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

[lead82]

That would be a substantial improvement. The problem with HSR is there is a very weak business case for it. This reminds me of Blue22, aka UPX. It was claimed to be built and operated by private sector for a profit. There was supposed to be a huge market... Fast forward and the UPX is nothing more than a subsidized express service to YYZ. HSR will be a massive white elephant.

Why spend so much money to build infrastructure that will serve such a small market. No one has yet answered the question of how will customers get to the stations and is there enough demand for a high prices HSR service between London and Toronto. Certainly there is some demand but how much of it is between the central cities as opposed to general demand between the regions. Regional demand is not easy to serve with rail. I don't see enough downtown London/Kitchener/Toronto traffic to warrant HSR. Especially if it means we only run a handful of trains a day. This is the current problem with VIA... The service levels suck! With the handful of trains a day one cannot use it reliably to get around. Travel time is important but service levels more so. Ontario and Canada should be focused on improving service levels today and building infrastructure to support say having a regular VIA train running hourly in each direction. That would eliminate the need for connecting flights in YYZ of the route stopped near YYZ.

 

[MisterF]

^Why do you think that only a handful of trains will run each day? The HSR line, if it ever happens, will essentially be all the GO and Via services to Kitchener and London combined at much higher speeds. That's 11 daily trains that run each direction right now with a lot more planned regardless of HSR. Demand will undoubtedly go up substantially with higher speeds.

You can't really use the experience of an airport express train intended for business people and tourists to predict the success of an intercity high speed line that's geared more towards commuters.

My prediction of this line is that it will be more of a hybrid. It will be much improved over the current services, probably with a new alignment between Kitchener and London, but it won't be as ambitious as a full TGV style high speed line.

 

[crs1026]

I don't know how one can say that there is no potential market. KW and London have both grown substantially since the days where there was more frequent service on this line - and the ridership was always good when there were several trains spaced out during the day. Budget cuts, downgrading of the line due to reduced freight revenue, and not ridership cuts, is what killed this line as a useful transportation corridor. Now that ML owns half the line, and some basic improvements are being made (I noticed that GO ordered over $1M in new ties for this line in the last year) one hopes the worst is behind us.

Will VIA and GO integrate? One hopes so. The political environment is more positive than it has been - two Liberal governments both willing to spend, and who see mutual benefit in working together with an eye to their next election - but the bureaucracies may or may not be on the same wavelength. And in the end, each party has an incentive to stall and see if the other party will pick up the tab. Glass half full, half not so full IMHO.

- Paul

 

[CapitalSeven]

I think this will end up integrated, assuming both the VIA and Ontario initiatives go ahead, whether on the HSR model, HFR, or a blend. It's too low-hanging a fruit for the ongoing Justin loves Kathleen narrative not to pluck.

 

[ssiguy2]

There would be a real political fallout from cancelling HSR to London/Windsor now and the provincial and federal Liberals won't chance that. London and Windsor have a lot of swing voters which are crucial to any election win. A dropping of HSR {especially by a Liberal Queen's Park} would confirm what people outside the GTA already feel.....that Wynne is the Mayor of Toronto and not the Premier of Ontario.

The last election win by Wynne was a close one and rescinding the HSR to SWO will be a one-way ticket to electoral defeat.

High Frequency Rail will be greeted with distain and Windsorites and especially Londoners would rather the money go to a widened 401 than billions being spent on a train no faster than the one they had half a century ago.

 

[reaperexpress]

^Why do you think that only a handful of trains will run each day? The HSR line, if it ever happens, will essentially be all the GO and Via services to Kitchener and London combined at much higher speeds. That's 11 daily trains that run each direction right now with a lot more planned regardless of HSR. Demand will undoubtedly go up substantially with higher speeds.

What are the 11 daily trains per direction? Currently there are 4 passenger trains per direction along the full route to Kitchener (2 GO, 2 VIA), set to increase to 7 within a year (4 GO, 3 VIA). If you count all the services which terminate in Georgetown or Brampton, then there are actually around 16 trains per direction (14 GO, 2 VIA).

You can't really use the experience of an airport express train intended for business people and tourists to predict the success of an intercity high speed line that's geared more towards commuters.

My prediction of this line is that it will be more of a hybrid. It will be much improved over the current services, probably with a new alignment between Kitchener and London, but it won't be as ambitious as a full TGV style high speed line.

Yeah, it's weirdly backward that they want HFR from Toronto to Montreal - with 200-300km between major cities, and HSR for Toronto-London, with 20-80km between cities. I keep hoping that VIA will become more ambitious and Ontario will get less ambitious in terms of infrastructure.

 

[MisterF]

What are the 11 daily trains per direction? Currently there are 4 passenger trains per direction along the full route to Kitchener (2 GO, 2 VIA), set to increase to 7 within a year (4 GO, 3 VIA). If you count all the services which terminate in Georgetown or Brampton, then there are actually around 16 trains per direction (14 GO, 2 VIA).

4 daily trains to Kitchener and 7 trains to London via Brantford. The HSR line would largely replace the southern route for intercity trips to London and points west, which is why I mentioned that it would basically be those two routes combined (plus the extra riders gained from higher speeds and frequencies). No doubt the southern route would still operate, but it would be more about serving the cities in between.

 

[Urban Sky]

So. Does anybody see this simply folding into VIA's HFR proposal, now that we know a little more about that one?

You are forgetting the owner of almost the entire line between Toronto and Kitchener, which also has proclaimed plans for that line...

I hope not.

HFR will only bring VIA's rail speeds from London up to the level of where they were in the 1980s.

I think you are grossly underestimating the travel times which were achieved in the 1980s, as today's travel times are no more than 10 minutes slower for any segment in Southwestern Ontario than they were at any time during that decade:

The only exception is Kitchener-London, where deteriorating track conditions have prolonged travel times by up to 31 minutes and thus also Toronto-Kitchener-London by up to 38 minutes and Toronto-Sarnia by up to 87 minutes, with the remaining 50 minutes of travel time prolongation of the last figure being explainable through the rerouting of the Toronto-Sarnia trains through the considerably slower Northern route:

Note that this suggests that if the infrastructure in Southwestern Ontario was to be upgraded so that the same average speeds could be reached as currently on the Kingston subdivision, travel times would be between 12 and 61 minutes lower than they were anytime during the 1980s (and most probably: ever). Finally, you will see that the 54-57 minutes for Toronto-Kitchener is already very close to the 48 minutes promised for the Ontario HSR project and that's just conventional rail (not even HFR) and I've even argued in my very first post in this forum that a modern train could make the journey in the same 48 minutes without exceeding 160 km/h or requiring any realignments of the existing line. With only 4 trains per day and direction running between Toronto and Kitchener and reaching average speeds of only 63 km/h (or even less) as the Status Quo, I would expect that there are many low-hanging fruits to pick before even considering HSR: whether the colour of those additional (and faster) trains will be yellow or green is of rather secondary importance to commuters and travellers in Southwestern Ontario - what matters is how fast these improvements can be implemented and realized...

 

[mdrejhon]

On a marketing basis, I fully expect a compromise to happen due to politics. Electrification and express train capabilities, possibly rolled into GO as RER enhancement (given Ontario existing plans with the corridor), and maybe possibly with some small stretches of maybe 200-240kph just to keep the "HSR" marketing label.

As long as trip times are delightfully shorter than driving, and prices are reasonable, the public will buy it all up. On this route, both VIA and GO (expresses) may even outperform many lesser HSR lines, whether 160kph, 200kph or 240kph.

 

[kEiThZ]

The problem with HSR is there is a very weak business case for it.

I don't see enough downtown London/Kitchener/Toronto traffic to warrant HSR.

You are presuming they are actually building HSR. They are not. They are talking about 90 mins from Toronto to London. That's not HSR. From the current 2 hr 8 min service to 1 hr 30 min service. ~30% improvement. Average speed of 127 km/h or 79 mi/h. That's not high speed by any measure.

So really, what it will be, is good (not even really good), regular speed intercity rail. It might even end up being suburban rail. A super express GO RER of sorts.

With that in mind, the costs will be nowhere close to HSR. And the fares will be competitive with driving.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Wasn't London - Toronto supposed to be 77 minutes, not 90? It would go from 128 minutes to 77, or a 40% improvement.

 

[MisterF]

Wasn't London - Toronto supposed to be 77 minutes, not 90? It would go from 128 minutes to 77, or a 40% improvement.

Yes, based on the latest available information the trip is planned to be 77 minutes from London to Union Station.

 

[ssiguy2]

If the service isn't significantly faster than the current one then it will be a complete waste of money. If Londoners and Windsorites aren't boarding the trains now than a train getting to Union 10 or 15 minutes faster won't make a hoot of difference.

Now that the 401 is getting HOV for buses, the buses will still be as fast as the train and probably a lot cheaper. If this is just a train that is just a little faster than the current one you would find people in SWO would rather just have an extended 402 north of London to Woodstock.

 

[lead82]

I'm sceptical that anything will get built. There hasn't been much of any progress on his front at all. If HSR is really just HFR with faster times between Toronto and London to be competitive that would be fantastic. I'll see it to believe it. So far the Liberals have squandered billions of dollars on wasteful vanity projects instead of investing in what is required to build capacity where it's required.

 

[Allandale25]

There is a reference to the EA for this project in the mandate letter for the Minister of Transportation. It was recently released:

• Continuing to support the Special Advisor on High Speed Rail in the development of his report back on the economic development opportunities, financing models and feasibility for delivering high speed rail in Southwestern Ontario, in fall 2016. You will also issue the Request for Proposal for the Environmental Assessment related to this project in 2017.