Rail: Ontario-Quebec High Speed Rail Study

[GregWTravels]

It's that "other" country, I know, but Joe Biden is a frequent user of Amtrak, and recently said on a press-tour/photo-op on a train ride from D.C. to Wilmington, Delware that if elected, Obama-Biden would be the "most train-friendly administration ever."

It would be interesting to see if the USA starts spending on upgrades to Amtrak if Canada would follow suit.

 

[kEiThZ]

What has not come up in this thread is the impact of HSR on smaller communities along the VDQ-Windsor corridor. Given that inter-metropolis travellers make up the bread and butter of Via's revenue on this routing, if HSR were offered, they would likely have to stop offering service to smaller communities along the route, as their slower lines became to expensive to run and would degrade HSR's advantage if they stopped in small towns. I think that would lead to significant opposition by these communities to HSR. That's a big part of why I think HSR does not have any real political backing. Which administration wants to be the one to take half of all communities along the route off the timetable?

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

Small communities do not have to be skipped over nor does the performance of the line have to be affected by serving them. Service to these places can easily be accomodated by simply building small side sections that would allow a train to leave the mainline, make a stop at a smaller station, and then move on. Morning and afternoon service would obviously have a lot of trains that serve only major markets but by having other trains serve an additional 1 or 2 smaller markets on each run you could offer service to small towns and not affect travel time too much.

By offering fares based on total travel time (a Toronto - Montreal express would be more than a train that made a few extra stops), you can also price trips fairly and give customers a chance to save money by taking slightly longer, but less expensive trains that make a few more stops.

 

[RedRocket191]

The way I see it, high speed rail in southern Ontario & Quebec should not remove the local service.

I envision two tiers of service:

The current VIA network, with upgrades to improve reliability and speeds between stops.

A high speed rail line across a new corridor (or alongside the existing corridor) with stops at the major cities.

I think high speed rail should enhance the VIA network - not replace it.

 

[kEiThZ]

The way I see it, high speed rail in southern Ontario & Quebec should not remove the local service.

I envision two tiers of service:

The current VIA network, with upgrades to improve reliability and speeds between stops.

A high speed rail line across a new corridor (or alongside the existing corridor) with stops at the major cities.

I think high speed rail should enhance the VIA network - not replace it.

If the majority of Via's current pax are travelling from metro to metro, then an HSR will draw the profit generating customers away and Via classic would be stuck with the less profitable client base. The current Via would not survive if HSR was setup as a competitor. And if HSR was a component of VIA, then there would certainly be pressure to can the less profitable lines.

Small communities do not have to be skipped over nor does the performance of the line have to be affected by serving them. Service to these places can easily be accomodated by simply building small side sections that would allow a train to leave the mainline, make a stop at a smaller station, and then move on. Morning and afternoon service would obviously have a lot of trains that serve only major markets but by having other trains serve an additional 1 or 2 smaller markets on each run you could offer service to small towns and not affect travel time too much.

One possible way out....

 

[nfitz]

The current Via would not survive if HSR was setup as a competitor.

Though that's unlikely. The plan for a quarter-century has been for VIA to operate high speed.

And if HSR was a component of VIA, then there would certainly be pressure to can the less profitable lines.

Would there be? Even though the main rail routing goes from Toronto-Brantford-London, VIA has been running multiple trains on the less used Toronto-Kitchener-London routing, with no cuts in 20 years - in fact services have increased. And they continue to run the Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara Falls service.

If only we could have this problem in our lifetimes. We're in the middle of an election now, with more pressure than ever to find solutions to take cars off roads; and I haven't heard one word mentioned by any party.

 

[Northern Light]

Politics

Two parties have mentioned VIA or Highspeed thus far.

Greens: "Via service to be restored to every major centre in Canada."
(Thunder Bay, Hamilton, Peterborough, Calgary, and I believe somewhere in NB)

Libs: (paraphrase) "Will support mechanisms to assist in financing new infrastructure, such as high speed rail"

Sounds pretty fuzzy....

Don't think I've seen anything Tory or NDP on this yet.

 

[kEiThZ]

Would there be? Even though the main rail routing goes from Toronto-Brantford-London, VIA has been running multiple trains on the less used Toronto-Kitchener-London routing, with no cuts in 20 years - in fact services have increased. And they continue to run the Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara Falls service.

I am thinking in the east...Port Hope, Gananoque, Trenton, etc.

 

[nfitz]

I am thinking in the east...Port Hope, Gananoque, Trenton, etc.

Presumably if VIA has continued to run a local route such as Toronto-Kitchener-London with increasing ridership, then I'm sure they'll still continue to run a Montreal-Kingston-Toronto to get all the towns like this, and perhaps even Kingston in some alignments, that would miss out on a Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto high speed route.

In my experience (mostly in the 1980s and 1990s) on that Montreal-Toronto route, a lot of the passengers were not going from Montreal to Toronto on the milk runs - and those that were, avoided the milk runs.

 

[smuncky]

Maybe we could get some of these.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/09/18...ally-friendly-super-express-train/#more-14473

Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. recently announced that it is developing the country’s fastest high speed train! Named the “Environmentally Friendly Super Express Train” (efSET), the modern marvel will propel passengers along at 217 miles per hour, besting the record-holding Shinkansen’s 186mph. The streamlined design also promises to be less noisy, more energy efficient, and will feature a state-of-the-art electrical control system.

The introduction of Kawasaki’s new high-speed train stands to improve upon Japan’s standing rail system, already considered to be one of the most efficient in the world. The efSET will feature an extremely lightweight and aerodynamic profile in addition to a regenerative braking system that will recycle the kinetic energy generated by its movement.
Kawasaki plans to finalize the design by March 2010, and the company has already announced that it plans to prepare the efSET for international release. They estimate that 10,000 km of high-speed railways will be deployed over the next 20 years.

 

[waterloowarrior]

here's a pic I took in Italy.... aerial photo

I think it is the Rome-Florence High speed line in the centre... and the local/regular line in the foreground.

 

[afransen]

What about Via (or partner with Greyhound) buses to feed stations so the line wouldn't necessarily require many spurs and stations. Couple that with some park and ride (which would be economical in smaller centres), an HSR line would still be more appealing than air travel for much of the hinterland.

 

[kEiThZ]

What about Via (or partner with Greyhound) buses to feed stations so the line wouldn't necessarily require many spurs and stations. Couple that with some park and ride (which would be economical in smaller centres), an HSR line would still be more appealing than air travel for much of the hinterland.

Here's the problem. Small towns have terrible transit. I was posted to Trenton for a bit, and I don't know a single person who used transit in Belleville or Trenton. It seemed like it was designed just to cater to students.

Aside from terrible transit, consider how coach buses operate. They don't radiate out of small towns (ie. Belleville to Trenton). They usually operate in parallel to VIA itself.

The park and ride idea is more appealing. Though it would probably have to be free to work....like most VIA lots right now.

All in all, there are some pretty big challenges in implementing HSR and providing reasonable service to small towns. And without their support, I really think HSR would be a hard sell politically.

 

[jn_12]

Southern Ontario is not unique. We're making it sound like we have a dilemma that no one else has. Why not just look at how service is provided overseas and how smaller communities are included (or not) and why they do it this way. Considering most of the small towns are within a short drive from either the 401 or a city that could use rail service, this is probably no different to Britain. Wikipedia has some good stuff on there. It's also important to note that Britain doesn't have the highway structure that we have which makes it far more difficult for people to travel any distance to get from their small town to he rail station. Here at least a town like Welland has a direct highway to St Catharines and Niagara Falls.

Their passenger rail usage fell significantly from the mid-40s (it peaks immediately post war and drops to almost no use by the 80s). What changed was privatization. As soon as companies got involved rail service took off and it should be at it's highest use in history by the end of the decade. Perhaps its time to rethink VIA. You don't think all indications would suggest that with rising gas prices, congestion and one of the economic engines in the world that a couple companies wouldn't jump at the opportunity? I'm usually against privatization, but in the case of trains its been shown elsewhere that it really does work.

 

[urbanfan89]

Their passenger rail usage fell significantly from the mid-40s (it peaks immediately post war and drops to almost no use by the 80s). What changed was privatization. As soon as companies got involved rail service took off and it should be at it's highest use in history by the end of the decade. Perhaps its time to rethink VIA. You don't think all indications would suggest that with rising gas prices, congestion and one of the economic engines in the world that a couple companies wouldn't jump at the opportunity? I'm usually against privatization, but in the case of trains its been shown elsewhere that it really does work.

Increased rail use isn't unique to Britain and its rail privatization at all. All of Europe experienced the same trend as infrastructure investment was boosted.

Besides, British government rail subsidies *rose* dramatically after the privatization and infrastructure was neglected until the railways became a national joke. It's now a textbook example of how *not* to run a business.