Bordercollie
Senior Member
Okay but what about other reasources? Potash?
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General railway discussions
- Thread starter Urban Sky
- Start date
ViewfromtheLake
New Member
Is there really a need for another tidewater port ( that is only functional for part of the year) or does it make more sense to enhance connections and capability to the west coast, east coast and Montreal/St Lawrence.
I could see Churchill under consideration as a shorter turn around summer port for Arctic resupply, especially as we slowly awake to our Northern security concerns, but not Mr. P’s vision - there must be a vote or several that would buy this idea, and that is why he is floating it.
I could see Churchill under consideration as a shorter turn around summer port for Arctic resupply, especially as we slowly awake to our Northern security concerns, but not Mr. P’s vision - there must be a vote or several that would buy this idea, and that is why he is floating it.
crs1026
Superstar
I read it as vote gathering/playing to support in Alberta and a bit of mischief with First Nations, in the sense that it will be divisive between those who fear the environmental impacts and those who want the jobs and a share of the royalties.
Churchill is clearly going to be maintained for the medium to long term, so it makes sense to make best use of its port and diversify the cargoes transhipped. But the line is not going to become some highly invested super railroad…. it will be enough to fund enough riprap to keep up with washouts etc. A unit train or two a week of some more benign commodity makes good sense…. but most of those products (potash, sulfur, coal, etc) are destined for Pacific customers and Churchill is an Atlantic port, at least until climate really harms the Arctic.
If we need to ship oil by rail to Atlantic ports, I would ship it via the current routings (placing the risk closer to the colonials) and offload something else less risky (more grain, perhaps) to Churchill.
- Paul
Churchill is clearly going to be maintained for the medium to long term, so it makes sense to make best use of its port and diversify the cargoes transhipped. But the line is not going to become some highly invested super railroad…. it will be enough to fund enough riprap to keep up with washouts etc. A unit train or two a week of some more benign commodity makes good sense…. but most of those products (potash, sulfur, coal, etc) are destined for Pacific customers and Churchill is an Atlantic port, at least until climate really harms the Arctic.
If we need to ship oil by rail to Atlantic ports, I would ship it via the current routings (placing the risk closer to the colonials) and offload something else less risky (more grain, perhaps) to Churchill.
- Paul
Allandale25
Senior Member
How deep would the bedrock be there?
Bordercollie
Senior Member
In high-latitude tundra, permafrost – perennially frozen ground – lies a few inches to a few feet below the soil surface and can extend to depths of 2240 feet (683 meters).
lenaitch
Senior Member
You don't need to get down to bedrock, you need to get to a stable, well drained base. Part of the line, roughly from where it turns north near Gillam, is in the Hudson's Bay Lowlands, which is essentially a very large, flat, water-logged peat bog interspersed with outcroppings of silt, sand and gravel. It used to be a sea/lake bed. I tried to find some kind of reference for the general depth of the overburden but could not. If where you want to go allows you to follow on top of an esker, then you can have a decent, well-drained base; if not, you need to add fill, more fill and more fill until it stabilizes - for now. There is sand and gravel but you can't really quarry it because of the water table.
Stories abound in northern Ontario (not Lowland but boreal) when they were pushing through roads and railways 'back in the day' on how they would cut trees and lay them down for days on end until they stopped disappearing, or of heavy equipment left over night only to find it disappeared the next morning (including locomotives that had gone on the ground). The trouble with trying to cut trees to 'corduroy' the base in the Lowlands is they are about the size of Christmas trees. I have been out on the Ontario part of the Lowlands. You can be walking on what you think is solid ground but what is, in fact, just a dense mat of peat; and if you jump up and down, you can make a tree several feet away move.
I don't know if there are any other major railroads in the world in a similar environment, but I don't see much beyond constant maintenance and relatively slow speeds.
I see a potential new role for the port in supplying Arctic communities. Currently that is done primarily from Montreal using commercial fleets. There 'might' be potential to draw off some of that business if it is economically viable. Whether it could be a seasonal gateway for petroleum/LNG in light of the 'Russian problem' would be a longer term matter.
44 North
Senior Member
Probably shouldn't be discounted in such a discussion, but post-glacial/isostatic rebound. Basically everywhere around Hudson Bay moves upwards at rates approaching 2cm/yr, not seen anywhere else in the world. Even Antarctica. Water courses alter, earthquakes, mass land movement. I'm very open to railway expansion and arctic sovereignty, maybe not so much toxic goods movement.
Allandale25
Senior Member
Allandale25
Senior Member
Some great Toronto railway history here: http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=41090
The caption leads to this awesome photo album: flickr.com/photos/32175940@N06/albums/72157623854382448
The caption leads to this awesome photo album: flickr.com/photos/32175940@N06/albums/72157623854382448
squircle
New Member
The Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC) programme in the EU is seeking to replace the ubiquitous chain-and-buffers coupler on freight wagons with an automatic coupler that includes air and data. They're going to do this on half a million freight wagons and locomotives in Europe. I got a really good bit of insight from one of the project leaders when I was at the UIC symposium in December:
To most people, the DAC programme is an engineering challenge of testing and selecting the ideal autocoupler, ramming trains together, yanking them apart, etc. But to them, that's secondary. The primary objective of the DAC programme is sorting out how to deal with one fundamental issue: the railcar owners will be the first to incur the expense of retrofitting their fleet, but the last to receive the benefits.
Retrofitting ECP brakes on North American rolling stock would be a similar challenge, and I hope that the AAR(/TTCI) is watching and learning from our friends in Europe, because the European project seems to be moving quickly with very satisfied stakeholders.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
It might be possible for certain types of trains. For example if you wanted to do it for double stack well cars or just coal cars or just tankers you could. The trains would need to be fixed to a specific type of car and matched with a locomotive with that coupler.
But then there will be no more mixed trains providing less flexibility in their operation.
If your railroad only uses specific cars and specific locomotives then that makes sense.
smallspy
Senior Member
I've been following the DAC progress - it's a massive project no doubt, and in some ways it is even more massive and pivotal than any project to standardize ECP braking in North America.
But in some respects the DAC programme is simply dwarfed by the North American system. The freight car fleet in North America is estimated at more than 3 times that number, and that doesn't include the additional thousands upon thousands of locos in active service.
The worst part is that we already know that ECP braking is better. It's been proven in testing, both at TTCI and in the real world, for many, many years now. How do we go from that state of knowledge and acknowledgement, to actually getting the damn thing done?
Dan
crs1026
Superstar
^The price tag cited, and the timeframe - 8.5B EUR by 2030 - is something that I just can't see privately-owned North American railroads swallowing, despite the obvious benefits. Especially if a fleet three times larger is to be converted.
A logical first step is - there is a certain amount of equipment in captive service that could be converted without impacting the interchange operation.... although, of course, as contracts and markets change, that equipment may cease to be captive.
A second step might be to inject a certain amount of "inefficiency subsidization". eg, more captive fleets. paid for by government.
Canada is likely not able to go its own way here. I'm not optimistic about the amount of regulatory and investor inertia in the US rail system.
- Paul
A logical first step is - there is a certain amount of equipment in captive service that could be converted without impacting the interchange operation.... although, of course, as contracts and markets change, that equipment may cease to be captive.
A second step might be to inject a certain amount of "inefficiency subsidization". eg, more captive fleets. paid for by government.
Canada is likely not able to go its own way here. I'm not optimistic about the amount of regulatory and investor inertia in the US rail system.
- Paul
allengeorge
Senior Member
Meh. Every time we ask for change the private sector peeps up and says how expensive it’s going to be. Every time we propose legislation and regulation the private sector cries about how they and the market are best-placed to decide.
I say we demand an outcome and a timeline, and let the railways figure it out.
roger1818
Senior Member
That is what the American's did with with PTC and they had to keep pushing out the deadline because the railways weren't ready and they ended up with a patchwork of different incompatible standards.