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

[salsa]

Whoa wait a minute.. could that new freight line take CP trains off Milton line as well, thus freeing up that line for GO improvements?

Yes it can. This is what the existing situation looks like:

And this is what the freight bypass would do.

 

[smallspy]

Turbo was <4h on some (most) services.

I love LRC, too, don't get me wrong (I have Jason Shron's HO Scale Rapido model and 3 coaches), but it was (currently is) severely neutered from what it once was. We're heading backward, not forward with speed.

The Turbo never ran 4 hours or less on the schedule between Toronto or Montreal. They wanted it to, and advertised it before the Turbo started running, but by the time it actually entered service it was longer. I think that the best they could manage was 4:20 - I'd have to wade through the stack of schedules here in the office.

Also, the Turbo had a maximum track speed of 95mph, whereas the LRC was allowed 100mph. So technically, the LRC was faster as per the timetable.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Duck]

So service in the 1970's was about 20% faster than the fastest train today.

 

[crs1026]

The Turbo never ran 4 hours or less on the schedule between Toronto or Montreal. They wanted it to, and advertised it before the Turbo started running, but by the time it actually entered service it was longer. I think that the best they could manage was 4:20 - I'd have to wade through the stack of schedules here in the office.

My office must be much smaller, I can just reach over....

April 1967 - 3:59 (Pre Delivery)
October 1968 - 3:59 (Inaugural)
Feb 1971 - 4:05 (Post First Refit)
April 73 - 4:10 (Notional Post Second Refit)
April 74 - 4:10 (Actual Post Second Refit)
Oct 76 - 4:10 (VIA)
April 77 - 4:30 (VIA)

Also, the Turbo had a maximum track speed of 95mph, whereas the LRC was allowed 100mph. So technically, the LRC was faster as per the timetable.

Timetable? Bah. Nothing like an A-B-A of MLW's and a devil-may-care hogger. Or, in other times, a CN 4-8-4.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

So service in the 1970's was about 20% faster than the fastest train today.

I don't recall the Turbo usually being on time.

And I also recall VIA running 3:59 in the 1990s - with more success then than CN had in the early 1970s.

 

[mdrejhon]

Good "advertised timetable" history, thanks!

It just shows all the shortfalls from hype.

 

[Duck]

I don't recall the Turbo usually being on time.

...so, no change from today then, either.

 

[nfitz]

...so, no change from today then, either.

Though I don't see VIA being trashed as regularly in the mainstream media as I recall Turbo being. Though perhaps the rail reliability is a bigger story in Kingston, where I lived back in the 1970s.

 

[1overcosc]

Yes it can. This is what the existing situation looks like:

View attachment 66464






And this is what the freight bypass would do.

View attachment 66463

Wow.

Looks like there's three elements to this Missing Link plan:
1) A new railway entirely along the 407 in Brampton
2) adding more tracks to the CN line through Southern York Region so that CP trains can use it too.

The first element would free up the Kitchener line through Brampton, the second would free up the Milton line too. Second would also free up that midtown railway through Toronto for a possible east-west GO service inside the city (that's the Midtown GO people keep talking about right?), and take freight traffic outside the City of Toronto.

How much would this all cost, roughly? I'd say the province should pay for it as part of this round of improvements. There's so many benefits to this!

 

[TOareaFan]

Wow.

Looks like there's three elements to this Missing Link plan:
1) A new railway entirely along the 407 in Brampton
2) adding more tracks to the CN line through Southern York Region so that CP trains can use it too.

The first element would free up the Kitchener line through Brampton, the second would free up the Milton line too. Second would also free up that midtown railway through Toronto for a possible east-west GO service inside the city (that's the Midtown GO people keep talking about right?), and take freight traffic outside the City of Toronto.

How much would this all cost, roughly? I'd say the province should pay for it as part of this round of improvements. There's so many benefits to this!

actually sounds, to me, the most appropriate application of the new federal government's infrastructure pot in this part of the world.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

The first element would free up the Kitchener line through Brampton, the second would free up the Milton line too. Second would also free up that midtown railway through Toronto for a possible east-west GO service inside the city (that's the Midtown GO people keep talking about right?), and take freight traffic outside the City of Toronto.

How much would this all cost, roughly? I'd say the province should pay for it as part of this round of improvements. There's so many benefits to this!

Yes, this is the Midtown GO everyone keeps talking about.

I don't know the cost, but the argument is: (building the missing link, diverting CN/CP onto it, and taking over the existing ROWs) < (additional trackage, property acquisitions, grade separations, existing structure widenings and everything else required to run GO and CN/CP in the same ROW)

 

[mdrejhon]

drum118, who works closely in the industry photographing the construction sites, will deadpan that the Missing Link is not practical -- at least for many decades.

But, with a blank check from Feds very enthusaic about funding infrastructure projects ASAP -- things could change in a real huge hurry. Whether there should be one, is a separate legitimate question (deficit / taxpayer perspective).

It's a huge UrbanToronto-style "WHAT IF???"

I'm totally for the Missing Link, if it can happen. But it is a super-megaproject. HydroOne/407ETR/CN/CP/City/Provincial/Federal co-ordination super mega-project taking possibly 25 years in an incremental fashion. The Missing Link can be done incrementally -- we would all dream to achieve full passenger rail ownership of the prized Brampton section. That can be achievable before we fully take over the North Toronto subdivision -- making electrification to Kitchener much more feasible (and, consequently make much easier the HSR service Ontario so much wants to build).

It could still be done with corridor sharing, but would Missing Link become cheaper and easier for all the benefits we can get to own prized passenger rail corridors south of the 407? (Just as DonValleyRainbow said)

Surprising transit developments do happen suddenly, as seen from politics. So who knows?

 

[LNahid2000]

Though I don't see VIA being trashed as regularly in the mainstream media as I recall Turbo being. Though perhaps the rail reliability is a bigger story in Kingston, where I lived back in the 1970s.

I remember taking the Kitchener VIA route often in 2010 and it was ALWAYS late. Once it was so late that I missed the last local bus to Waterloo and had to walk from Kitchener to Waterloo.

 

[nfitz]

I remember taking the Kitchener VIA route often in 2010 and it was ALWAYS late. Once it was so late that I missed the last local bus to Waterloo and had to walk from Kitchener to Waterloo.

Sigh, I did that once in the 1980s not long after I moved there. Being new to town (and pre-Smartphone) I just followed the path I knew that the Number 8 bus took to Erb/Westmount ... down Victoria to Belmont, up to Union, across to Westmount - a good hour+ - which I was kicking myself for when I saw a map afterward, and realised King Street was diagonal!

 

[DKsan]

Wow.
How much would this all cost, roughly? I'd say the province should pay for it as part of this round of improvements. There's so many benefits to this!

They have at least one regional municipality's official support. In the provincial pre-budget submission, the Region of Waterloo basically said "while we want the ION stage 2 funding, please take a giant chunk of outside GTHA transit funding and please build the Missing Link because we want GO trains more."