407 Rail Freight Bypass/The Missing Link

[gweed123]

Interesting discussions around the CP Toronto Yard. Out of curiosity, is there a location along the CN York Sub or on the 407 Freight Bypass route that could potentially be purchased by CP for a new yard location as a replacement? I would think the land value there would be lower, and thus would make economic sense for CP to sell off the Toronto Yard for redevelopment and rebuild elsewhere. A Google Earth survey points to a potential location just north of the 401-407 interchange, which would serve the intermodal purpose quite well.

 

[crs1026]

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, I had the same reaction....until I realised Vegeta was smarter than the rest of us. The whole idea is to take CP trains off the Halton and put them back on CP rails. It's a loop around Mississauga only, rather than a loop around the whole of Central Toronto.
Part of me thought "Why? That misses much of the point" while part of me thought "Wow...that brings the price tag way down, how badly did we want the North Toronto Sub anyways?". One could argue the two sides ad nauseum. For me, the ability to break the whole thing into two Phases and spread the cost out over a couple decades won the argument.

- Paul

 

[mdrejhon]

For me, the ability to break the whole thing into two Phases and spread the cost out over a couple decades won the argument.

Smart. Phasing the Freight Bypass would make it a LOT more palatable.
smallspy, based on your knowledge, does vegata_skyline's proposal make sense?

Now... I wonder if we should forward a link to this thread to the people who's doing the study. They're probably quite experienced, if they're selecting a company already familiar with Toronto's infrastructure. But it's quite possible that they hire a company outside the city, and then end up assigning to inexperienced interns working at those companies. By having those look at this thread, they do more homework on more options faster and learn more background knowledge about Toronto faster. Saving a few thousand dollars and perhaps including an option or two that they might have otherwise overlooked. Crowdsourced study jumpstarter for the win!

 

[gweed123]

Dan, I had the same reaction....until I realised Vegeta was smarter than the rest of us. The whole idea is to take CP trains off the Halton and put them back on CP rails. It's a loop around Mississauga only, rather than a loop around the whole of Central Toronto.
Part of me thought "Why? That misses much of the point" while part of me thought "Wow...that brings the price tag way down, how badly did we want the North Toronto Sub anyways?". One could argue the two sides ad nauseum. For me, the ability to break the whole thing into two Phases and spread the cost out over a couple decades won the argument.

- Paul

That's an interesting scenario. Would any reconfiguration be required at the Junction? I can see there's already one track connecting WB to NB (or SB to EB), but would it require more than that? And obviously, a new connection would be required between the Halton and MacTier subs. That does solve overlapping with CN on a lot of their existing track though, since on the section from the MacTier sub to Bramalea would need to be upgraded for dual CN/CP service.

 

[crs1026]

That's an interesting scenario. Would any reconfiguration be required at the Junction?

The problem is having only one track from Osler St up to Lawrence. There would be greater likelihood of stopped trains waiting to meet a train coming the other way. On the east side, this could block crossings at Osler and Bartlett Ave, and the idling trains would annoy residents. On the north/west side, there could be blocked crossings in Weston. I have seen drawings suggesting CP may be looking at expanding the new interchange south of Nickle into a second track or siding. The limiting factor is the Black Creek bridge, which would have to be widened. So yes it might be a bit complicated.

Since we have been focussing on CP = here's some information on the CN perspective. Right now, the CN line from Halwest to Milton is 23.2 miles. The elevation runs from 180 m at Torbram Road, to 274 m at Silver Jct, to 205 m at Milbase. In other words, those 23 miles contain a pretty significant hill. The bypass route, using a straight line, is 16.6 miles, and worst case the elevation never gets above 210 m. So operating costs for the bypass would be significantly lower than what CN has now, both in terms of being shorter (track maintenance, train time) and fuel.

- Paul

 

[mdrejhon]

Now that's a pro for CN. A straighte, more level corridor.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The issue with the CP "two phase" is that the lower portion of the Bolton Corridor is currently very poorly built, few grade separations, etc. It would be upsurdly expensive to upgrade too, given the extreme space constraints that have now been placed on it by the georgetown south upgrade. It might be difficult to fit 2 tracks into there, yet alone multiple new grade separations.

 

[gweed123]

The issue with the CP "two phase" is that the lower portion of the Bolton Corridor is currently very poorly built, few grade separations, etc. It would be upsurdly expensive to upgrade too, given the extreme space constraints that have now been placed on it by the georgetown south upgrade. It might be difficult to fit 2 tracks into there, yet alone multiple new grade separations.

It would still be less expensive than upgrading the Milton line and Kitchener line through downtown Brampton. Also, if the phased approach is taken, once the freight traffic is shifted onto the York Sub in Phase II to complete the bypass, you'll have a double-tracked GO corridor ready for AD2W service.

The problem is having only one track from Osler St up to Lawrence. There would be greater likelihood of stopped trains waiting to meet a train coming the other way. On the east side, this could block crossings at Osler and Bartlett Ave, and the idling trains would annoy residents. On the north/west side, there could be blocked crossings in Weston. I have seen drawings suggesting CP may be looking at expanding the new interchange south of Nickle into a second track or siding. The limiting factor is the Black Creek bridge, which would have to be widened. So yes it might be a bit complicated.

Thanks for the details. Yes, it does sound like some upgrades will be needed, but compared to the GTS project or what would be required to upgrade the Milton and Kitchener lines, it's significantly less complex (and costly).

 

[smallspy]

Interesting discussions around the CP Toronto Yard. Out of curiosity, is there a location along the CN York Sub or on the 407 Freight Bypass route that could potentially be purchased by CP for a new yard location as a replacement? I would think the land value there would be lower, and thus would make economic sense for CP to sell off the Toronto Yard for redevelopment and rebuild elsewhere. A Google Earth survey points to a potential location just north of the 401-407 interchange, which would serve the intermodal purpose quite well.

CP is looking to move their operations currently stationed at Agincourt Yard to a new purpose-built facility well east of Toronto - the current scuttlebut is that they are looking closely at Cobourg.

They are NOT looking to move their intermodal terminals at this point.

Dan, I had the same reaction....until I realised Vegeta was smarter than the rest of us. The whole idea is to take CP trains off the Halton and put them back on CP rails. It's a loop around Mississauga only, rather than a loop around the whole of Central Toronto.
Part of me thought "Why? That misses much of the point" while part of me thought "Wow...that brings the price tag way down, how badly did we want the North Toronto Sub anyways?". One could argue the two sides ad nauseum. For me, the ability to break the whole thing into two Phases and spread the cost out over a couple decades won the argument.

- Paul

If that's the option that he's looking at, than great. But that wasn't part of the proposal being made to the various cities in the report. And considering that the City of Toronto is one of the contributors to this study, it is absolutely a non-starter, as there seems to be a louder and louder push to remove all of the "hazardous" goods trains from the centre of Toronto by the week.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[dowlingm]

If Agincourt yard is up for grabs that would be a game changer both for development and transit.

 

[gweed123]

CP is looking to move their operations currently stationed at Agincourt Yard to a new purpose-built facility well east of Toronto - the current scuttlebut is that they are looking closely at Cobourg.

They are NOT looking to move their intermodal terminals at this point.

That far east? Wow, that's surprising. I would have figured they would have wanted to be in the GTHA, even if it was in the 905. But hey, as long as the Agincourt Yard gets opened up for development that's fine by me. It would be interesting to see the different transit solutions that would come up as a result of that land being developed into what presumably would be a pretty dense development.

Don't know if that would be a selling point for CP though, considering they could move their yard and cash in on the land even if the freight bypass wasn't on the table.

 

[dowlingm]

It would probably be too ambitious for Toronto/Ontario but a "Lake Ontario Basin" (see the CREATE article) bypass from

• Milton-along Halton Sub toward Georgetown
• new alignment starts passing west of Silver Jct-
• OBRY-(maybe the OBRY doesn't need to cross the Halton at Brampton now so the diamond could be removed)
• MacTier (between Bolton and Kleinburg)-(this next part is tricky since there's a whole bunch of conservation areas east of MacTier)
• Metrolinx Barrie north of King City-
• CN Bala near Gormley-
• Metrolinx Stouffville-
• CP Havelock-
• CP Belleville

would skirt most of the urban/inner GTA.

Problem is that unless you spend a ton of money on keeping the line running west after the Havelock sub before intercepting the Belleville sub, it still shoves a lot of traffic through Whitby-Oshawa-Bowmanville.

Unless... this is where the 407 comes in, running the line through that ROW (assuming enough is available) then intercepting Belleville sub east of Bowmanville and running down that alignment to Newcastle and a junction with CN Kingston. And even then, it's still a lot of $.

 

[mdrejhon]

Theoretically speaking, scaling it down as much as possible -- what's the cheapest possible "Phase 1" that would free up Milton? Free up Brampton? Both?

vegata_skyline's idea works if it weren't for the problems that smallspy raised, but any other alternatives too?

 

[crs1026]

If that's the option that he's looking at, than great. But that wasn't part of the proposal being made to the various cities in the report. And considering that the City of Toronto is one of the contributors to this study, it is absolutely a non-starter, as there seems to be a louder and louder push to remove all of the "hazardous" goods trains from the centre of Toronto by the week.

Yeah, Toronto would insist on getting the whole bypass finished as the price of their support. But could they live with an interim scheme to shift more of the trains that they are already getting to a single route? And making a few important residents (ie the Kingsway) happy in the short term?

Theoretically speaking, scaling it down as much as possible -- what's the cheapest possible "Phase 1" that would free up Milton? Free up Brampton? Both?

Build the bypass, shifting only CN trains. That lets GO/VIA/ST get on with the Kitchener-Malton route, which is already Metrolinx's higher priority. Construction cost is really not that high, cost items such as doubletracking the Humber area and building any links in Scarboro can be deferred as no incremental capacity is needed east of Halwest. The project is justified solely by the savings relative to what will have to be spent in Brampton etc if CN remains in play. Add the CP piece later, because (whether right or wrong) the Milton line is not a priority for Metrolinx at this time, and because the cost of taking possession of both lines at once would be very high. That defers paying for the North Toronto Sub - which will be the biggest ticket cost - until later. If CP determines that the plan is profitable for them - and I bet it is - they may be a little more eager to cut the price to have the deal done sooner.

Edit: Ironically, that doesn't help the Mayors who are behind this, as they see Milton as the prize. But it may be a good solution to speed work on the Brampton line. I wonder if the Kitchener EA considered it as an option?

- Paul

 

[mdrejhon]

The minimum plan, I guess, excludes Milton -- ironic. It appears the Freight Bypass along the 407 corridor between the 407 and power pylons benefits CN more quickly and cheaply than it does for CP! For Metrolinx, it unblocks Brampton for both Brampton RER and for high speed rail.

Even if Milton is in question -- we need to at least make sure Mississauga is talking to Ontario -- as they really need to keep the studies in sync (HSR study, Freight Bypass study). Even if it means HSR construction occurs before freeing up Milton, as deploying HSR may actually even be cheaper than completely taking Milton/North Toronto.

On that note, hopefully the studies doesn't work against each other. Can Mississauga tolerate Phase 1 being for Brampton/HSR first, before them in Phase 2?