Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[roger1818]

Or, I'm seeing less and less of freight in the cards. Coexisting with freight was more feasible back in the original VIA HFR days when the design was vanilla railroad and the freight was compatible with the intended passenger equipment and roadbed. With Alto's design trending towards upper end HSR, the tracks would not be compatible with heavier bulk freight.

The mineral freight that is carried out of Havelock is partially transloaded already. It would be simple to have the transload point shift to the Belleville Sub. Road capacity and congestion is really not a concern out that way.

- Paul

Banning freight from Alto tracks wouldn't just affect the Havelock Sub. CN actively uses the VIA owned sections of the Alexandria, Beachburg and Smiths Falls Subs. Would Alto ban CN from serving Ottawa (and consequently Nylene in Arnprior) or would they build new tracks for Alto and maintain VIA's existing tracks for CN to use?

 

[kEiThZ]

Not directed at you specifically, but people here really need to understand that it’s not the proximity to downtown which makes Union the by-orders-of-magnitude most suitable location for any intercity rail station, but the fact that it is the *only* point in the entire GTHA which has excellent transport links into the entire region. Any other location might have marginally better transport links into a small proportion of the region, but massively worse transport links to virtually everywhere else.

Once you grasp this, you will refuse even discussing Summerhill, Woodbine or all this crap…

Not suggesting that anything other than Union is ideal. But Summerhill is not bad. And I'm not quite sure other locations in the downtown core are substantially better. Especially if they just build something that's not connected to anything else. At least Summerhill has subway connectivity.

 

[KhalilHeron]

Banning freight from Alto tracks wouldn't just affect the Havelock Sub. CN actively uses the VIA owned sections of the Alexandria, Beachburg and Smiths Falls Subs. Would Alto ban CN from serving Ottawa (and consequently Nylene in Arnprior) or would they build new tracks for Alto and maintain VIA's existing tracks for CN to use?

I assumed most of the line would operate on new tracks, and that it would share corridors with freight but not rails. at least through rural areas. Could they use parts of the Havelock sub row without needing to remove freight traffic? The section through peterborough wouldnt have enough room for new tracks but i doubt the station would be downtown anyway with the curve of tracks and the amount of grade separations needed. something on the outskirts would work better

 

[Northern Light]

Don't know that it will amount to anything.......but:

Minister MacKinnon to make an announcement regarding the next steps for Alto High-Speed Rail - Canada.ca

Gatineau (Quebec) — The Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, the Honourable Steven MacKinnon will make an announcement about the next steps for High-Speed Rail. He will be joined by Martin Imbleau, president and Chief Executive Officer of Alto.

www.canada.ca

From the above:

 

[roger1818]

I assumed most of the line would operate on new tracks, and that it would share corridors with freight but not rails. at least through rural areas. Could they use parts of the Havelock sub row without needing to remove freight traffic?

The question becomes, what incentive does CPKC have to sell their ROW if they still have to maintain their own tracks. A huge part of the value proposition would be that Alto would pay to upgrade and maintain the track and CPKC gets to reduce their operating costs. Similarly, CN isn't going to want to buy back their tracks from VIA and start to pay to maintain them (they sold them for a reason) and VIA won't want to maintain tracks that they don't need to use.

The section through peterborough wouldnt have enough room for new tracks but i doubt the station would be downtown anyway with the curve of tracks and the amount of grade separations needed. something on the outskirts would work better

Certainly there will need to be some re-alignment. In some cases CPKC would want to keep the old alignment and in other cases they won't care.

 

[KhalilHeron]

Hm so theoretically they could coexist but at more cost. Wonder the comparison between the cost of relocating traffic entirely

 

[ARG1]

TGV Québec-Toronto | Le premier tronçon à être construit reliera Montréal et Ottawa

Le premier tronçon du TGV que construira la société Alto reliera Montréal et Ottawa, a appris La Presse. Les travaux de construction vont démarrer au plus tard en 2030 – un échéancier serré qui démontre hors de tout doute que ce rêve que beaucoup caressent depuis des décennies est en train de...

www.lapresse.ca

The Montréal–Ottawa segment was selected for three reasons. First, it is the shortest segment of the three that will be built. “We’re going to start with something that will allow us to really get a handle on project management and best practices. We’ll learn from that, and then we’ll be able to replicate the whole thing eastward toward Québec City and westward toward Toronto to speed everything up,” explained a source close to the file.

Second, building the Montréal–Ottawa segment will allow Alto to mobilize companies in Québec and Ontario at the same time. “Companies in both provinces will be able to learn things” from this major project, which will lead to the creation of 50,000 jobs over the entire construction period, which could last at least seven years.

Finally, this segment also comes with its share of challenges even though it is shorter. “This segment includes three stations. That’s not small. There’s the Laval station, the Ottawa station, the Montréal station. The segment is shorter, but there’s still a lot of civil engineering involved across the three stations that we have to think about,” the source added.

**Consultations**

The public consultations will focus on a route corridor that will initially be fairly broad. “We’re going to consult on a corridor that’s quite wide—around 10 km in some areas—somewhat more precise in the suburbs. And in urban centres, it may be quite precise. The corridor will shift depending on on-the-ground realities, including sociological realities. Then we’ll take the comments we receive and adapt the corridor according to economic, environmental, technical, geotechnical realities, and so on. And at some point, by the end of 2026, we’ll consult on the final alignment,” our source said.

There are a lot of curious details here.

1) Laval will be a station between Ottawa and Montreal. This raises a ton of questions - it seems like they are going for the idea to bring the line in from the north shore. There are immediate questions regarding this such as where the crossover point into Quebec will be in order to avoid the worst of the Canadian Shield (I presume it will be Hawkesbury), but the biggest one is what alignment they're going to use, and how they're planning on serving the airport. Now that the REM took over the DM Subdivision I'm not sure there's any available route through Laval other than the Parc Subdivision, and thats not exactly ideal to serve Downtown Montreal. It also means that this line will almost certainly not serve Dorval/PET which is curious given Air Canada's membership in the consortium.

2) $90B is one scary price tag, and I do wonder how well they're planning on allocating that money.

 

[kEiThZ]

Skipping Dorval for Laval?

These guys are turning out to be as smart as Metrolinx. Hoping this rumor is not true.

 

[CapitalSeven]

There actually are potential routes using abandoned and active rail corridors, possibly highways, and fairly empty land. I put up a couple of maps a few weeks ago based on some field work ALTO had done, and I think folks thought I was smoking something. It would seem they have gone the direction of avoiding existing passenger rail corridors altogether, so that the legacy system is not impacted during construction, and a single approach to Montreal from Ottawa and Quebec City in Laval. So, have they decided on the Parc-Central Tunnel?

 

[Bordercollie]

High-speed rail may not connect to Toronto’s Union Station: Alto CEO - Sault Ste. Marie News https://share.google/CagYO6Mwzv1yL1Oc2

So would a mid town station be something they are looking at? Thats the only possibility unless it would terminate at East harbor which doesn't have space for two more tracks. I guess you can always go UP?

 

[goodcitywhenfinished]

2) $90B is one scary price tag, and I do wonder how well they're planning on allocating that money.

“which would be funded by a mix of government money and private investment”

CDPQ has an exceptionally good track record in doing just this. I would say it’s in good hands, but yes a huge price tag nonetheless.

 

[drum118]

Montreal-Ottawa chosen as first leg of high-speed rail project​

 

[crs1026]

There actually are potential routes using abandoned and active rail corridors, possibly highways, and fairly empty land. I put up a couple of maps a few weeks ago based on some field work ALTO had done, and I think folks thought I was smoking something. It would seem they have gone the direction of avoiding existing passenger rail corridors altogether, so that the legacy system is not impacted during construction, and a single approach to Montreal from Ottawa and Quebec City in Laval. So, have they decided on the Parc-Central Tunnel?

Considering that this stage of the planning is tantamount to an (expedited) EA, one can expect that any number of creative routes would be drawn - the point is to declare the alternatives. But in the end, cost and impact will favour existing or recognized corridors, as the environmental impacts of rail is known and accepted and there will be less construction overall. So while those lines on the map are interesting for discussion, we may well already know the likely conclusion....or at least the most likely alternatives

And, we've had decades of studies to inform us already.

- Paul

 

[p_xavier]

Going quickly to nowhere brings you quickly to nowhere. Will wait for further announcements but doesn't look good so far. Plus if my train is cancelled due to HSR I'll be pissed to no end. I depend on my rural train to commute to work.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Going quickly to nowhere brings you quickly to nowhere. Will wait for further announcements but doesn't look good so far. Plus if my train is cancelled due to HSR I'll be pissed to no end. I depend on my rural train to commute to work.

TIL the Capital of Canada to it's second-largest city is "nowhere"