Amtrak is looking at doing 200km/h diesel on the empire corridor right now are they not? I thought full HSR had been dismissed.
Information mentioned one way or another in Metrolinx PDFs
Also, I suspect we may end up long term with hourly service to downtown hamilton with 15 minute services to West Harbour.
Let me see, I see Metrolinx PDF text that covers at least some of the pre-requisites for RER to West Harbour...
1. Additional track from Aldershot to West Harbour
Status: Some of it funded, some of it environmental Assessment
I see text in some GO PDF's that says Metrolinx is working towards this (EA, timelines). Not If this proceeds, presumably, this is Metrolinx-funded track construction in freight-owned corridor land, with increases in Metrolinx running rights. Also, both Aldershot and West Harbour has Metrolinx track that freight trains will not go over, so we're already getting Metrolinx-running-rights track on CN-owned corridor. So there's already precedent.
2. Additional track from West Harbour to Stoney Creek & eventually Lewis
Status: Funding now announced
It's already reported some of the $150 million announced for the Stoney Creek GO station (Confederation) will fund the parallel GO track. Snippets of diagrams (including the 2011 Confederation GO station) shows this parallel trackage is south of CN track, which is quite natural given that's where the track at West Harbour is. Zero contention with freight between West Harbour and Confederation, should easily permit 90 mph operation.
3. Wider overpass over Centennial Parkway
Status: Shovels are already in the ground
This is currently already in progress as a large construction site right now, and is funded. The Centennial Parkway bridge is intentionally being built to allow both CN-dedicated and Metrolinx-dedicated trackage; shovel's already in the ground for this one, baby! The bridge I see going up, appears to allow it to match the width found in the old Confederation station GO diagrams from 2011. I suspect they will demolish the old span (after detouring the trains over the newly built first span) and rebuild a new second span, since the old span is structurally insufficient.
Information not currently found in PDFs yet
There are other speculative items, not found currently in PDFs, but are possible by precedent:
4. Possible purchase of Grimbsby sub
Status: Speculative, but realistic
CN doesn't use it as much as their other CN routes -- it is low priority. CN runs more trains over their Lakeshore running rights on Metrolinx-owned track in Lakeshore West, so it is realistically possible for Metrolinx to purchase most of the trail all the way to Welland Canal (and possibly the U.S. border too), in due time. Not a high priority right now, but this is a delicious straight-arrow corridor with enough straightness for a 300kph train. You can bet your bank that Grimsby sub will become a valuable passenger corridor 100 years from now, because of how perfectly straight it is & room for 4 tracks from Hamilton all the way to almost Niagara Falls. Eventually. But today, CN only runs very few trains, and Metrolinx can afford to wait for a long while before buying up this corridor at the best price.
5. Overhead electric wire installation allowed even if freight own the track
Status: Speculative, but realistic
Worldwide, there's precedent of freight companies letting governments and commuter companies install a wire over the rail. Diesel freight trians just run under the wire. The wire just needs to be high enough, above industry standard freight maximum height, typically the height of a double-stacked freight containers. This will probably be how high the catenary wire is: Just high enough to clear two containers stacked in a bucket car -- and high enough to clear a Bombardier BiLevel. I predict this is what will happen through Hamilton Junction, at first.
6. Possible rail-to-rail grade separation, or Metrolinx-priority crossover rights;
Status: Theoretical, not yet realistic in near-term
This will be needed to completely eliminate contention with freight trains, without needing to cross to the other side. This would occur somewhere between Aldershot and West Harbour, perhaps near the Hamilton Junction (Canada's busiest rail junction). Rail-to-rail grade separation is an expensive megaproject typically costing about a couple hundred million dollars (based on other rail-to-rail grade separations Metrolinx has already done), either via a viaduct or a tunnel, at 1-2 degree grade, which requires several kilometers of sloping to go over/under. However, if Metrolinx does the crossover somewhere along the Grimsby sub past the waterfront railyard, then they can for now possibly negotiate a reaosnable Metrolinx-priority crossover right with a SLA (Service Level Agreement) that provides profitable compensation to CN (lots of money for a very rare delay of the very rare freight train) for a cost far less than a rail-to-rail grade separation (hitting a quarter of a billion dollars). Since only a few trains run the sub per day maximum on the Grimsby sub east of the waterfront railyard, and it's possible to build Metrolinx-dedicated rail the rest of the places, the crossover (to the opposite side of freight track) is only a tiny moment of contention with freight (a minute or two) that could allow 15-minute RER service through the CN-owned freight corridor. A good SLA (Service Level Agreement) or another agreement of some kind giving sufficiently punctual crossover rights to Metrolinx trains, profitable to CN shareholders, might be all Metrolinx needs to do 15-min RER service for less than a rail-to-rail grade separation. Either way, one or the other needs to happen -- crossover agreement or rail-to-rail grade separation -- would be required, and is probably one of the showstoppers for all-day service to Hamilton, especially for 15-min instead of hourly.
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Track ownership is a pesky matter. But we see definitive plans to build Metrolinx-dedicated track on CN-owned land, because of various definite mentions of extra trackage on corridor that Metrolinx does not own. So the agreement with CN shall be quite interesting -- it is possible that this is Metrolinx-funded CN-owned Metrolinx-daytime-running-rights track, as an example. I interpret it as essentially a Metrolinx leased track on CN-owned corridor land, with CN running rights of some kind like at nighttime; a quid pro quo. Presumably, this is also Metrolinx-funded track construction with increases in Metrolinx running rights (compared to sharing original CN-built track), even if the Metrolinx funded extra tracks are not build on their own land.
It appears that Metrolinx is at least planning to have at least one more Metrolinx-running-rights track all the way from Aldershot through Lewis (through West Harbour and Confederation), with the sole exception of a small contention near Hamilton Junction. That's where the GO trains have to cross over from one side to the opposite side of the track. That will be the final bottleneck to achieving all day service. Two tracks with full daytime Metrolinx-priority running rights (even if Metrolinx pays to build the track on freight corridor), will be needed to get 15-min RER service. I have no idea if any existing trackage is enough to double as "the other track", or if Metrolinx needs to build two tracks from scratch instead of one as they're looking to build between Aldershot and West Harbour in any material I could find. This will be challenging at the curve around Aldershot where it is extremely difficult to add another track, but if Metrolinx can pull this off then the catch may be a rail-to-rail grade separation to get the GO trains from one side of the freight tracks to the other. This would be a megaproject costing at least a quarter billion dollars, but if Metrolinx manages to do all the above bullets, then that would be the only thing preventing 15-min RER service to Hamilton, even if a section goes over trackage built on CN-owned land.
Presumably, it's cheaper to essentially de-facto gift a track to CN, than to buy the CN corridor. This actually happened near Kitchener, when Federal government did a 1 billion upgrade of the corridor, to speed up VIA train service. But since the freight company owns the land the new federally-funded track is built on, they're taking advantage of it to run more freight trains, and are actually slowing down VIA trains again! So Metrolinx needs to make sure the agreement includes Metrolinx-priority running rights on any surplus track CN doesn't need but doesn't mind being gifted extra track on unused CN corridor land (as CN has only 2 tracks in land that has room for 4 or 5 tracks), provided somebody else (Metrolinx) pays for upkeep and they get emergency / detour / nighttime running rights, so the extra track is useful -- and it would presumably appear that Metrolinx can pull this off for cheaper than buying the corridor outright (for now). The contract, presumably, would include a clause that it doesn't preclude future negotiations to purchase the corridor at any future mutually-agreed agrement.
The freight companies may be hard to work with, but we can be impressed that Metrolinx managed to purchase 80% of the GO network.
It may definitely not happen within 10 years, but it could realistically be within a long term master project (e.g. 25 year plan) and it's looking like all recent PDFs (2014 to date) hints at this. Master plans can often not come to fruitition as we know from all our cancelled subways and freeways, but we are now recognizing Metrolinx has been (comparatively) consistent in the last decade in progressing towards long-term goals at the moment.
DF site:metrolinx.com
