Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[urbanclient]

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.

With how slow the train might be coming out of Toronto (see sources posted on this thread), I doubt a route average of 250 km/h is possible, plus 500 km would be the great circle distance Toronto to Montreal, not the euclidean line distance to Ottawa and then Montreal. Alto Toronto to Montreal would be closer to 550 km at best (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

More importantly, trains do not cruise at top speed the entire time and only Chinese built HSR operates at up to 350 km/h. HSR must slow down for curves necessitated by geography, both physical and human. This applies even in China, where lines are mostly on elevated viaducts, unlike Alto. 250 km/h route average would be very fast, even by Chinese standards. This would easily rank in the top 20* edit* top 10 in China out of ~50 total lines, the entire top 10 hitting 350 km/h. Number 1 is Beijing to Shanghai at ~290 km/h terminus to terminus; shorter point to point trips can be a bit faster at ~315 km/h.

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

Look at my screenshots, flying is somehow cheaper for Dec 29-Jan 2. Is two weeks notice that late for train tickets? You can't even buy train tickets sooner than 15 days in China. Obviously I'm not covering all cases, but Via is often more expensive than flying if you leave within a month's notice. Both in the my past experience and today.

Via also doesn't appear to be particularly demand based; they almost strictly go off how close you are to the trip date, which is really dumb, because it leaves many seats unsold. I've been on relatively empty and very full trains, both during peak travel season before. Anecdotal, but I think Via pricing could definitely be optimized.

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.

Alto being exorbitantly expensive will dampen the nation building part of this project. Right now I can book a Madrid - Barcelona round trip Dec 16 - 18 (Spain time) for almost half the price of Via. These are two cities with roughly the same total population as Toronto - Montreal. Via is before tax, trainline is after tax.

 

[Racer_77]

I think Peterborough is considered the "GTA East" stop. For most trips originating in Durham going to Peterborough will be faster than going to Toronto to depart.

I think you're right. From where I grew up in Durham Region, it's about the same time to drive to Peterborough or Union Station, leaning towards the former during rush hour.

 

[kEiThZ]

Look at my screenshots, flying is somehow cheaper for Dec 29-Jan 2. Is two weeks notice that late for train tickets? You can't even buy train tickets sooner than 15 days in China. Obviously I'm not covering all cases, but Via is often more expensive than flying if you leave within a month's notice. Both in the my past experience and today.

There's the odd time where it happens. But generally, no, VIA usually isn't cheaper than flying. Unless they are very full. That's how their yield management system works. And I wouldn't take the current situation as indicative of anything. VIA is massively capacity constrained on purpose. First by government not letting them expand the fleet. And next by the freight cos not allowing more frequency. That increases the scarcity of their seats. Obviously this should not apply to a system which owns its own tracks and can run as frequently as it wants.

 

[urbanclient]

"VIA usually isn't cheaper than flying. Unless they are very full"? Please explain. Do you mean is cheaper or not very full? What kind of yield management would make it cheaper if they were very full?

 

[Urban Sky]

"VIA usually isn't cheaper than flying. Unless they are very full"? Please explain. Do you mean is cheaper or not very full? What kind of yield management would make it cheaper if they were very full?

Replace „cheaper“ by „more expensive“ and that sentence makes perfectly sense and matches what I strongly suspect was intended.

 

[urbanclient]

Replace „cheaper“ by „more expensive“ and that sentence makes perfectly sense and matches what I strongly suspect was intended.

I guess I'm just unlucky with my timing, because minus Christmas and Thanksgiving last minute flights, I don't think I've seen Via be cheaper for TO-MTL when booking two weeks out.

 

[canucks2030]

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.

Common! Everything I say you try to twist.

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?

I specifically said I understand the rationale why Ottawa was included. But I can be disappointed in the slow travel time between Montreal and Toronto for HSR considering it’s Canada’s two biggest cities. Things are not always black and white. I simply said it was a valid criticism. I didn’t say it was scandalous. I have the right to be disappointed it will be above 3 hours and I am not the only one.

 

[urbanclient]

Common! Everything I say you try to twist.

I specifically said I understand the rationale why Ottawa was included. But I can be disappointed in the slow travel time between Montreal and Toronto for HSR considering it’s Canada’s two biggest cities. I simply said it was a valid criticism. I didn’t say it was scandalous. I have the right to be disappointed it will be above 3 hours and I am not the only one.

If they do a Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal express with no other stops and favourable curves they just might go under 3 hours. I won't hold my breath though bc it seems everyone is afraid of scope creep.

 

[ARG1]

I think Peterborough is considered the "GTA East" stop. For most trips originating in Durham going to Peterborough will be faster than going to Toronto to depart.

Also, if the trains go in and out of Montreal from the same track through Laval, then somebody travelling from Ottawa to Quebec City might stop in Laval to transfer towards Quebec City and avoid going in and out of Montreal, at least in theory. Without the Laval stop this wouldn't be possible.

I'm sorry what? You do understand that Peterborough is 141km from Downtown Toronto right? 141km is enough to drive across Belgium in many parts, forget being a suburb/secondary station. Someone living in a populated part of Durham travelling to Peterborough to catch HSR is the railroad equivalent of a Torontonian driving to Buffalo to catch a flight to the US. Like sure, there are plenty of people willing to do that for lower fares and not having to deal with the congestion and overcrowdedness at Pearson, but that doesn't mean its normal or what planners should reasonably expect people to do.

 

[urbanclient]

I'm sorry what? You do understand that Peterborough is 141km from Downtown Toronto right? 141km is enough to drive across Belgium in many parts, forget being a suburb/secondary station. Someone living in a populated part of Durham travelling to Peterborough to catch HSR is the railroad equivalent of a Torontonian driving to Buffalo to catch a flight to the US. Like sure, there are plenty of people willing to do that for lower fares and not having to deal with the congestion and overcrowdedness at Pearson, but that doesn't mean its normal or what planners should reasonably expect people to do.

But think about getting to race the high speed train while driving! /s ....But seriously during rush hour it might actually be faster sometimes. By the time Alto is ready, it'll be even faster during rush hour to go to Peterborough than Toronto's Alto station?

 

[kEiThZ]

I have the right to be disappointed it will be above 3 hours and I am not the only one.

Y'all have the right to be disappointed. And the rest of us have the right to be dismissive about your disappointment. At the end of the day, what matters is getting a service that people will ride and that is competitive as a mode of transport. Personally, I think up to 3.5 hrs from downtown to downtown would have been competitive with air. And that used to be how fast Barcelona-Zaragoza-Madrid ran when it first started. And that line is one of the most successful HSR lines in the world.

 

[micheal_can]

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.

I was on the full PBX on Friday. If that was throttled, then I am wondering what is open. On the return journey, in the dark, I doom scrolled for much of it. No worse than at home. Maybe I need to talk to my provider for better speeds.

With how slow the train might be coming out of Toronto (see sources posted on this thread), I doubt a route average of 250 km/h is possible, plus 500 km would be the great circle distance Toronto to Montreal, not the euclidean line distance to Ottawa and then Montreal. Alto Toronto to Montreal would be closer to 550 km at best (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

More importantly, HSR even in China does not cruise at 350 km/h the entire time. Only Chinese built HSR operates at up to 350 km/h. The train must slow down for curves necessitated by geography, both physical and human. That is despite the fact that the lines are mostly on elevated viaducts, unlike Alto. 250 km/h route average would be very fast, even by Chinese standards. This would easily rank in the top 20* edit* top 10 in China out of ~50 total lines, number 1 being Beijing to Shanghai at ~290 km/h terminus to terminus; shorter point to point trips can be a bit faster at ~315 km/h.

List of high-speed railway lines - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Top 15 countries with HSR have top speeds of at least 300km/hr. So,give me at least 300km/hr in the straight stretches.

As far as the built up areas....I am not going down that rabbit hole. Having said that, the bottom of the list is still 250km/hr. If we are doing this, lets finally do it right. Spend the money and do it right.

 

[Urban Sky]

Hopefully, but it’s rare a project faster than projected. Just 2h59 would be a big difference. It may be only 8 minutes faster but psychologically it’s a massive difference to be within the two hours. Some people may disregard that fact but it’s true. I hope the 3h07 including all the stops. If it is we have some hope.

Just a quick reminder that the current travel time averages around 5:30h (nominal) and 6:00h (after adding delays), and with just a bit of bad luck 7 hours (like I had this Thursday on 63) or even more. And all of that with only 6 frequencies per day. I absolutely don‘t give a single damn whether the travel time will be 2:45 or 3:15 in 10 years' time, as long as the train still stops near the long-established transit hubs in both cities…

 

[canucks2030]

Y'all have the right to be disappointed. And the rest of us have the right to be dismissive about your disappointment. At the end of the day, what matters is getting a service that people will ride and that is competitive as a mode of transport. Personally, I think up to 3.5 hrs from downtown to downtown would have been competitive with air. And that used to be how fact Barcelona-Zaragoza-Madrid ran when it first started. And that line is one of the most successful HSR lines in the world.

Competitive a low bar in my opinion! We dont build HSR to be simply competitive.

 

[kEiThZ]

Just a quick reminder that the current travel time averages around 5:30h (nominal) and 6:00h (after adding delays), and with just a bit of bad luck 7 hours (like I had this Thursday) or even more. And all of that with only 6 frequencies per day. I absolutely don‘t give a single damn whether the travel time will be 2:45 or 3:15 in 10 year‘s time, as long as the train still stops near the long-established transit hubs in both cities…

Yep. Getting station placement is more important to door-to-door travel time than shaving minutes off. 3 hrs is such an arbitrary timeline that only nerds care about. And no regular person will.

Top 15 countries with HSR have top speeds of at least 300km/hr. So,give me at least 300km/hr in the straight stretches.

As far as the built up areas....I am not going down that rabbit hole. Having said that, the bottom of the list is still 250km/hr. If we are doing this, lets finally do it right. Spend the money and do it right.

People forget basic high school physics here. Upgrading 40 km of urban/suburban/exurban corridor from 80 kph to 120 kph saves the same amount of time (10 mins) as upgrading a 100 km of rural track from 200 kph to 300 kph. But upgrading that suburban track is likely to be a lot cheaper in total. The real time killers are the suburbs.