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407 Rail Freight Bypass/The Missing Link

Who's gonna tell CAASCO that the 407 ROW (presumably earmarked for expansion) is going to be given over to rail?

The issue here is that they want to stay east of Brampton and presumably leave the 407 east of Bramalea GO because otherwise the trains could be routed via Silver Junction or that one just west of Brampton GO. But that creates an even more complex junction with the York Sub than is there now.

After the fiasco with SmartTrack along Eglinton one hopes this isn't another Google Maps proposal. We can do that here for free.

It also won't cost us anything to shelve plans for 2 Day all-day GO on the Kitchener Line. Not proceeding with a study is a lost opportunity for all parties invoved (except perhaps CP).

CP is already in enough hot water with the feds about the safety of their operations, and rail safety is huge on the public radar. I don't think some arm-twisting is unwarranted.
 
CP is already in enough hot water with the feds about the safety of their operations, and rail safety is huge on the public radar. I don't think some arm-twisting is unwarranted.
I think Hunter Harrison has seen a lot of elected officials and bureaucrats come and go. I'm not saying it's not possible to legislate CP's rights on the Galt and North Toronto Subs out of existence but all the railways would fight such a move since it would set a massive precedent. Also, this isn't great news for CN and the York sub since either with a shared track or parallel tracks a CP derailment would cause them serious pain.

Even with a willing seller the cost to Metrolinx of acquiring that midtown trackage will be enormous (look at what previous CN track sales have brought in) before a single rail is costed for the 407 route. And for what? To shove even more trains at a Union Station which will be bursting at the seams?
 
The value proposition for CP is the big pile of cash that Metrolinx would hand them to buy the lines, traded against whatever they have to pay to buy into the CN corridor. Plus the profit from redeveloping their Lambton and Agincourt yards. Plus the reduced operating cost by sharing a line with CN. Plus having the same traffic/revenue versus a reduced level of capital assets on their balance sheet.

The value proposition for CN is the big pile of cash that CP would pay them to buy into their line, the cash they receive for sale of the Bramalea - Milton line, the same reduction in operating costs from a shared operation, and the same traffic/revenue vs capitalisation view of their balance sheet.

All it takes is....money, from Ontario's coffers. There is no doubt that for the right amount, CN and CP would both see the self interest in buying in. There may be some savings to the Province from reduced need to build additional tracks on the acquired lines, but these will still need some upgrading.

The biggest risk (beyond the price tag to the Province) is railway vs railway. This whole concept is already being played out in Chicago. It's called CREATE, and it's moving at a snail's pace. Granted, there are more railways involved. Check out http://www.createprogram.org - there are many parallels.

The NIMBY factor is probably pretty small. In exchange for telling a small number of Meadowvalians that they now live next to a railway track , the plan tells a much greater number of Torontonians, many of them in tony neighbourhoods, that they no longer live near freight lines. The people in Vaughan and Markham will ask why they are now living next to more frequent freight trains, but the answer is "What year was your house built?".

- Paul
 
It's called CREATE, and it's moving at a snail's pace. Granted, there are more railways involved. Check out http://www.createprogram.org - there are many parallels.
Good, a precedent. Wow, a very complex one.
Six freight companies untangling, and in some cases, interconnecting their corridors to speed freight through Chicago, with better separation from Chicago's METRA commuter train services.

If you're a railfan, you'll go nuts over this PDF. Such a complicated and tangled rail network, many times more complex than Toronto's as many are really old corridors from the mid-19th century. From 2003-2012, they already spent several billion dollars doing several things like rail-to-rail grade separations and new freight connections.

The Missing Link freight bypass looks massively simpler in comparison!

If Chicago pulled off these CREATE projects in 12 years including those interconnects between freight competitors, then we could easily pull off Missing Link in 20 years even allowing for a fair bit of bureaucracy. Assuming Mississauga pushed the momentum hard and all levels of governments obliged with a pitch-in.

We only have two freight companies to worry about, plus GO and VIA. The bigger difficulty is getting buy-in from Hydro One (I think they own the best land that Missing Link will go over).
 
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Even with a willing seller the cost to Metrolinx of acquiring that midtown trackage will be enormous (look at what previous CN track sales have brought in) before a single rail is costed for the 407 route. And for what? To shove even more trains at a Union Station which will be bursting at the seams?
That's not a problem over the 20-year timescale.

Union Station is gaining a lot more capacity (3x passenger and train throughput) by 2017 and we'll be able to absorb the gradual ramp-up. If you go today, you already see how empty the new York concourse is. Concourse cpacity unlocked! Once Bay Concourse is replaced with a duplicate of York, AND we also gain a 165,000 square foot shopping mall basement, we will have roughly ~6x the amount of "waiting space" at Union in two levels (two massively GO concourses, the existing VIA, plus the brand new massive basement level -- a mall basement covering the entire Union Station footprint, dug underneath all of the concourses). With all the combined improvements as well as aboveground (reopen all tracks, USRC resignalling already planned, higher speed crossovers already planned, shorter subway-style dwell time of frequent service trains, plus the reopened version of closed platforms under refurbishment, plus optimizations such as through service connecting Kitchener+Stoufville lines like SmartTrack proposal, plus the existing new platform 24-27, plus the proposed double berths west of Union found in the Metrolinx 2031 document) -- and the new mall plus increased offpeak service helping de-densify the peak service a little bit -- we can absorb the 3x additional passenger traffic, and massive increases in weekly train trips, without platform overcrowding or concourse overcrowding.

Plus, there's already talk for a 4 track underground corridor (google "Metrolinx 2031"), which may or may not be a merged part of the DRL that comes after SmartTrack

Also, we also gain the North Toronto subdivision, providing a northern relief for those who would otherwise be catching the TTC northwards. It's faster to reach Bloor TTC via going south from North Toronto subdivision, than via going north from Union. This can eventually divert some traffic away from Union, too.

In other words: We already have several capacity solutions coming online during the timescale of a Missing Link freight bypass.
 
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CN & CP already have several agreements in place to operate on each others tracks in certain sections so its wouldn't be unusual for them to share track instead of having separate mainlines. For example from Toronto to Sudbury(and beyond) both of their lines are single main track(with sidings for train meets). To increase capacity, they entered into an agreement many years ago where trains from both companies would run northbound trains on CP's Parry Sound subdivision and southbound trains on CN's Bala subdivision. I'm guessing CP's got to give something back to CN since the northbounds are primarily empty verse the loaded southbounds using CN's line, meaning greater track maintenance cost.

The southern connection is located at CP Reynolds/CN Boyne where both lines run side by side. This is located about 3 miles south of Parry Sound specifically at coordinates 45°19'8.84"N 79°59'26.17"W

It's tough to see what it looks like on because of a lack high resolution aerial images of the area but its basically a set of crossovers just like your standard "controlled location" with this track arrangement;
FwAzVlN.png


For nearly a 100 miles they operate this way until the St Cloud interlocking, at coordinates 46°23'2.99"N 80°48'46.34"W
2HJKtP3.png


wY6GelS.png

Where the two lines cross over in the middle there is a bridge, no connection.

They have several other agreements across Canada, see here.


That said, there are a number of problems that stand in the way of having such an agreement here.
GTA map of existing mainline tracks;
wkT70kE.png


Access to CP's Toronto Yard would be problematic. At points A & B each lines cross over the other on bridge structures and there are currently no connections between the two. However the area surround the two locations are only lightly developed, so I don't think building a new connecting track would be a big issue. CP would probably be more concerned with the operational inefficiency of having to travel away from the mainline to access the yard and with how both west and eastbounds would then enter the yard in the same direction. Though that's certainly by no means insurmountable, as you can see this is how CN's Mac yard is arranged for instance. Though the amount of tracks they have available would have been cut back if the rumored ML purchase of the northern section(A & B) of the yard is correct(http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/pickering-airport-transport-canada-gtaa-proposed.4855/page-21)
yeljVjF.jpg


Of course all that is a non-issue if CP's yard is rebuilt elsewhere.

The biggest problem is item C which is probably already the busiest section of track in Canada in terms of total tonnage. Both CN's east-west traffic and north-south traffic(off the Bala) have to run through here to access Mac Yard. It's the one section where two tracks would definitely not be sufficient for both CN & CP. And the line runs through a heavily populated section of Richmond Hill. I'm sure there will be some push back from the community from dramatically increasing freight traffic levels from their already high levels through here. If it was something the freight companies decided together by themselves there's probably little the community could do to stop it. But the effort is being spearheaded by governing authorities which makes it a different story.

Item D, where the Halton sub crosses over the Humber would require a new bridge span for a second track and an expansion of the embankment leading up to it, which is probably the largest rail embankment in the GTA in terms of fill, it quite the view going over that.

What I'd propose is a connection be made to CP's Mactier sub off the Halton for CP traffic here.
u8Iy33O.png


The Humber bridge and embankment would have to be widened either way. The new connecting track would require a new embankment and a grade separation over Islington Ave. CP's existing Mactier sub main track would need to be moved to the north side of the corridor while the connecting track would gradually decrease in height from Islington to Steeles at a 1% grade (20 feet height over 2000ft length) which is not much more then the existing grade on the Halton approaching the Humber from the West at a 0.6-0.7% grade. The concrete embankment section would be much like GO's Snider crossing;
2D1X0267_LR_Snider_E_1.jpg


It would certainly be cheaper to build the 407 bypass then build additional infrastructure to support expanded GO service on the Milton & Kitchener lines but I'm not sure the same can be said in getting CP off the North Toronto/Belleville(Midtown corridor) when adding all the costs of building new infrastructure, buying the corridors off CP and then relocating CP's Toronto yard. Without the yard relocation it might be cheaper, but its a much tougher sell to CN & CP and there's the Richmond Hill NIMBY issue.

Edit*
For the record I'm completely in favor of seeing CP & CN get "kicked off" all those lines, just providing information regarding the stumbling blocks.
 
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Once again, super-useful background information from our favorite resident GOtrain driver. Thanks!

It would seem that various parts are quite doable and a few key elements are a massive challenge.

I can see that CPR Rail Yard relocation would be massively expensive, and might break the economics -- but since you work as a trian driver "in the know", this is stuff that definitely should be forwarded to the Mississauga study as due diligence that might jumpstart their research a little. (You just saved maybe $1,000 of their time. ;))
 
Glad to be of help :)

Yeah its too bad they didn't build their yard just a little further out when they relocated out of downtown Toronto like CN did. Though its hard to blame them since back then that land was empty and it was natural to pick a spot where two of their mainlines connected.
iEc7R8X.jpg

Though ironically they barely even use one of them today.
 
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[historical aerial photo of CPR Toronto Yard]

Wow, that railyard was certainly built in the middle of nowhere back then.
 
Does all of this fit into CN's plan for their Milton yard? Or is this a way for Halton to stop this development?
 
Does all of this fit into CN's plan for their Milton yard? Or is this a way for Halton to stop this development?
The Milton yard isn't mutually exclusive from the Freight Bypass. The yard is pretty far west, before any freight diversion. One or the other could be done, or both. Possible horse-trading and negotiating opportunities maybe, depending on timelines.
 
[historical aerial photo of CPR Toronto Yard]

Wow, that railyard was certainly built in the middle of nowhere back then.

It was so far out in the country - by 1963 standards - that CP ran a shuttle train from Lambton to Agincourt to bring its workers (who traditionally lived near the CP yard at West Toronto) out to the new yard - there was no public transit to speak of out that far. That shuttle ended in 1973.

The picture does not tell the story of today, however. The entire hump yard - the set of tracks fanning out in the center of the picture - is gone. It's a huge empty space that would fetch a fortune if it could be redeveloped. One continually hears rumours that CP wants to demolish the whole yard in favour of a "block-swapping" yard further east, say around Trenton. (Since the 60's, traffic has changed dramatically from boxcars to containers, so there is much less need for yards as the railcars themselves don't need to be switched around). Even a condensed yard would free up a lot of land. So, while Vegeta's comments about the difficulty accessing this yard are quite accurate, they may not be a dealbreaker for CP. The economics may work in their favour.

Vegeta's idea to bring CP traffic north around Mississauga and then drop it back down into Toronto is interesting. It enables GO to get on with the two passenger line projects while minimising the capital spent on the freight side. I would love to hear what the folks in Weston (who seem to be the only resident movement that has wielded real clout about increased train traffic!) say about that one - after building the Weston tunnel, we would see added freight train traffic across the line that is still at grade in Weston. Ultimately, the biggest gains from the whole project is to get freight out of the central city, so maybe that part still has merit down the road as Phase II. The Mactier Sub would need to be double tracked from Lawrence down to the Junction, and that investment would be lost if a Phase II went ahead.

I agree that the Snider-Doncaster segment has challenges, but I'm not convinced that triple track is required throughout. There is a work program going on to upgrade the south-to-east link at Doncaster so that more through CN traffic can just turn east without making the trip to Mac Yard. Upgrading crossovers to allow higher turnout speed might help too. CN's biggest operating barrier in the area is actually the single track segment from McCowan to Liverpool - as train length has grown, there is no longer anywhere to stage trains if eastbounds and westbounds arrive in this area at the same time.

Lastly, if we are going to dream big, why not extend the shared freight zone eastwards along the CP line, all the way to Belleville? That would move CN off its line east of Toronto, enabling VIA to upgrade the CN line for true high speed service towards Ottawa and Montreal.

Somewhere along here, the price tag gets so big it's laughable, at least in my lifetime....but it's all in the right direction.

- Paul
 
Another thing that seems to be missed in all this is that this exact situation - and solution - has happened time and time and time again in the US already. The Alameda Corridor is probably the biggest and most complex project of the most recent ones, but some go back over 100 years.

Of course all that is a non-issue if CP's yard is rebuilt elsewhere.

Considering that this is looking more and more plausible, that would certainly make the east end connection easier.

Item D, where the Halton sub crosses over the Humber would require a new bridge span for a second track and an expansion of the embankment leading up to it, which is probably the largest rail embankment in the GTA in terms of fill, it quite the view going over that.

What I'd propose is a connection be made to CP's Mactier sub off the Halton for CP traffic here.
u8Iy33O.png


The Humber bridge and embankment would have to be widened either way. The new connecting track would require a new embankment and a grade separation over Islington Ave. CP's existing Mactier sub main track would need to be moved to the north side of the corridor while the connecting track would gradually decrease in height from Islington to Steeles at a 1% grade (20 feet height over 2000ft length) which is not much more then the existing grade on the Halton approaching the Humber from the West at a 0.6-0.7% grade. The concrete embankment section would be much like GO's Snider crossing;
2D1X0267_LR_Snider_E_1.jpg

You have your corridor connections backwards here. You have trains being able to travel from eb on the York to SB on the Mactier - which is one of the rail lines that will have freight removed from it. The connections would go from sb Mactier to EB and WB on the York, on the north side of the corridor.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
The picture does not tell the story of today, however. The entire hump yard - the set of tracks fanning out in the center of the picture - is gone. It's a huge empty space that would fetch a fortune if it could be redeveloped.
Brilliant point, crs1026. I checked in satellite views, and -- by golly -- you're right! Google Maps still puts the railroad tracks there but if you view satellite views, half the steel is gone from the CP yard! So half the railyard is actually unused, and CP probably doesn't seem to very heavily use what's remaining of the yard.

This is a potential opportunity. If CP agrees sells this railyard for a massive fortune for redevelopment, and builds a new yard elsewhere on cheaper land -- perhaps jumpstarted with a free government loan in the expectation being able receive the land as loan payment (some sort of an agreement along those lines). This would of course, solve the cost of railyard relocation, at minimum taxpayer expense.

The yard is right at the end of the freed-up North Toronto subdivision. A ready-made route for a brand new GO train route that redevelopment on the railyard could benefit from. That increases the redevelopment value for all parties involved. This would be a separate very long-term multi-decadal project which would continue long after the Freight Bypass.

But it's never too early to begin paving way on pre-requisites necessary to make the land valuable enough to make it worth it to CP shareholders to begin building a new railyard sooner, and get the Freight Bypass going.

Lastly, if we are going to dream big, why not extend the shared freight zone eastwards along the CP line, all the way to Belleville? That would move CN off its line east of Toronto, enabling VIA to upgrade the CN line for true high speed service towards Ottawa and Montreal.
Shhhh.... Baby steps, baby steps. Let's not derail the simpler matter of a minimal Freight Bypass that frees up at least one or two GO routes.
 
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