These statements are ... questionable (and other adjectives). Let's take a look, shall we?
Why do we think sharing freight with HFR (and there's more of it that's still on active freight than not) is going to work, but not on the Kingston sub? The Winchester Sub is well used, and VIA will be sharing almost the entire Sub from Smith Falls to near Dorion.
Because we're no longer running our main trains along the freight tracks.
For the record, I think passenger service should have dedicated tracks.
I'm not sure HFR should be on the table!! It's certainly may be a benefit for Ottawa service, being shorter. And it has the benefit of a lot less level crossings if they want to go for higher speeds one day. But it makes little sense for Montreal-Toronto service, and is at best slightly shorter than staying along the lake - while missing most of the population.
Ottawa and Peterborough isn't "most of the population" between T-M? The whole of the province east of Kingston isn't 2 million people.
Hkw is this difference than the CP Winchester sub from Smith Falls to Dorion. Obviously part of this is adding one, or even two, tracks reserved for VIA. And putting in enabling legislation and regulations to give passenger trains priority over freight, where such track has been added.
We could do that. We would also need to expand grade separations, ROW, and buy the (more expensive) land along the Kingston Sub.
Without the Ottawa bypass, the relatively slow travel times to Montreal from Toronto will impact ridership too much. The transport demand modelling would demonstrate that
Show me this modelling.
- which is presumably why the bypass suddenly appeared on the maps - because it is critical to HFR.
It's not more than 50 km longer, and improvements on the Ottawa segment would benefit T-M trains too.
The bypass appeared in some maps published by Quebec media. The VIA Rail HFR website sure doesn't feature it. I've not seen anything other than those Quebec maps, indicate this bypass.
I'm not sure why the personal attacks here. I've also lived in Ottawa ... used VIA a lot then. And I lived in Kingston for years (for a lot longer than I lived in Montreal!) - which if anything explains my hesitancy to cut services to Kingston.
VIA promises to keep service to Kingston. If you don't believe them, I don't blame you ... but this seems to be a NIMBY attitude and very much a "minority holding the majority hostage" situation.
Absolutely Ottawa needs to be part of this - but I'm not convinced this is the best approach. The VIA Fast solution that the Martin government killed, of the new link from Kingston up to Smith Falls would have been just as fast - if not faster - than running through Peterborough.
The goal of HFR is not speed. It's to get a relatively cheap, basic service that can be upgraded in the future (including the Ottawa bypass) to a better service.
A new alignment would be expensive. That would kill the plan entirely. The Havelock Sub is at least usable for the most part.
Seems to be some cherry picking here.
Hang on - now that VIA has figured out that the numbers don't work running the Montreal service through Ottawa
Have they? It's no longer than the Lakeshore route. I've only seen a map in Quebec media outlets.
, and have gone for the bypass through Kemptville, then Ottawa isn't anywhere close to the Toronto-Montreal alignment.
The Winchester Sub is no more than 50 km out of Ottawa.
So why include the Ottawa numbers - as Ottawa isn't served by either the current or future Toronto-Montreal service.
Still no proof.
Numbers, both from Urban Sky's data and from highway counts, show that T-O and T-M demand to be equivalent. The 416 takes half of the 401's traffic at that point.
False equivalency. We're still serving Montreal (without much degradation).
Wow - you missed Hamilton! And ignore that parts of Kitchener are closer to Galt than Kitchener Central.
Hamilton isn't served by the Galt Sub. If you mean the Dundas Sub, then you can't include Kitchener.
Though the issue here isn't so much about population
It is though, the more people you serve with a roughly equivalent trip speed and time, the better.
Don't measure transit by distance or speed. People travel to go somewhere useful, and the more somewheres you serve, the better.
- it's about the end-to-end travel time from London to Toronto - which is going to be on Dundas Sub - and if you have a second choice it's Galt.
K-L and K-T isn't a small market.
Surely your population numbers enforce this ... run the frequent express service through the lower density area, and the frequent slower service through the denser area - which would serve more the KW to London and KW to Toronto-type services, than London-Toronto.
That is fair.
Why is sharing adding track and sharing freight with CP and CN on the two southern Subs between Toronto and London out of the question, and would only repeat the mistakes of the past, but doing the exact same for almost the entire CP Winchester Sub not an issue?
Running limited trains on an entirely rural route where there is room for an extra VIA track (leasing arrangements might get complicated) is easier than running most SW Ontario trains on a semi-urban route where adding track is expensive (and you need more track).
I would be interested in train counts on the freight mainlines.
I can only assume that your desire to dodge the question means that you have no explanation why it will work in Eastern Ontario but not in Southwestern Ontario (not to mention the Trois-Rivières Sub if there's a future increase of freight traffic on the north shore!)
I personally would advocate for buying the Trois Rivières Sub if we were to HFR that segment. Will BNSF (is it them that own the track?) sell? If traffic is really that low, probably.
Why is sharing the Winchester sub with freight not a problem for HFR, but sharing the Dundas or Kingston sub would be?
See above.
