Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[urbanclient]

The difference between taking the train and flying is that the travel time spent on board the train is productive time for me, whereas the entire door-to-door travel time of the travel chain involving the plane is just frustrating me, as I will arrive in office after 3 hours without a single minute worked. And for most other travelers (e.g., leisure), the train will be cheaper and more convenient than the plane...

Great point on the productivity.

One personal gripe I have about the Corridor though, is that if I want to travel for leisure impromptu, that it's always cheaper to book a flight or drive (including gas and depreciation). I have to book well in advance, like over a month to get cheap Via tickets and even then I might have to borrow or rent a car at the destination. Cheaper IMO is a big maybe, and often in practice, no. Especially for round trips. Note these Via "from $x*" prices displayed prominently are for the worst departure/arrival time(s) of the day, not including taxes. Whereas, the plane tickets include taxes but no carry on. I hope Alto tries not to be significantly more pricey than Via, otherwise it just doesn't make financial sense for many to save 4 hours roundtrip versus driving, but spend hundreds if not thousands more. Even a solo roundtrip is cheaper at about $350-400 for driving including depreciation on a $40k car, but even more so if they have a large family. Am I the only one who doesn't plan out trips 2 months in advance?

 

[urbanclient]

Just out of interest, what kind of travel time would you find appropriate for two cities 504 km apart (Euclidean distance, measured between the respective VIA stations and partly running through Lake Ontario and the US) and what European or Asian examples come into your mind where a comparable distance is covered in, say, less than 3 hours?

For Euclidean, the easy cop out is China, with express Shanghai Hongqiao to Xuzhou East at 2:07 for the fastest trips of the day. Even non-express trains are under 3 hours. But top speeds are 350 km/h. Madrid Atocha to Barcelona Sants is 2:37 at 300 km/h top speed. But this is non-stop I believe.

That's the caveat with Alto, it's not going to have non-stops at opening afaik. And frankly the economics of non-stop probably won't be great for a long long time so perhaps it's not worth comparing today.

 

[micheal_can]

Just out of interest, what kind of travel time would you find appropriate for two cities 504 km apart (Euclidean distance, measured between the respective VIA stations and partly running through Lake Ontario and the US) and what European or Asian examples come into your mind where a comparable distance is covered in, say, less than 3 hours?

Half of 500 is 250. An average of 250km/hr should be achievable. That would mean a top speed for most of the route of at least 300km/hr to allow for slowing down into the stations. And this would be the T-O-M-QC express.

 

[a2z]

How good is the cellular coverage across the proposed corridor? I ask because there was a Globe article on "cellphone dead zones" recently, where a reader had identified Highway 7 east of Peterborough as being one of these zones. (Though perhaps this will not be a problem in 10 years.)

That and, from my experiences throughout the ICE network, the wi-fi (or personal hotspots used instead) there was generally unusable (at best, borderline usable only at certain points, if you were seated in first class) for work-related tasks, e.g. research, or a Teams call.
So while my productivity was still better than if I took a plane, rarely was it the case I was able to tackle any "new" work.

 

[micheal_can]

How good is the cellular coverage across the proposed corridor? I ask because there was a Globe article on "cellphone dead zones" recently, where a reader had identified Highway 7 east of Peterborough as being one of these zones. (Though perhaps this will not be a problem in 10 years.)

That and, from my experiences throughout the ICE network, the wi-fi (or personal hotspots used instead) there was generally unusable (at best, borderline usable only at certain points, if you were seated in first class) for work-related tasks, e.g. research, or a Teams call.
So while my productivity was still better than if I took a plane, rarely was it the case I was able to tackle any "new" work.

They are not wrong. However,most modern smart phones can make phone calls over wifi,and who knows how much better the cell networks will be in 15 years.

 

[nfitz]

How good is the cellular coverage across the proposed corridor? I ask because there was a Globe article on "cellphone dead zones" recently, where a reader had identified Highway 7 east of Peterborough as being one of these zones. (Though perhaps this will not be a problem in 10 years.)

It might depend on mobile provider. For Bell Canada, it looks like an Algonquin Park-sized whole in the middle of southern Ontario - but that far from Highway 7. I don't know which provider that Alto would select. Who do VIA and Air Canada use?

 

[lenaitch]

How good is the cellular coverage across the proposed corridor? I ask because there was a Globe article on "cellphone dead zones" recently, where a reader had identified Highway 7 east of Peterborough as being one of these zones. (Though perhaps this will not be a problem in 10 years.)

That and, from my experiences throughout the ICE network, the wi-fi (or personal hotspots used instead) there was generally unusable (at best, borderline usable only at certain points, if you were seated in first class) for work-related tasks, e.g. research, or a Teams call.
So while my productivity was still better than if I took a plane, rarely was it the case I was able to tackle any "new" work.

Dead or poor coverage area exist in all sorts of rural areas. I can only assume Alto would offer on-board connectivity. ONR offers it on their PBX but it is throttled and will offer it on the Northlander. A train full of people streaming movies for a few hours gobbles up a lot of expensive data.

 

[416InTrouble]

Can we debate Laval a little more? Please? Lol jeez. Next topic?

 

[kEiThZ]

350 km/h. Madrid Atocha to Barcelona Sants is 2:37 at 300 km/h top speed. But this is non-stop I believe.

That's an express. And that was not the speed when service first started. They've progressively upgraded and increased the speed. People demanding this on day one aren't going to get better service. They are going to balloon the cost and get it cancelled or get extensions cancelled.

 

[urbanclient]

That's the caveat with Alto, it's not going to have non-stops at opening afaik. And frankly the economics of non-stop probably won't be great for a long long time so perhaps it's not worth comparing today.

That's an express. And that was not the speed when service first started. They've progressively upgraded and increased the speed. People demanding this on day one aren't going to get better service. They are going to balloon the cost and get it cancelled or get extensions cancelled.

Who here is demanding express or non-stop? Btw express means less stops, non-stop means no stops right.

 

[kEiThZ]

Just out of interest, what kind of travel time would you find appropriate for two cities 504 km apart

I would like to know this too. He keeps talking about faster than the airplane like anything less than Maglev is too slow. I'm fairly sure if we just ran an express from Union to Gare Centrale non-stop it would beat the 2:40 I put above. But it would be as useful as the 1-2 express trains we have today. So not much.

 

[kEiThZ]

One personal gripe I have about the Corridor though, is that if I want to travel for leisure impromptu, that it's always cheaper to book a flight or drive (including gas and depreciation). I have to book well in advance, like over a month to get cheap Via tickets

AIrfare isn't cheaper the closer you get to the date either.

I hope Alto tries not to be significantly more pricey than Via, otherwise it just doesn't make financial sense for many to save 4 hours roundtrip versus driving, but spend hundreds if not thousands more. Even a solo roundtrip is cheaper at about $350-400 for driving including depreciation on a $40k car, but even more so if they have a large family.

I highly doubt HSR is going to be cheap. It's not cheap on long haul is most other countries. Even in Europe, most HSR is business travel, supercommuters and the wealthier tourists. Families will still roadtrip often enough.

It might depend on mobile provider. For Bell Canada, it looks like an Algonquin Park-sized whole in the middle of southern Ontario - but that far from Highway 7. I don't know which provider that Alto would select. Who do VIA and Air Canada use?

. They can just use satellite like Starlink. Or by the time this is built Lightspeed.

 

[kEiThZ]

Who here is demanding express or non-stop?

The guy who thinks 3:07 hrs from Toronto to Montreal is too slow.

 

[canucks2030]

Just out of interest, what kind of travel time would you find appropriate for two cities 504 km apart (Euclidean distance, measured between the respective VIA stations and partly running through Lake Ontario and the US) and what European or Asian examples come into your mind where a comparable distance is covered in, say, less than 3 hours?

Ottawa to Toronto will be 2h09 according to Alto. So proportionally the same with Montreal would be ideal. To clarify I am not saying it should be 2h09 between Montreal and Toronto since Montreal a bit further but should have been proportionally the same.

 

[kEiThZ]

Ottawa to Toronto will be 2h09 according to Alto. So proportionally the same with Montreal would be ideal. To clarify I am not saying it should be 2h09 between Montreal and Toronto since Montreal a bit further but should have been proportionally the same.

Goes right back to what I said before. You don't understand why this train goes to Ottawa. The only way to get the same time to Ottawa and to Montreal is to split the service. That would ruin the business case. Are you sure you actually support High Speed Rail?