High Speed Rail: London - Kitchener-Waterloo - Pearson Airport - Toronto

[innsertnamehere]

Apparently the business case for the HSR is finally coming out sometime in the next week or two, we will maybe get some actual details from that.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Yes that would definitely be nice.

 

[Urban Sky]

VI: Comparison of acceleration and deceleration values from various sources

Those braking distances seem really conservative, especially the 160-0 distance. I can tell you as a matter of fact a GO train can stop from 93mph(150kph - top speed) in approx. 0.75 miles(1.20 km). That is however using a very heavy brake application, something the chart referenced doesn't define. But even with a more typical/normal level of braking, 150kph to 0 is can easily be accomplished in 1.0-1.1 miles(1.61-1.77 km). Of course GO trains are specifically tuned to have superior braking capabilities, at least vs current inter-city VIA trains due to the need for frequent stopping. I can't say how exactly high speed trains would compare since I don't have any experience operated them, though hopefully one day I will! They of course employe a different kind of braking system, one that relys far less on friction braking if at all. The charts 160kph to 0 braking distance/time seems almost accurate for a VIA train. But I'm certain that any future high speed trains the province purchases will have better braking abilities then the current VIA trains, some of which are absolutely atrocious, especially those "tin cans" !

So what would be the correct braking and acceleration times for a high speed train? Wish I could be of more help but all I can say is that as a train operator myself I find the 160-0 distance seems very long. The only other information I can provided is that which you've probably already found yourself or can easily find on the internet. The following link for example indicates a braking distance of 7.2km and 170 seconds from 300kph for the typical French, German and Japanese trains. http://www.railway-technical.com/Infopaper 3 High Speed Line Capacity v3.pdf

While in the end it doesn't make a significant difference time wise considering the limited number of stops, its still something to perhaps consider.

I have complemented your source by a small web search myself and collected values from the following sources, which I have sorted chronologically starting by the oldest:

• A 1991 report of the Federal Rail Administration concerning the use of the TGV for the Texas triangle (Table 2, page 6)
• The values of the 1995 QOHSRP study, to which you were responding (page 2-2)
• A technology comparison between the Transrapid and Bombardier’s JetTrain, compiled by the American Magline Group (AMG) in 2002 (page 13)
• The Railway Technical Web Pages newsletter to which you posted the link earlier today (page 2)

Additionally, I have added the values which I have derived myself from the QOHSRP study and on which I have based all timetable calculations in my Bachelor Thesis and in this forum

and compiled all values into the following table, in which the acceleration distances, times and rates are provided for the acceleration from standstill to 80, 160, 200, 240, 300 and 320 km/h:

Notes: A gray field means that no values were available for this speed, black fields mean that the speed is not applicable for the assumed train type and values in bold were taken from the tables provided further up, whereas all other values were derived from the values provided (where only the acceleration rate was provided, the speed was calculated first with t=v/a, followed by the distance with s=0.5(a*t^2)).


As you will see in the following table, most sources provide rather similar values for the various speed levels with the notable exception of the Jet Train (as indicated by the broken lines). Even though AMG claims that these values were obtained directly from Bombardier and the same table is used elsewhere, I find acceleration distances of 10 km to 200 km/h and even 32 km to 240 km/h as extremely implausible (or as a compelling explanation why the project didn't go anywhere). In any case, I don’t see any reason to believe that my acceleration values are overly conservative (which I know you never claimed about their case, but anyways...):

Moving on to the deceleration values below:

I see my values in line with most other sets of values, but seriously undercut by the values from your link (again indicated by broken lines):

It appears that even Deutsche Bahn assumes deceleration values of 0.5 m/s^2 (and even above, if for speeds below 170 km/h) for normal operation of their ICE 3:

However, when I compare the resulting travel times (simulated on TKL@200 km/h with all stops currently served by VIA Rail [Malton, Brampton, Georgetown, Guelph, Kitchener, Stratford, St Marys], since that appears to be my timetable scenario with the largest total of distances spent with braking: 42.87 km on 195.6 km of route), I achieve a time saving of 2:35 minutes (or 2.44%):

Even though you are right that the time savings only really matter in such extreme multi-stop cases as above (in the case of the one-stop TKL train, the difference accounted to only 53 seconds or 1.03%), I will consider adopting the deceleration value of 0.5 m/s^2 in my future timetables…


By the way, good luck on your dream of switching from commuter rail to HSR! Becoming a train conductor was my childhood dream, but I only ever made it to drive trains on MSTS on my PC…

Apparently the business case for the HSR is finally coming out sometime in the next week or two, we will maybe get some actual details from that.

See also High Speed Rail Canada to Release Toronto - Kitchener - London High Speed Rail Preliminary Business Plan by FCPWorld:

High Speed Rail Canada is the only source in Canada to obtain all the information relating to high speed rail past and present studies on high speed rail.

In October they released the previously unavailable France national Railway SNCF (Société nationale des chemins de fer français - National society of French railway) and partners on High Speed Rail Socio-Economic Study between Windsor and Quebec City.

Now High Speed Rail Canada is going to release FCPWorld Toronto-Kitchener-London High Speed Rail Preliminary Business Plan Study that was completed for the Ministry of Transportation.

The study will be released in early November 2014. Like all other studies it will be available on our Google drive link from our website.

I am eternally thankful to Paul Langan and his “High Speed Rail Canada” advocacy group, as my Bachelor thesis wouldn’t have looked the same if they hadn’t had already made the “VIA Fast” study available…

Amazing work! Thanks for all your research and insights (although I still disagree...and will so until I see a costing from the Province of the alternatives)

I hope that the politicians read this analysis. This is the work that your staffers should be doing (or getting the ministry to do) that will form a briefing note to you. If they don't do this amount of work....we're in trouble. (I'm kinda scared to know the answer)

And in this thread there has been identified the pro's and con's to almost all of the feasible alternatives. If you want to have an "open government" publish this type of analysis as a white paper and let poeple like us give feedback....and actually listen to it.

Thank you so much for your enthusiastic reaction to my tables! I'm really glad to hear that my work is so appreciated here (and there will definitely be more to follow, whenever I find the time)...


Related posts:
I: 48 minutes for Toronto-Kitchener is feasible with existing alignment at 160 km/h!
II: Toronto-London on existing Kitchener route is feasible in 97 minutes at 160 km/h
III: Toronto-London in 93 minutes at 160 km/h on existing Brantford route
IV: Liberals' 23 minutes promisse for HSR Kitchener-London is unrealistic!
V: Toronto-Kitchener-London vs Toronto-Burlington-London
Ontario-Quebec High Speed Rail Study Thread: Why don't we focus (for now) on Toronto-Kingston rather than Kingston-Smith Falls?

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Well that was a quick and detailed analysis, well done! I'm curious about the methodology used for some of those past studies, as there is quite a variance of up to 33% between them.

By the way, good luck on your dream of switching from commuter rail to HSR! Becoming a train conductor was my childhood dream, but I only ever made it to drive trains on MSTS on my PC…

Thanks! And lol that's alright, I have little doubt you'll be involved in a significant way in the industry in the future if you so choose. Btw what program do you use for your charts & graphs? They are very concise.

 

[Urban Sky]

I'd like to respond to some of the comments and ideas raised concerning Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto, but I think that this discussion has become too off-topic for a thread named High Speed Rail: London - Kitchener-Waterloo - Pearson Airport - Toronto. I don't know yet the mechanics of this forum, but would it be possible for the admins/mods to move these posts to the thread stated below?

Ontario-Quebec High Speed Rail Study

I have to admit that this was a powerful demonstration that you can switch comments from one thread to the other, but would it be possible to do the same with the posts I had listed below?

I was referring to these posts:

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showth...on-Airport-Toronto/page17?p=929847#post929847
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showth...on-Airport-Toronto/page17?p=929973#post929973
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showth...on-Airport-Toronto/page17?p=929979#post929979
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showth...on-Airport-Toronto/page17?p=930063#post930063
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showth...on-Airport-Toronto/page17?p=930078#post930078
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showth...on-Airport-Toronto/page17?p=930327#post930327
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showth...on-Airport-Toronto/page19?p=946841#post946841

 

[ssiguy2]

Before they figure out what route to take they should first be deciding how this route will be run.

If this is VIA, then what happens to the current old Kitchener/London and Hamilton/London routes. Will those in between residents now have no service? VIA won't go for this line if they have to keep the other 2 current lines running.

 

[gweed123]

Before they figure out what route to take they should first be deciding how this route will be run.

If this is VIA, then what happens to the current old Kitchener/London and Hamilton/London routes. Will those in between residents now have no service? VIA won't go for this line if they have to keep the other 2 current lines running.

I'd like to see GO launch a new service that in terms of service quality is midway between the current GO service and VIA service. Basically what DB Regio is in Germany. It would also allow GO to run the GO REX service without having to worry about serving exurban areas (Kitchener, Niagara Falls, Brantford, etc) with that same service. The two potential names that I've come up for for this service are GO+ and RegiGO (Regional GO).

That way VIA can focus exclusively on HSR service along the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, and GO can run the milk run routes.

 

[crs1026]

That way VIA can focus exclusively on HSR service along the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, and GO can run the milk run routes.

Yes. I suspect the business case for the Ontario-wide GO idea (let's not invent brand names quite yet) is quite attractive. It would be interesting to have a chart that lists varying travel times for segments, showing the likely passenger demand/revenue at each travel time, and also showing the dollars needed to achieve that travel timing.

I would predict that for a few billion dollars you could take some number of Kitchener-Toronto commuters per hour off the 401. For many more billion dollars, you could take the same number of Windsor-Toronto travellers off the 401 every hour. The latter would have a much higher travel-mile benefit, but any car removed from the 401 across Toronto is one carlength of space. The shorter distance travel is the low hanging fruit for limited tax dollars.

The case for HSR lies more in making a dent in air travel and in opportunity for linkages to new destinations. HSR isn't HSR if it stops repeatedly, so Toronto-Hamilton-London-Windsor are the only points that the business case can really consider. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a different market case with a different set of competitors.

- Paul

 

[P23]

Yes. I suspect the business case for the Ontario-wide GO idea (let's not invent brand names quite yet)

GO already stands for Government of Ontario, no need to invent any new names.

 

[gweed123]

Yes. I suspect the business case for the Ontario-wide GO idea (let's not invent brand names quite yet) is quite attractive. It would be interesting to have a chart that lists varying travel times for segments, showing the likely passenger demand/revenue at each travel time, and also showing the dollars needed to achieve that travel timing.

I would predict that for a few billion dollars you could take some number of Kitchener-Toronto commuters per hour off the 401. For many more billion dollars, you could take the same number of Windsor-Toronto travellers off the 401 every hour. The latter would have a much higher travel-mile benefit, but any car removed from the 401 across Toronto is one carlength of space. The shorter distance travel is the low hanging fruit for limited tax dollars.

The case for HSR lies more in making a dent in air travel and in opportunity for linkages to new destinations. HSR isn't HSR if it stops repeatedly, so Toronto-Hamilton-London-Windsor are the only points that the business case can really consider. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a different market case with a different set of competitors.

- Paul

Exactly. HSR is to link the major urban areas to each other, while the GO service is to a) provide a long range commuter service, and b) provide inter-regional service to communities that HSR has bypassed.

As for the "brand name", like GO REX, it's meant to be a shorthand for describing a specific aspect of GO service. GO REX is a lot easier to type than "electrified GO service using EMUs running at least every 15 minutes and having more stops in Toronto". Likewise, GO+ is easier to type than "long distance GO service that serves exurban commuter communities and smaller communities that were bypassed by HSR".

 

[rbt]

Exactly. HSR is to link the major urban areas to each other, while the GO service is to a) provide a long range commuter service, and b) provide inter-regional service to communities that HSR has bypassed.

As for the "brand name", like GO REX, it's meant to be a shorthand for describing a specific aspect of GO service. GO REX is a lot easier to type than "electrified GO service using EMUs running at least every 15 minutes and having more stops in Toronto". Likewise, GO+ is easier to type than "long distance GO service that serves exurban commuter communities and smaller communities that were bypassed by HSR".

HSR in Ontario must be branded GO Fast. GO Fast to the Airport, GO Fast home to London again, and GO Fast to the baseball game next Saturday.

 

[nfitz]

HSR in Ontario must be branded GO Fast.

Must? Go Fast or go home?

I'd sooner they built it, no matter what they call it ...

 

[rbt]

Must? Go Fast or go home?

It is the only name a reasonable person could choose

 

[nfitz]

It is the only name a reasonable person could choose

Other than GO Faster and GO Fastest ...

 

[crs1026]

HSR in Ontario must be branded GO Fast. GO Fast to the Airport, GO Fast home to London again, and GO Fast to the baseball game next Saturday.

If you could get to London in late afternoon, see a Knights game, and come home to Toronto in the same evening, it could be called GO See Some Decent Hockey For A Change

- Paul