror".

BEFORE:

^^^ BEFORE ^^^

AFTER:

^^^ AFTER ^^^

The green lines are lines freed up for 100% passenger operation. Look at all the green!
-- Enables more electricifation
-- frees up HSR to Kitchener
-- frees up GO all day service (15-min RER) on Kitchener line into/past Brampton
-- frees up GO all day service (15-min RER) on Milton line into Missisauga
-- frees up crosstown line on North Toronto subdivision
-- Richmond Hill RER refurbishment becomes much more economically justifiable
-- easier to provide Bolton GO service

The $84,000 study funding is split evenly among Mississauga, Toronto, Milton and Cambridge (page 54).

 

[gweed123]

Thanks for the report link! There's a few items that the report doesn't mention though:

1) Would diverting CP traffic onto the York Sub require any upgrades to the existing sub? Presumably the freight traffic using the line would roughly double if CP was added into the mix.

2) Would CP require a new yard on the York Sub? What would happen to the Scarborough Yard?

3) Would CN even be willing to let CP use the York Sub? It's not CN's problem that CP doesn't have a bypass route.

 

[mdrejhon]

1) Would diverting CP traffic onto the York Sub require any upgrades to the existing sub? Presumably the freight traffic using the line would roughly double if CP was added into the mix.

2) Would CP require a new yard on the York Sub? What would happen to the Scarborough Yard?

3) Would CN even be willing to let CP use the York Sub? It's not CN's problem that CP doesn't have a bypass route.

I'm not sure about CN and CP sharing the same track. I think it would be separate CN and CP tracks along the same corridor. A little federal help (some sticks, but mostly a big pile of carrots) will be required to force them to tolerate that, but it's a good quid pro quo. So, presumably, extra trackage would be installed, and probably a large monetary transfer will be involved, but cheaper than trying to build extra track along Milton (with all the attendant expropriation, etc). It's in Mississauga interests to avoid kicking down their voter houses.

A few years ago, we had $1 billion federal funding to expand rail service, including speeding up VIA service through Kingston by 30 minutes with extra trackage. I saw the track expansions going on there. But this extra trackage is built on freight-owned corridor and they're using them, sometimes blocking VIA trains that it's meant to help! And now VIA trains are slower again. The extra tracks benefitted the freight companies more. How ironic. Government funding has often benefitted the freight rail companies. This will be no different, but this time we'd be getting a quid pro quo -- some horse-trading of rail corridors and everybody wins. Metrolinx gets a multi-billion-dollar transit jackpot for Ontario rail expansion, CN/CP can move more freight faster (if extra parallel trackage installed in 407 corridor) in locations further away from residential areas,

Both CN and CP trains are both being redirected, so CN will also benefit too, since the rail bypass removes them from Brampton and possibly sends them down a fully-grade-separated corridor that might end up having higher speed limits with less neighbour issues. So CN wins too, if this is done properly.

The rail corridor near 407 is almost completely grade-separated already -- moreso than both Milton and Brampton has lots of grade separation already. But extra bridges and overpasses may be needed if extra track is required to permit both CN/CP to tolerate corridor sharing with separate tracks for each. Some rail-to-rail grade separations would be needed throughout the network and probably would be a major cost component, given the smaller grades warranted for freight (imagine the long trenches necessary for 0.5%-1.0% grade, while Metrolinx uses up to 2%). Both freight companies gain a possibly 100% grade-separated corridor, dramatically increasing rail safety and also increasing speeds. The 407 alignment also straightens out things for CP too (the Milton line is more curvy than the Missing Link route).

Another alternative is a new corporation owns the freight track that both CN/CP shares to bypass, with some kind of an ironclad guarantee / SLA that shareholders of freight companies are happy with. I don't know if there are precedents elsewhere in the world where more than 1 freight company shares the same corridor by running over consortium-owned track. But there must be several. Like multiple competing airlines sometimes can own parts of the same airport terminal. The study really needs to study the corporate political aspect too, as it can be a dealbreaker to either CN or CP or both, often being each other's arch-enemies.

Of course, CN and CP would need to see their stocks increase as a result of this.
And it's in our government's and public's interest too -- our pension plan (CPP) owns part of both CN and CP! Maybe CPP can own the Freig

 

[Edward Skira]

The green lines are lines freed up for 100% passenger operation. Look at all the green!

What happens to customers that currently use those future green lines? The TTC, for example, get their streetcars that way.

 

[mdrejhon]

What happens to customers that currently use those future green lines? The TTC, for example, get their streetcars that way.

Probably there will be allowances for nighttime freight to do "special deliveries". I think this is a good question. (e.g. freight running rights at nighttime, for good temporal separation away from RER services). CN has non-priority running rights on the Metrolinx-owned Lakeshore GO line, so there could be an arrangement like that.

Alternatively, a 905 depot could deliver cargo to a Metrolinx-owned freight locomotive outside of Metrolinx rail, and Metrolinx gains responsibility to do the special deliveries (e.g. new transit vehicles on railbeds).

I suppose this has to be solved one way or another, but there seems to be multiple solutions.

 

[dowlingm]

So this lands on Hunter Harrison's desk. He asks himself, "what's in this for me and my shareholders, having to divert the long way around Toronto and having limited access to Agincourt. Oh and they can't expropriate me."

Meanwhile, if you're a homeowner along this supposed bypass route, what are you thinking? You didn't buy a house near a rail line, still less one which might carry oil trains.

EDIT: just thought of something else - how much is 407ETR going to want to be compensated for any and all disruption/acquisition in the 407 corridor?

 

[mdrejhon]

So this lands on Hunter Harrison's desk. He asks himself, "what's in this for me and my shareholders, having to divert the long way around Toronto and having limited access to Agincourt. Oh and they can't expropriate me."

Meanwhile, if you're a homeowner along this supposed bypass route, what are you thinking? You didn't buy a house near a rail line, still less one which might carry oil trains.

EDIT: just thought of something else - how much is 407ETR going to want to be compensated for any and all disruption/acquisition in the 407 corridor?

Bingo. This all needs to be studied. Pulling this off might cost billions, but will probably cost many fewer billions than other alternatives of freeing up many corridors to passenger-priority use.

Oil trains and hazardous vehicles ply near the rest of the 407 already, but it is true that adding rail to the unused 407 ROW will butt trains less than a hundred meters from several residential areas not currently getting nearby freight trains. This, however, is much lower density than the Milton corridor.

 

[smallspy]

I'm not sure about CN and CP sharing the same track. I think it would be separate CN and CP tracks along the same corridor.

Operating independent lines in the same corridor - especially in a situation like this where someone else is building the line for them - is silly, a waste of resources, and is far more inefficient. At the very least it will be a double-track main that both railroads will have access to.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[mdrejhon]

Hopefully saner minds agree too. It's a really, really big ask for CN and CP.

Maybe an independent consortium who runs the freight corridor. Whose interests is to maximize freight traffic for both CN and CP simultaneously. It would purchase the proposed-shared right-of-way from CP (for a very rich shareholder dollar and a running rights guarantee). Or this company could be a CP spinoff and an IPO. And then profit off freight running rights for both CN and CP, with a shareholder interest in maximizing freight train transits with a minimum of interference and prevents either freight companies from interfering with each other (like intentionally running a slow train to save fuel, and to also block a more urgent freight train by your competition). By avoiding such conflict-of-interest incidents, both CEOs happy, shareholders happy. Some capital funding (or even IPO) is needed to successfully do this, but the 407 corridor operator (existing corridor and Freight Bypass) would have a shareholder return, capital semi-backed by the government loans, and our funds (CPP, etc) may actually have an interest. Or it could be a crown corporation doing it. Whatever's legal and CN/CP agrees; I think it could work either direction. But some people may not like private running an expropriated corridor next to the 407 (we know how controversial the 407 was), even though most of the corridor that this consortium would own would be formerly CP-owned (not publicly owned).

Compromise might be necessary, like a third passing track to allay worries of freight blocking freight. Still operated by such a consortium, to keep freight movements maximized.

 

[dowlingm]

Bingo. This all needs to be studied. Pulling this off might cost billions, but will probably cost many fewer billions than other alternatives of freeing up many corridors to passenger-priority use.

Oil trains and hazardous vehicles ply near the rest of the 407 already, but it is true that adding rail to the unused 407 ROW will butt trains less than a hundred meters from several residential areas not currently getting nearby freight trains. This, however, is much lower density than the Milton corridor.

Who's gonna tell CAASCO that the 407 ROW (presumably earmarked for expansion) is going to be given over to rail?

The issue here is that they want to stay east of Brampton and presumably leave the 407 east of Bramalea GO because otherwise the trains could be routed via Silver Junction or that one just west of Brampton GO. But that creates an even more complex junction with the York Sub than is there now.

After the fiasco with SmartTrack along Eglinton one hopes this isn't another Google Maps proposal. We can do that here for free.

 

[mdrejhon]

Who's gonna tell CAASCO that the 407 ROW (presumably earmarked for expansion) is going to be given over to rail?

If you look, the Missing Link is along a massive power transmission corridor that is three or four pylons wide!

There is lots of buffer space near the power transmission pylons, there is actually twice aa much corridor width (before northmost power transmission line) south of 407 so even if you widen the 407, it would butt northern developments before it butts the freight bypass even if it had plenty of berth away from those power pylons.

I don't believe CAASCO controls all of that land, maybe Hydro One does (who owns that transmission corridor adjacent to the 407 corridor?)

There is enough land that both could conceivably route over either land in a creative routing. Dangle some green and see which one of the two (CAASCO or Hydro One) bites first?

Heck, with structural protection walls, theoretically, freight can run between the power pylons. But I do not think Hydro would like that, deramilments would be a royal mess with power loss, and the substation becomes an issue. And it is not necessary, due to the buffer space (not sure who owns the buffer, but I think Hydro One does, as it looks like a transmission corridor service road delinating the end.

I think the ideal space seems to be between the 407 and the power pylons, so it has far less NIMBY as the freight won't butt much residential in the Bypass (the new section). Built on Hydro owned land, perhaps. It would not prevent the maximum planned 407 widening. If sufficienty trenched low (to underpass all north-south roads) it keeps the pylons safe during the majority of theoretical freight accidents.

That way, 407 can double width without interference by the Freight Byass, and the pylons remain safe, plus greatly reduced NIMBY as homes would be more than 100 meters away from the new freight line due to being north of the massive electrical transmission corridor pylons. And it has enough berth from most interchanges.

Any opinions?