It depends what you mean by "High Speed Rail".
I'm referring to
this EA which starts(ed) in 2015. This environmental assessment is
already funded in the Ontario budget released April 2015 (as a line item in a $1bn subsection of the budget):
Ontario Budget said:
The Province is also moving forward with investments in transportation networks that will help improve mobility outside the GTHA, including:
- Expanding additional segments of Highway 11/17 between Thunder Bay and Nipigon;
- Constructing a new alignment of Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph;
- Making improvements to Highway 401 in London and Highway 417 in Ottawa;
- Advancing an environmental assessment for a high-speed rail line that will connect Windsor, London, Kitchener–Waterloo and Toronto;
- Supporting the Maley Drive Extension project in Sudbury. In December 2014, the Province proposed the project to the federal government for cost-sharing under the Building Canada Fund; and
- Committing to infrastructure development, including transportation, in the Ring of Fire region.
The primary HSR corridor candidate currently goes through Brampton. The one that CN owns. The one that the Missing Link will solve.
To pull this off on the Brampton corridor, without disrupting GO train service, we need to remove freight trains from going through Brampton. This is where the Bypass comes in. The currently planned triple-track through Brampton can simultaneously support both HSR and GOtrains, but not freight.
Obviously, HSR would be subject to speed limits, but the Brampton corridor section is pretty straight as an arrow and should be able to easily sustain a 200kph sprint (even if not 300) with rail upgrades, full grade separation, assuming rail curvature does not change, and good noisewalls are put up. It becomes much simpler to run electrification through this corridor, and not need to change tracks, permitting trains to whoosh in the center track through Brampton at high speeds. (And to keep Brampton happy, complete grade separation, noisewalls, and a few fast semi-expresses that adds a Brampton stop that brings Brampton residents to downtown in under 30 minutes). All of this is not achievable if freight continues to run through Brampton.
Also, full grade separation the remainder of the way to Kitchener is much easier once Brampton is grade-separated. Rural grade separations are much easier than expropriations and expensive cramped urban grade separation projects. The Georgetown South megaproject, plus the planned Brampton grade separations, is literally 50% of the grade separation work for Kitchener grade-separation. Once that's done, we've already done 50% of the grade-separation work for higher performance trainsets to Kitchener. Obviously, we'll need to add a few higher speed trackage (e.g. Guelph bypass, etc) if we want a few 250-300kph "sprints" in certain sections -- such capable trainsets would occur if the London HSR ROW is built, so it'd be in our interests to incrementally improve HSR trainset performance in the Georgetown corridors; and we cannot incrementally improve HSR performance in the Brampton corridor without expropriating CN from Brampton. And to do that, we may end up needing the Missing Link freight bypass.
We might be able to incrementally electrify through Brampton under CN ownership but we might not be able to do incremental speedups/HSR trainset sprinting over the subsequent years, until we own that section through Brampton. How it happens in many countries when they upgrade existing corridors to HSR compatibility incrementally, is that they fix things like fixing curvature, realigning tracks, eliminating unnecessary crossovers, grade separating, etc. In some countries they've successfully upgraded existing freight corridor to double speed limits. Brampton's line is sufficiently straightarrow enough to allow such gradual incremental upgrades over a long term. It only takes a few kilometers to accelerate an EMU trainset to 200kph (and about 15km for 300kph). Even the Bramalea rail curve that goes under the 407 has enough land in its inner radius, to triple turn radius, to keep trains going 200-250kph through that curve. That's ~
30km of realistic
250kph operation all the way near Acton to near Weston (40km excluding the acceleration/deceleration needed, so I knocked 10km for the accelerate/decelerate room). That actually shaves several minutes off a Kitchener trip. So that's one candidate "incremental speedup upgrade" that could happen over the long term, as is typical with the incremental-upgrade approach of polishing an existing corridor to higher speed operations. Once that 407 rail underpass curve is sped up, there's a very good long 250kph sprint until just before Weston curve, assuming the rail/curvature/grade sepration is made ready. It shaves a minute off, then another minute off, and then trains are arriving 25% sooner, etc, over the long term, saving money from having to purchase extra train sets, increasing HSR ridership gradually, etc. It isn't precedentless to do the incremental HSR approach, and if you look carefully, the Brampton sub is a straight arrow except for the 407 underpass whose radius can at least be tripled to permit 250kph curve operations for an approximately-30-kilometer 250kph sprint. All these incremental upgrades become much easier if Metrolinx owns this corridor. Obviously, a rail-to-rail grade separation will be needed, and this will be where grade and grade curvature issues comes into play (for either freight or HSR or both), but done properly, 250kph can be maintained through the 407 underpass (albiet 407 overpass curvature may need to be relocated/modified to avoid interfering with HSR rail curvature).
The land needed to triple turning radius is all grass at the moment, and would not even require the demolition of the
Massiv Die Form (manufacturer) building adjacent to one of the required rail-to-rail grade separations which also happens to be the 250kph-straightenable Bramalea curve. Though it would need to receive an alternate freight access when freight trains are rerouted (but still nearby -- the manufacturer would now be adjacent to the brand new Missing Link freight bypass!), as there's a freight track into Massiv Die Form. This is adjacent to the one of the necessary rail-to-rail grade separations required (the westmost one marked on the pictured map), so this is an opportunity to also widen the turning radius to permit a 250kph curve at that 407 underpass to enable a long true-HSR sprint between near-Acton and near-Weston.
This is a very complex rail-to-rail grade separation with lots of interdependencies. Especially in respect to a shared project such as redoing the 407 rail interchange near Massiv Die Form (as well as the adjacent 407 road overpass, HSR-compatible turning radius AND rail-to-rail grade separation connection to the Missing Link north endpoint near Massiv Die Form). If this is done, this is a megaproject that requires a semi-rebuild of the 407 overpass concurrent with a rail-to-rail grade separation, and an alternate freight access for Massiv Die Form (which will now be adjacent to the Missing Link). And when this project is done, making sure that the turning radius permits a HSR sprint from Acton to Weston. All the stakeholders would need to co-operate for such a complex task: Mississauga, HSR Study, Ontario, CN/CP, manufacturers such as Massiv Die Form, etc.
Once that rail-to-rail grade separation is done, we're finished with rail-to-rail grade separations in the Georgetown Corridor all the way to Kitchener! (I think -- though there might be one more in Kitchener-Guelph). This single megaproject location simultaneously benefits GO service, we can do electrifation, Metrolinx owns the corridor, complete road and rail separation achieved, true-HSR-sprintable after corridor grooming (250kph Acton-Weston), whee!
Anyway, even without those incremental speedups, the freight bypass could be, very well, germane to HSR trainsets even if they still slowly taxi through Brampton. Considering the multimillion dollar budget for a high speed train environmental assessment in this year's Ontario Budget.
It would be in Mississauga's interest to
co-ordinate their study with Ontario's HSR study, to make sure that the studies are compatible with each other to suggest congruent modifications and cover interdependencies, since both Mississauga and Ontario have concurrently funded separate studies that may have interdependencies.
