BMO
Senior Member
not to mention it might help Canada reach its Kyoto protocol goals...oh wait....we aren't actually paying attention to those goals, whereas other countries in the EU are, hence why they have more spending on public transit.
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not to mention it might help Canada reach its Kyoto protocol goals...oh wait....we aren't actually paying attention to those goals, whereas other countries in the EU are, hence why they have more spending on public transit.
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
God, we do need a PM with a vision.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
Just because Yugoslavia does something doesn't make it a great idea...
Electrification doesn't really make sense for what North Americans use trains for. Long-haul, practically transcontinental, freight shipping doesn't really benefit from electrification. Most of the trackage avoids cities, so air pollution isn't a major concern, stops are infrequent so acceleration/deceleration isn't terribly important and the great distances make electrification prohibitively expensive on a continental scale which then leads to adoption problems.
Europeans promoted short-haul passenger railways heavily, and electrification is basically a prerequisite for that. Now freight rail is almost extinct in Europe because it was crowded off the rails. 40% of N.American freight moves on railways, while only 8% of European freight does.
Again, my point wasn't that we have the greatest infrastructure on earth. We don't. Given our climate and geography we probably never will. It's just not the biggest deal. Infrastructure suffers from serious diminishing returns beyond a certain point, especially compared to social investment. The classic example is Japan. They pretty much have the greatest infrastructure on Earth, most of it doing nothing for society. Electrifying our railways would cost many billions of dollars and the benefit to Canadians would be quite small by comparison. So why bother?
urbanboom
Active Member
^ Oh my God. A rational thought... How shocking.
Filip
Senior Member
I don't mean electrifying the entire network coast to coast.. I mean the major passenger rail corridors - Windsor-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec, Calgary-Edmonton, etc... Where there's heavy passenger rail usage it should be electrified. Spain doesn't have its entire network electrified, nobody does! But the key parts that are heavily used are.
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
Look at a corridor like Quebec-Windsor or Calgary-Edmonton. If I'm not mistaken, VIA doesn't even have a route between Calgary and Edmonton, which is a corridor that sees a huge number of intercity commuters every day. In the Quebec-Windsor corridor, the population density is more than high enough to warrant at least some sort of high speed rail. You can argue about 300 km/h trains, but at least 200 km/h? The average speed between Toronto and Montreal is somewhere around 70 km/h. That's pathetic.
Okay, Sweeden and Norway and such have higher GDP per capita than us. But because they're smaller doesn't mean anything. It means we have more people, ergo more money to invest in our more people. We're just under the likes of Sweden in GDP per capita, but that's still substantially better than places like China, Brazil, or even the US. But we do absolutely nothing with that money. I'm still curious as to where it goes.
This country has almost limitless potential. We're an immigration hotbed and could be getting millions of new people into the country, with a considerably better lifestyle than almost anywhere else in the world. We have huge amounts of natural resources on top of a quickly developing information economy. Not only do we have the right mindset and motivations for being environmentally friendly, but we also have the means to do so. Massive stores of hydroelectricity and huge areas for wind power to be exploited. Yet all of our politicians are sitting around and doing nothing! We're not even trying to keep in line with Kyoto, and are happy to continue being that country above the US.
Okay, Sweeden and Norway and such have higher GDP per capita than us. But because they're smaller doesn't mean anything. It means we have more people, ergo more money to invest in our more people. We're just under the likes of Sweden in GDP per capita, but that's still substantially better than places like China, Brazil, or even the US. But we do absolutely nothing with that money. I'm still curious as to where it goes.
This country has almost limitless potential. We're an immigration hotbed and could be getting millions of new people into the country, with a considerably better lifestyle than almost anywhere else in the world. We have huge amounts of natural resources on top of a quickly developing information economy. Not only do we have the right mindset and motivations for being environmentally friendly, but we also have the means to do so. Massive stores of hydroelectricity and huge areas for wind power to be exploited. Yet all of our politicians are sitting around and doing nothing! We're not even trying to keep in line with Kyoto, and are happy to continue being that country above the US.
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Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Electric rail should never be politicized as a climate change or health move. For one, the link between electrification and harmful emissions is tenuous - you have to generate that electricity somehow, and there is a huge tradeoff in emissions there. Secondly, there are emissions from building the actual system - everything from smelting the copper wire to constructing the substations, etc. Finally, you are making a clean form of travel (rail) marginally cleaner, rather than focusing efforts and resources on changing emissions profiles from other, dirtier forms of travel...or even other sources of potential greenhouse gases whether industrial or due to residential behaviour.
There are many reasons to electrify rail lines, but none of them involve global warming or health effects. These include faster acceleration and top speeds, the opportunity to use tunnels without sophisticated ventilation systems, maintaining a fleet for a longer period of time, and the opportunity to use electrical multiple units with driven axles rather than a locomotive (again, this is related to acceleration). If these aren't issues in the transportation system, then electrification shouldn't be on the table.
There are many reasons to electrify rail lines, but none of them involve global warming or health effects. These include faster acceleration and top speeds, the opportunity to use tunnels without sophisticated ventilation systems, maintaining a fleet for a longer period of time, and the opportunity to use electrical multiple units with driven axles rather than a locomotive (again, this is related to acceleration). If these aren't issues in the transportation system, then electrification shouldn't be on the table.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Okay, I'm more critical of this country's mindset than 2/3 of the people here, but I don't think this is really a valid point. For starters, up until recently, Canada used a lot of its money to pay off its debt which, in the early 90s, was among the worst in the industrialized world. We can ooh and aah Japan's infrastructure all we want, but it was all bought with borrowed money and now they have a debt bubble that will crush future generations for decades.
Secondly, why should we develop our vast hydroelectric and wind power capacities right away? We should be pragmatic about this and only develop it when it makes economic sense, not as some sort of Nationalistic debt-financed project.
Also, why do we want to open the floodgates for immigration to "build" the country? In 1912, the CPR could ship Ukranian immigrants by the thousands from Pier 21 to the wild prairies of Saskatchewan and tell them to 'go nuts' but 100 years later, the average immigrant is most likely going to settle in a burgeoning city that must accommodate a sophisticated social and physical infrastructure. It would be almost untenable if Toronto grew by, say, 500,000 people per year because you think that this country should have Jeffersonian expansion plans.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
I didn't mean for this to get into a debate over how useful electrification is. My point was, and remains, that the benefits of these infrastructure megaprojects is often far less than they would seem. The most obvious example is Japan. Their road, rail and air transportation networks are pretty much the greatest on Earth. This forum is full of infrastructure fetishists, so I won't go into to much but whether it's Kansai International, the Tokyo Bay Tunnel, Seikan Tunnel or the Honshu-Shikoku bridge system they are simply incredible pieces of engineering.
By and large though, these projects haven't benefited the Japanese people. Their public debt is now second to only Zimbabwe, their health spending is far below OECD average, income growth has averaged 1% p.a. over the past decade, they have social security systems systemically underfunded in favor of politically expedient infrastructure and debt repayment and so forth. It's inequitable in that it shifts funds away from society's poorest and into a class of politically well connected developers, it screws the youth who are now saddled with ruinous debt levels and most of stunts investment in more productive areas of the economy.
Canada's not at that point, and we probably could use more infrastructure here and there, but these things have an awful habit of having their anemic benefits papered over with claims of "national vision." Whether it's Ontario's nuclear system, Quebec's overdeveloped hydro system, Mirabel, Confederation Bridge, the St.Lawrence Seaway or the Arrow we've got quite a strong history of completely ignoring proper cost/benefit thinking and opting for over-built infrastructure projects just to soothe our national paranoia.
By and large though, these projects haven't benefited the Japanese people. Their public debt is now second to only Zimbabwe, their health spending is far below OECD average, income growth has averaged 1% p.a. over the past decade, they have social security systems systemically underfunded in favor of politically expedient infrastructure and debt repayment and so forth. It's inequitable in that it shifts funds away from society's poorest and into a class of politically well connected developers, it screws the youth who are now saddled with ruinous debt levels and most of stunts investment in more productive areas of the economy.
Canada's not at that point, and we probably could use more infrastructure here and there, but these things have an awful habit of having their anemic benefits papered over with claims of "national vision." Whether it's Ontario's nuclear system, Quebec's overdeveloped hydro system, Mirabel, Confederation Bridge, the St.Lawrence Seaway or the Arrow we've got quite a strong history of completely ignoring proper cost/benefit thinking and opting for over-built infrastructure projects just to soothe our national paranoia.
kettal
Banned
I reckon that one paid off quite well, wouldn't you?
There's been a flood of articles and reports over the past couple of weeks proclaiming that the weakest link in Toronto's prosperity prospects is the transport infrastructure. I think it certainly needs to become a priority.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
No, I wouldn't. It subsidizes heavy industry at the expense of poorer Quebecers, it subsidizes rural middle-class at the expense of Quebec's youth and it leads to rampant environmental destruction and over consumption. It's social justice ass backwards.
EDIT: And if that wasn't enough, now they are taking on even more debt to overexpand some more. God if I was a New Brunswickian (is it -er?) I would be laughing myself to death at the moment.
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hbl33
Active Member
It seems that Canada spends too much on its human well-being policies rather than infrastructure which is now most other countries spend on. Canada spends on improving infrastructures too, but they are way too behind of all other OECD nations in balancing the spending between citizens' wellness and infrastructure. Our health care and pension is one of the best in the world, so it is stop making additions or deduct anything from it now. It is good as it is. What is now should be priority is the infrastructure. Living in a country with best health care but appalling infrastructure is bad as what would be other way around. It needs to be balanced.
vegeta_skyline
Senior Member
Actually most of India's rail system is electrified too
True, but I get annoyed whenever people quote the faster deceleration benefit - the difference is very marginal at best. Electrification by itself has nothing to do with deceleration. The only difference is in the weight. A GO consists currently weighs 630 tons. An electric propelled consist would weigh 600 tons.
Its a 5% difference. Braking wise that difference in weight equates to about a 2% decrease in brake time.
Everything else you mentioned is spot on though,
and of course that should be enough to implement it.
kettal
Banned
If Ontario wants to re-create the Madrid Miracle, I expect it would come in the form of GO improvements. "In 4 years, we will have 200 km of electrified rail with 30-minute maximum headways". Just say it and then get it done.
Dan416
Senior Member
No one is against electrifying GO. It should and must be done. It's a far more attainable goal than electrifying the Toronto-Montreal corridor. But don't expect a GO train with 30-minute headways to replace proper subway infrastructure (e.g. MCC).
We don't have to be like Madrid and just draw lines on a map. SOS has been very practical in its subway goals.
We don't have to be like Madrid and just draw lines on a map. SOS has been very practical in its subway goals.