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

Urban Sky said:
No worries, I don't expect people here to run travel time simulations and my modelling is based on a spreadsheet template I developed for my Master thesis (and is like everything I post here not related to my employment mentioned in my signature).

As for how to improve the travel time, I would rank the possible sub-strategies as follows (starting with the most cost-effective):
[...]
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All excellent points, but you are addressing VIA of course, and that is VIA's mandate. We might be chasing the invisible though, as Den asked: "In your opinon, how you you make HSR go faster?".

I wonder if Den could clarify if he meant "HFR"? Also subsidiary to the point, I wonder if Den or anyone else feels that northern tier should host GO trains (present diesel) to London? I see that as a bridge too far. It's clearly VIA's mandate, electrified or not.
 
steveintoronto said:
All excellent points, but you are addressing VIA of course, and that is VIA's mandate.
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Actually, I was referring to any rail service, independently from what markets it serves and who operates it. In general, the more frequent a train service stops, the more an improvement in acceleration capabilities will show an effect and the less will improvements of the design speed (especially beyond 120 km/h)...
 
Urban Sky said:
No worries, I don't expect people here to run travel time simulations and my modelling is based on a spreadsheet template I developed for my Master thesis (and is like everything I post here not related to my employment mentioned in my signature).

As for how to improve the travel time, I would rank the possible sub-strategies as follows (starting with the most cost-effective):
1) Designate certain (but not necessarily: most) trains as express trains with limited stops to increase average speed through less stops served.
2) Upgrade signalling system to increase average speed through increased line speeds.
3) Upgrade the tracks to increase average speed through increased line speeds.
4) Upgrade the level crossings to increase average speed through increased line speeds at level crossings.
5) Acquire new rolling stock to increase average speed through increased maximum speed and acceleration capabilities.
6) Acquire tilting-enabled rolling stock and upgrade infrastructure to enable tilting operations to increase average speed through increased speed limits in curves.
7) Re-align the railway line in curves to increase average speed through increased speed limits in curves.
8) Electrify the line to increase average speed through improved acceleration capabilities.
9) Build additional tracks and sidings to increase average speed through minimized conflicts between faster and slower trains.
10) Build a dedicated greenfield line to increase average speed through a shorter and straighter alignment.

In my humble opinion, we tend to neglect points 2-7 in this forum...
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Excellent list. too bad metrolinx has only done 1, 2 and some of 3.

steveintoronto said:
All excellent points, but you are addressing VIA of course, and that is VIA's mandate. We might be chasing the invisible though, as Den asked: "In your opinon, how you you make HSR go faster?".

I wonder if Den could clarify if he meant "HFR"? Also subsidiary to the point, I wonder if Den or anyone else feels that northern tier should host GO trains (present diesel) to London? I see that as a bridge too far. It's clearly VIA's mandate, electrified or not.
Click to expand...
Urban Sky said:
Actually, I was referring to any rail service, independently from what markets it serves and who operates it. In general, the more frequent a train service stops, the more an improvement in acceleration capabilities will show an effect and the less will improvements of the design speed (especially beyond 120 km/h)...
Click to expand...
Yes, HFR.

For now, even if we don't get HFR, we need to make the diesels go faster imo.
 
London has a well diversified economy but as always, London never booms or busts. London doesn't just have 3M but also London Life, Canada Trust still has a huge presence in the city, it is a more important government and regional centre for SWO and draws from across the region for government services, entertainment, shopping, and culture. The city is at the confluence of several major highways importantly connecting to the US as well as rail lines and London airport continues to grow in passengers and airlines. It still has CAMI in Ingersol, and increasingly food manufacturing such as Dr.Oetker.

Western is a huge school but so is Fanshawe. Also London is not just "a big hospital" but one of NA main medical centres. A lot of medical research goes on in London. In fact London's very busy convention centre is the ONLY convention centre in NA designed specifically with medical conventions in mind.
 
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Anyway, GO rail would be a complete waste of money to London. It would certainly be more frequent but slower than the VIA trains are now which is saying something. With Ontario building more HOV, it would be faster taking the bus. Also a lot of Londoners no longer take the 401 to get to downtown Toronto but rather the 401/403/QEW route which is more direct saving about 12km and not getting screwed at the traffic near Pearson.

Anyone going to Toronto outside the downtown/inner city or going to KWC/Guelph will either drive or take the bus. Even Pearson is not as big a draw as it was due to London Airport being an international one with many carriers including United.

Really what the province should be looking at is not London-KW-Pearson-Union HS-HFR but SWO-Tor HS/FR. In other words buy the fast diesel trains {at least to start with}, add track to avoid delays with CN/CP and have trains running non-stop at 200km/hr from Toronto to London then out of every 3, 2 continue to Windsor and one to Sarnia. To me getting to London via KW never made sense. It's too slow and indirect and as far as going to Pearson, there are already bus companies in the SW that serve passengers only going to Pearson.

Using the diesel HSR {200km/hr cruising speed as currently used in Britain} will get someone from Union to downtown London in just one hour, Sarnia in 90 minutes, and Windsor in 2 hours. Screw Oxford county as no one takes the train there anyway and Brantford will eventually get GO. Maybe every 3rd train could stop at Waterdown for Hamilton traffic and GO and Niagara connections.
 
ssiguy2 said:
London has a well diversified economy but as always, London never booms or busts. London doesn't just have 3M but also London Life, Canada Trust still has a huge presence in the city, it is a more important government and regional centre for SWO and draws from across the region for government services, entertainment, shopping, and culture. The city is at the confluence of several major highways importantly connecting to the US as well as rail lines and London airport continues to grow in passengers and airlines. It still has CAMI in Ingersol, and increasingly food manufacturing such as Dr.Oetker.

Western is a huge school but so is Fanshawe. Also London is not just "a big hospital" but one of NA main medical centres. A lot of medical research goes on in London. In fact London's very busy convention centre is the ONLY convention centre in NA designed specifically with medical conventions in mind.
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London is in tough though. It will take time to get going again.
 
ssiguy2 said:
Really what the province should be looking at is not London-KW-Pearson-Union HS-HFR but SWO-Tor HS/FR. In other words buy the fast diesel trains {at least to start with}, add track to avoid delays with CN/CP and have trains running non-stop at 200km/hr from Toronto to London then out of every 3, 2 continue to Windsor and one to Sarnia. To me getting to London via KW never made sense. It's too slow and indirect and as far as going to Pearson, there are already bus companies in the SW that serve passengers only going to Pearson.
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I refer to one of my first posts here in this forum, in which I compared the Toronto-Brantford-London, Toronto-Brantford Cut-off- London and Toronto-Kitchener-London routes with each other, including the following graphs/tables:
urban-toronto-16-jpg.36461

urban-toronto-15-jpg.36467

urban-toronto-14-jpg.36488


ssiguy2 said:
Using the diesel HSR {200km/hr cruising speed as currently used in Britain} will get someone from Union to downtown London in just one hour, Sarnia in 90 minutes, and Windsor in 2 hours.
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You are confusing average and maximum speed: Even Ontario's HSR proposal only targeted a travel time of 71 minutes between Toronto and London, despite a design speed of 320 km/h. Even if using Euclidean distance (i.e. "as the crow flies"), the rail stations of London and Toronto are 169 km apart. In the case of Toronto and Windsor, it's 330 km, for which your projected travel time would equal to an average speed of 220 km/h or 110% of your design speed...
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
Is anyone in favor of regular GO service to London and Stratford, or too far?
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I think VIA does the trick, and infrastructure upgrades like new stations, sidings would have to be built. Also GO seats would be uncomfortable for the length of time from London to Toronto. I could maybe see Stratford service during the summer, kind of like the current Niagara service.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
Is anyone in favor of regular GO service to London and Stratford, or too far?
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I am, very much so. Primarily because I think VIAs federal obligations add far too much overhead to their services and would like to see them booted out of any Ontario route which doesn't cross a provincial boundary.

The last time I looked at their financials (a couple years ago) Corridor operations expenses were 100% covered from fares BUT one you included head-office overhead they required a 50% subsidy. Either there is some funky math in that or head-office overhead is massive.

I'm not particularly pleased that HFR is designed to eliminate federal operation subsidy for all VIA operations. A non-trivial chunk of that ticket price will be spent outside HFR routes; I'd rather not have that price inflation creep into other services strictly within Ontario.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
Is anyone in favor of regular GO service to London and Stratford, or too far?
Click to expand...

Too far.

I see it as GO till Guelph. And hourly HFR beyond that with stops in Kitchener, Stratford (because of the theatre) and London. Eastbound after Guelph, you have the train make the same stops at key transfer points. Allow them to change to the GO RER network and TTC subway network.
 
rbt said:
It is possible for an organization to have more than one type of train car; try out the UPX route to see GO's other fleet.
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Well of course it is! Existing bi-levels could be used, with improved seating if needed. But you potentially then get into the "why does my GO line have inferior seating" debate but that is another issue all together.
 
rbt said:
I am, very much so. Primarily because I think VIAs federal obligations add far too much overhead to their services and would like to see them booted out of any Ontario route which doesn't cross a provincial boundary.

The last time I looked at their financials (a couple years ago) Corridor operations expenses were 100% covered from fares BUT one you included head-office overhead they required a 50% subsidy. Either there is some funky math in that or head-office overhead is massive.

I'm not particularly pleased that HFR is designed to eliminate federal operation subsidy for all VIA operations. A non-trivial chunk of that ticket price will be spent outside HFR routes; I'd rather not have that price inflation creep into other services strictly within Ontario.
Click to expand...

An excellent point. HFR is designed to help VIA subsidize the rest of its operations.

On the other hand though, who has the capital to actually build that line. Queen's Park doesn't seem interested.
 
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