Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[bpbpbpbp]

Takeaways from the Senate Committee video. (Transcript not yet on line.)

Corridor/alignment. Senators mentioned farmland, but a panelist also stressed corridors with existing infrastructure maintained. So highway, hydro, and other industrial corridors are still under active consideration. Some shared track with other railways may be inevitable, but is clearly the last choice. Freight is outside the mandate, and not considered.

We will see an initial corridor which will be wide and imprecise in the rural areas, and will narrow towards inner cities. This will be revealed and consulted on starting in early 2026, and the process will narrow it down through 2027 to identify precise alignments. They seek to minimize separation and detour impacts to land owners and user, which may involve purchasing extra land.

Union Station. Imbleau has a preference but will not share it at this time as it is a work in progress. But it will be in the vicinity of Union, in the downtown area, if at all feasible, and the experts are studying various options, and not yet committed to one solution. The selected option must be both economical and reliable. It is too soon to outline the route into Toronto.

My guess is Imbleau and team want to find a way to make Union Station work, but it may not be easy so nearby options are being looked it. Get out yer crayons, I know I have.​

VIA legacy. Nothing new. There will be a consolidation of the new and legacy services at some point in the future.

Damn near anything is possible in this world of you throw enough money at it. Project estimates had ALTO looking at $80-120 billion. If getting into Union and Gare Centrale the right way brings the cost up, I think most will be fine with it given the money already being spent. Make the damn thing work!

Even slightly east on the USRCC makes it all that more difficult to get to Bay Street and the business areas, and keeps ALTO away from all of Union’s connections, of which there are many. Not connecting to those is just insanity.

 

[KhalilHeron]

Based on who's involved in the consortium, and who's in power - I'm putting my chips on Woodbine. Not that I think it *should* or *should not* be Woodbine, but that I think that's where value engineering and the involvement of an airline will take us: Woodbine and some sort of people mover to connect Pearson flights and HSR much in the same way as an airport terminal change.

Whether some services also end up touching downtown Toronto somehow is an open question, and might be a compromise - some services from Union, some services from Woodbine / Pearson.

Remember that many proponents of this project in government aren't already bus and train people - they're very much car and airplane people. If you see the airport or HSR station as a place you drive to in order to then catch a fast thing that takes you somewhere else, then Woodbine with its proximity to the airport and freeway connections makes sense.

(Woodbine also makes it easy to expand service westward in a later phase)

I would be delighted to eat this comment in a year, so long as it's not because someone's decided that a dead-end track right into Pearson itself is the preferred option

The way the CEO was talking about choosing a station near union if not union itself tells me they want at station closer into the city. I could see woodbine being added as an additional stop for some trains btu not as the main terminal

 

[abovegrade]

The easy place of course is at Summerhill - where the old Toronto North station is still sitting there. Just need to get rid of the LCBO (which would be a shame, because it's a great store).

Just dont think there's enough space, especially if GO is also considering using this corridor as well. Or am I wrong?

 

[KhalilHeron]

Just dont think there's enough space, especially if GO is also considering using this corridor as well. Or am I wrong?

They are considering it but are in a very early planning stage. even if it shares track with go, this corridor would have less go traffic than union

 

[ciceror]

it would be worth the extra expense to bring this union, the government shouldn't look for ways to cheapen this, this is the most important transit corridor in this country that should have had HSR decades ago

 

[IRT_BMT_IND]

One thing to keep in mind is that HSR doesn't really need massive terminal stations. Probably 4 tracks would be enough.

 

[McGillicuddy]

One thing to keep in mind is that HSR doesn't really need massive terminal stations. Probably 4 tracks would be enough.

This is true for rail infrastructure, but I do wonder about Union's broader infrastructure.

In retrospect, the UP Express should have just been built as a subway-ish line, but the political and civic backers of the initial project thought it was going to be this fancy-de-luxe service for fancy-de-luxe people who demanded fancy-de-luxe amenities: it needed distinct branding, it needed distinct architecture, it needed on-train attendants, it needed a distinct airport-style waiting area... and, as a result, the service is studded with relics of that vision, even as the actual service has generally become more subway-ish.

If the political and civic backers of Alto have a similar set of blinders on, I could see Union being a problem: if you're targeting the profile of what an airline would consider a business class passenger, you're not going to be satisfied with the current VIA Rail concourse, nor with the customer service offered there, nor with the current business lounge, nor with the general vibe of a busy interurban rail station. This vision would demand an all-new jewel box of a business lounge, a separate waiting area, perhaps a separate street entrance, and certainly you would want psychological separation from the poors queueing up for their slow trains.

You could achieve this by converting some of the office space inside Union Station into a customer service zone for these passengers, but this would be expensive and inconvenient (major changes to a heritage structure...) and you'd also have to solve the puzzle of getting the passengers down to platform level. (Do they go down to the basement and then back up again? Do you build some sort of structure giving direct access from the second floor?)

You could also achieve this by building a new station elsewhere.

 

[ComptoirGeneral]

I don't know the current status of the Railway Lands/John Tory linear park idea.... but if Union is somehow a bad choice for a terminal, a new terminal just to the west or east of it above the USRC might not be all that expensive.

Lille France has two adjacent terminals, the second one built new to keep through TGVs from encumbrance in the legacy stub-end station. Walking between the two is quite convenient.

I can see the appeal of having a new, modernist terminal instead of Union with all its warts....but delinking from the Union transit hub would be utterly foolish.

And if the decision is to build across the North Toronto.... it cuts the legs out from arguments about cheaper options.

- Paul

The only space available to the east would be on the south side of the rail corridor adjacent to the Yonge off-ramp. I know they had plans to remove that off-ramp, so if that's still happening it could be a good place to build the ALTO platform while still linking to Union

 

[WB62]

If we take the McGill study at face value, they predicted ALTO will use two 8 car trains in regular operation, so any platform infrastructure at or not at Union needs to be minimum 420 metres long.

I’m not sure if 16 car trains is a surprise to anyone else, but for a while i was assuming a possible ALTO setup at Union could’ve been a set of two to four 8 car platforms on the northeast side of Union (either starting outside the canopy or from the easternmost VIA Concourse entrances in the middle), but with massive trains that becomes way less feasible.

 

[JasonParis]

Gotta wonder if keeping ALTO at Union and moving some GO services to terminate/pass at Dupont, Summerhill, The Well, Sherbourne, East Harbour, Exhibiton makes more sense? There's actually a fair number of possible options (albeit, many not built). Or how about moving the milk-run VIA services out of the station for ALTO? They too, could use one of the ones I suggested.

 

[kEiThZ]

I really wonder if a consideration here is running through till Pearson. So they may be looking at a path through the city that also facilitates that goal. I could see an argument to have a much quicker stop at Summerhill (under 3 hrs from Montreal Gare Centrale) that then continues on to Pearson. It's a 15 min subway ride from Summerhill to Union. That's not much different than the shuttle bus from Union to YTZ. And is still a convenient spot from 416 suburbanites to get to.

 

[lenaitch]

"Near Union". How much is Toronto in love with the AC Centre, Rogers Centre, Royal York or Harbour Commission building?

 

[north-of-anything]

Knowing Air Canada is involved in the delivery consortium, I would not be surprised if the solution is to make Union a through station and terminate trains at Pearson or Woodbine in the interim. That way you can have a station in the core, and two shoulder stations on either side of downtown at the airport and in Scarborough.

 

[Sauga89]

If we take the McGill study at face value, they predicted ALTO will use two 8 car trains in regular operation, so any platform infrastructure at or not at Union needs to be minimum 420 metres long.

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I’m not sure if 16 car trains is a surprise to anyone else, but for a while i was assuming a possible ALTO setup at Union could’ve been a set of two to four 8 car platforms on the northeast side of Union (either starting outside the canopy or from the easternmost VIA Concourse entrances in the middle), but with massive trains that becomes way less feasible.

I'm not suggesting it would be a good option, but doesn't SNCF, one of the consortium members, operate double decker trains in France? The Avelia Horizon is only 200 metres long and can carry 740 passengers. Alto could probably even afford to add a second level to platforms, equipped with platform edge doors, so that both levels could have level boarding. I could see benefits from operating fewer cars rather than longer trains.

 

[bpbpbpbp]

Knowing Air Canada is involved in the delivery consortium, I would not be surprised if the solution is to make Union a through station and terminate trains at Pearson or Woodbine in the interim. That way you can have a station in the core, and two shoulder stations on either side of downtown at the airport and in Scarborough.

Do you mean like not stopping at Union? If that’s the case and ALTO goes through Union and onto the Weston up to the Airport, most riders are going to be PISSED that they’re blowing last downtown, making then have to backtrack with a transfer, extra fare and added time to get to Union.

I think skipping the Downtown core is a bonkers idea, but if at all necessary, go through Midtown and get to the airport that way. But I question the capacity of the Kitchener corridor for ALTO. Somehow Union genuinely seems more doable, it’s just figuring out where the trains end.