mdrejhon
Senior Member
That kent section is already relatively too close to the station/curve in Guelph, isn't it?
So even if you upgrade to 60mph, you couldn't safely stay at 60mph for the full length anyway. You have to slow down for the stop anyway, and a curve is just past that stop.
30mph is already ~50kph. It will be a big upgrade that milks most of the speed improvements on that Kent section. Though 45mph (~80kph) could be feasible from the seen rail geometry if the curves can handle that (e.g. cambered) -- the benefits would be so marginal since you're stopping anyway at Guelph, nobody's skipping that station. Even faster seems harder with that rail geometry without stupendously expensive solutions like rebuilding the whole corridor through entire Guelph -- the kind of solutions that comes from high speed train funding, all those noise walls, curve straightening, elimination of level crossings and too-close buildings, etc.
A better focus is most of the rail corridor between Kitchener and Guelph could theoretically be upgraded to go faster than a car on a freeway -- it's pretty darn straight-arrow, between Kitchener and Guelph except for tiny curves near Breslau. Rebuilding that to full GO speed (80-90mph long-term) is more productive than focussing on getting Kent >30mph. That said, the NIMBY factor of the noise of 80-90mph allday-2way GO trains zooming past your backyards in a Kitchener suburb... (at least they'll probably be electrified by then when they're that frequent)
Then you'd get Kitchener-Breslau-Guelph in a timefeel similar to Bronte-Appleby-Burlington on Lakeshore West, rather than it feeling like an allday excursion between two stops, Kitchener-Guelph (I'm exaggerating, but you get what I mean).
(Now that would be convenient express public transit between Kitchener-Guelph too!)
So even if you upgrade to 60mph, you couldn't safely stay at 60mph for the full length anyway. You have to slow down for the stop anyway, and a curve is just past that stop.
30mph is already ~50kph. It will be a big upgrade that milks most of the speed improvements on that Kent section. Though 45mph (~80kph) could be feasible from the seen rail geometry if the curves can handle that (e.g. cambered) -- the benefits would be so marginal since you're stopping anyway at Guelph, nobody's skipping that station. Even faster seems harder with that rail geometry without stupendously expensive solutions like rebuilding the whole corridor through entire Guelph -- the kind of solutions that comes from high speed train funding, all those noise walls, curve straightening, elimination of level crossings and too-close buildings, etc.
A better focus is most of the rail corridor between Kitchener and Guelph could theoretically be upgraded to go faster than a car on a freeway -- it's pretty darn straight-arrow, between Kitchener and Guelph except for tiny curves near Breslau. Rebuilding that to full GO speed (80-90mph long-term) is more productive than focussing on getting Kent >30mph. That said, the NIMBY factor of the noise of 80-90mph allday-2way GO trains zooming past your backyards in a Kitchener suburb... (at least they'll probably be electrified by then when they're that frequent)
Then you'd get Kitchener-Breslau-Guelph in a timefeel similar to Bronte-Appleby-Burlington on Lakeshore West, rather than it feeling like an allday excursion between two stops, Kitchener-Guelph (I'm exaggerating, but you get what I mean).
(Now that would be convenient express public transit between Kitchener-Guelph too!)
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