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

[ssiguy2]

The British Intercity 125 is diesel HSR has a maximum speed of 238km/hr and a cruising speed of 201km/hr. That would get someone from London to Union in 70 minutes at max cruising speed allowing for slow downs near stations. GO rail may be more frequent than VIA but it would be significantly slower, they might as well stay with what they have got now. If the HSR is going to be successful and actually make a dent in traffic along the 401 then it must be significantly faster than driving.

 

[crs1026]

Here I go creating fantasy timings again.

I took the basic KW line, upgraded to 95 mph operation, and sacrificed the Georgetown and St Marys stops (which I would argue are generating very little business for VIA), and applied a slightly more conservative dwell factor than Urban Sky. I took some of the railway "unavoidables" into account - the approaches to both London and Union require some slow running for the first mile or two, the segment shared with RER may have some crossover activity, and Guelph may be insolvable. This gives one a baseline for a HFR operation with a very low capital investment required (well, it assumes the Bypass solves the Halton conflicts). The end-to-end running time is 112 minutes, even with stops - better than the southern route.

Now take the same route, upgrade the easy bits to 110 mph.... the shortest segments aren't worth upgrading because the train will decelerate so soon after exceeding 95 mph, so the time savings is small. Drop Brampton as a stop to gain a few minutes at higher speed and save one station's worth of dwell time. The best performance is now 98 minutes.

Those times are hugely competitive with driving. The Malton-London time is very appealing to air travel connections, provided a good shuttle bus is implemented.

The things I would point out are:
- this is a hugely low capital cost proposition overall. Why anyone - VIA, GO, PPP, whomever - would wait til after the Toronto-Quebec HFR is done to start work on this, I don't understand.
- if you look at how dwell time and stop spacing add minutes, you can see why this shouldn't be thought of as a GO line extension. You need limited stops to keep the end to end time attractive. The more stops you add, the less bang you get out of a higher top speed, because trains spend more of the distance at accelerating/decelerating speed. I like the ideal of GO running it at lower overhead (VIA, for instance, supports a complex reservation/ticketing system that isn't needed if you are running hourly trains with assured empty seats) but it is not a 12-car bilevel proposition.
- if you want to improve on this further, to a 120 mph or higher service, knock yourself out. You will spend a whole pile more money than this scenario. And you will have to answer to whatever additional towns you blow through without stopping.

- Paul

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

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.

I'm not sure I agree. London seems to be a tough trek and they would have almost no time to turn the trains around. I think Mt Pleasant or Guelph is fine imo.

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.

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.

I agree with this. I think regular Go service should go to Guelph personally, and that's it although I see some people pushing otherwise, I think London is too far. Do you feel the same for Kingston? Should they get go service or also too far?

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.

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.

I'm with Alex, just one look at the GO seats and I know people would complain after 3 months.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

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:

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...

Here I go creating fantasy timings again.

I took the basic KW line, upgraded to 95 mph operation, and sacrificed the Georgetown and St Marys stops (which I would argue are generating very little business for VIA), and applied a slightly more conservative dwell factor than Urban Sky. I took some of the railway "unavoidables" into account - the approaches to both London and Union require some slow running for the first mile or two, the segment shared with RER may have some crossover activity, and Guelph may be insolvable. This gives one a baseline for a HFR operation with a very low capital investment required (well, it assumes the Bypass solves the Halton conflicts). The end-to-end running time is 112 minutes, even with stops - better than the southern route.

View attachment 94798
Now take the same route, upgrade the easy bits to 110 mph.... the shortest segments aren't worth upgrading because the train will decelerate so soon after exceeding 95 mph, so the time savings is small. Drop Brampton as a stop to gain a few minutes at higher speed and save one station's worth of dwell time. The best performance is now 98 minutes.


View attachment 94800

Those times are hugely competitive with driving. The Malton-London time is very appealing to air travel connections, provided a good shuttle bus is implemented.

The things I would point out are:
- this is a hugely low capital cost proposition overall. Why anyone - VIA, GO, PPP, whomever - would wait til after the Toronto-Quebec HFR is done to start work on this, I don't understand.
- if you look at how dwell time and stop spacing add minutes, you can see why this shouldn't be thought of as a GO line extension. You need limited stops to keep the end to end time attractive. The more stops you add, the less bang you get out of a higher top speed, because trains spend more of the distance at accelerating/decelerating speed. I like the ideal of GO running it at lower overhead (VIA, for instance, supports a complex reservation/ticketing system that isn't needed if you are running hourly trains with assured empty seats) but it is not a 12-car bilevel proposition.
- if you want to improve on this further, to a 120 mph or higher service, knock yourself out. You will spend a whole pile more money than this scenario. And you will have to answer to whatever additional towns you blow through without stopping.

- Paul

These are awesome. Ontario should move on this now, at least give southwestern ontario something to talk about.

 

[Urban Sky]

The British Intercity 125 is diesel HSR has a maximum speed of 238km/hr and a cruising speed of 201km/hr.

This time, you are confusing the maximum speed ever reached ("maximum speed") with the maximum operating speed ("cruising speed"): Before the latter is approved, the authorities demand overspeed journeys during which the targeted maximum speed is exceeded by at least 10%. The French started a tradition of modifying their trainsets for record trials, but both types of overspeed journeys are irrelevant when calculating travel times (e.g. the TGV may have reached 575 km/h in one such test, but its maximum operating speed is 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...

Even if I misread your quoted travel time for Toronto-Windsor as 90 instead of 120 minutes, the travel times you provided represent 90%-93% of the maximum operating speed (180-185 vs 200 km/h) if assuming the length of the current routes used by VIA (all routed via Brantford, not Kitchener) and still 83-85% of the maximum operating speed (165-171 km/h vs. 200 km/h) if assuming Euclidean distance. Have a look at fast rail services in Europe and you will see that their average speed rarely exceeds 75% of their maximum speed between any two stations, even when they have a dedicated HSR line the entire route.

That would get someone from London to Union in 70 minutes at max cruising speed allowing for slow downs near stations. GO rail may be more frequent than VIA but it would be significantly slower, they might as well stay with what they have got now. If the HSR is going to be successful and actually make a dent in traffic along the 401 then it must be significantly faster than driving.

The point you forget when making your travel time assumptions is that the maximum reachable speed is also determined by the infrastructure and especially the presence of curves and level crossings. In order to travel "at max cruising speed [while] allowing for slow downs near stations", you would need to build an entirely new greenfield alignment (point 10/10 on my list of the most cost-effective measures for improving average speeds), which is usually the point where you should go for significantly higher speeds as the incremental cost of doing so is not that high (at least not until you reach 250 km/h). In any case, diesel trains get incredibly inefficient in their energy use at high speeds and that is the reason why they (to the best of my knowledge) don't operate anywhere in the world beyond 200 km/h (125 mph).

If you want to know how to do better travel time estimates, have a look at Paul, who divides the line into different segments before allocating THOSE SEGMENTS with average speeds, while having no problem with admitting that his timings are still more theoretically than realistic:

Here I go creating fantasy timings again.

I took the basic KW line, upgraded to 95 mph operation, and sacrificed the Georgetown and St Marys stops (which I would argue are generating very little business for VIA), and applied a slightly more conservative dwell factor than Urban Sky. I took some of the railway "unavoidables" into account - the approaches to both London and Union require some slow running for the first mile or two, the segment shared with RER may have some crossover activity, and Guelph may be insolvable. This gives one a baseline for a HFR operation with a very low capital investment required (well, it assumes the Bypass solves the Halton conflicts). The end-to-end running time is 112 minutes, even with stops - better than the southern route.

View attachment 94798
Now take the same route, upgrade the easy bits to 110 mph.... the shortest segments aren't worth upgrading because the train will decelerate so soon after exceeding 95 mph, so the time savings is small. Drop Brampton as a stop to gain a few minutes at higher speed and save one station's worth of dwell time. The best performance is now 98 minutes.


View attachment 94800

Your timings are actually not far off my own model which yields 110 minutes for 95 mph and 104 minutes for 110 mph. I'm actually quite impressed given its "rule of thumbs" character...

Those times are hugely competitive with driving. The Malton-London time is very appealing to air travel connections, provided a good shuttle bus is implemented.

The things I would point out are:
- this is a hugely low capital cost proposition overall. Why anyone - VIA, GO, PPP, whomever - would wait til after the Toronto-Quebec HFR is done to start work on this, I don't understand.
- if you look at how dwell time and stop spacing add minutes, you can see why this shouldn't be thought of as a GO line extension. You need limited stops to keep the end to end time attractive. The more stops you add, the less bang you get out of a higher top speed, because trains spend more of the distance at accelerating/decelerating speed. I like the ideal of GO running it at lower overhead (VIA, for instance, supports a complex reservation/ticketing system that isn't needed if you are running hourly trains with assured empty seats) but it is not a 12-car bilevel proposition.
- if you want to improve on this further, to a 120 mph or higher service, knock yourself out. You will spend a whole pile more money than this scenario. And you will have to answer to whatever additional towns you blow through without stopping.

- Paul

I couldn't agree more with your conclusions, but regardless of the scale of required investment, any public railroad needs approval by the governments (and investors) involved before going ahead...

 

[steveintoronto]

Some excellent posts with good points, even if I don't agree with some. I do have to point out the obvious on (gist) "GO ending at Guelph". The go slow just west of Guelph station applies to all trains, so sloughing off the few kilometers further to Kitchener doesn't make sense. Very few get on/off at Guelph compared to Kitchener.

Paul's post makes many points, and makes them well, not least *cost*...which is something the never-ending fantasy proposals miss. The cupboard is virtually empty, save for a couple of projects that Investor Financing might/possibly/will make happen, one of them being The Missing Link, and the other VIA HFR in whatever form.

Guelph may be insolvable. This gives one a baseline for a HFR operation with a very low capital investment required (well, it assumes the Bypass solves the Halton conflicts). The end-to-end running time is 112 minutes, even with stops - better than the southern route.

I would argue that the Guelph 'go-slow' is solvable, and it's a matter of time until it is. Guelph Council fully understands that to 'do their bit' to make faster service happen on that corridor, but by assuming it won't, it makes your math even more believable. God knows we get presented with many fantasies that not only won't perform as presented, but also cost the sky. "Better than the southern route" also answers a continuing question, as VIA can't keep spreading investment on routes that show no return for it. VIA's just paid a bundle for the latest signalling to be installed on the northern tier, your figures demonstrate the case to see a return on that.

The things I would point out are:
- this is a hugely low capital cost proposition overall. Why anyone - VIA, GO, PPP, whomever - would wait til after the Toronto-Quebec HFR is done to start work on this, I don't understand.

Absolutely agreed, further comment unnecessary.

- if you look at how dwell time and stop spacing add minutes, you can see why this shouldn't be thought of as a GO line extension. You need limited stops to keep the end to end time attractive. The more stops you add, the less bang you get out of a higher top speed, because trains spend more of the distance at accelerating/decelerating speed. I like the ideal of GO running it at lower overhead (VIA, for instance, supports a complex reservation/ticketing system that isn't needed if you are running hourly trains with assured empty seats) but it is not a 12-car bilevel proposition.

Even GO's servicing the line to Kitchener all-day shouldn't be 10 or 12 car bi-level. That need might be there eventually, but even three coach is more than enough off-peak, and acceleration time is that much better for it. Many US commuter operations only run three bi-levels even during peak and they're very happy with the results. SMART is using two car Sharyos to do commuter over 70 kms!
[...]
Technical
Line length IOS: 43 mi (69 km)
Mandated: 70 mi (110 km)
Number of tracks single (85%) with passing sidings[2]
Track gauge 4 ft 81⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Operating speed 40 mph (64 km/h) (average)
79 mph (127 km/h) (top)
[...]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoma-Marin_Area_Rail_Transit#Rolling_stock

- if you want to improve on this further, to a 120 mph or higher service, knock yourself out. You will spend a whole pile more money than this scenario.

Indeed, it's acceleration, not top speed that shortens the time to travel on stopping trains. Given a limited number of coaches to pull, the F59s are fine for the job, emission levels besides. (Which can be tweaked).

Other poster comparisons with IC 125s is way off the mark...and pulling old MkIII stock to boot. They're ancient, and decades past best-buy date. I follow the issue, my older brother used to work them on Great Western. There's far better UK stock to compare to if a comparison is to be made. As it stands, and as Paul's figures show, we can do a heck of a lot more with what we already have with only a few tweaks.

 

[kEiThZ]

There seem to be conflicting goals between the TKL HSR and the HFR proposal.

HFR is meant to provide a more conventional frequent service. That probably would be sufficient for London even if the train takes 2 hrs. Sure, nobody will be using it for commuting. But an hourly service would at least make Toronto much more daytrip convenient for business and tourism.

Kitchener-Waterloo though needs faster service and they probably would like more than hourly frequency if this to be a major link to Pearson. Also, if it's the airport link, then being dropped off in Malton is not going to be viewed favourably.

Maybe they split the difference and do hourly RER service till Kitchener and hourly HFR service. That would give every point east of Kitchener with half hourly service. VIA could charge more. Something would have to be done about Malton though. Shuttle bus from the airport kills the appeal. Even extending the people mover isn't ideal.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

There seem to be conflicting goals between the TKL HSR and the HFR proposal.

HFR is meant to provide a more conventional frequent service. That probably would be sufficient for London even if the train takes 2 hrs. Sure, nobody will be using it for commuting. But an hourly service would at least make Toronto much more daytrip convenient for business and tourism.

Kitchener-Waterloo though needs faster service and they probably would like more than hourly frequency if this to be a major link to Pearson. Also, if it's the airport link, then being dropped off in Malton is not going to be viewed favourably.

Maybe they split the difference and do hourly RER service till Kitchener and hourly HFR service. That would give every point east of Kitchener with half hourly service. VIA could charge more. Something would have to be done about Malton though. Shuttle bus from the airport kills the appeal. Even extending the people mover isn't ideal.

There for sure needs to be a solution to Pearson Airport access. I'd love to see the GTAA invest in a "Pearson Station" at/around Woodbine for GO/VIA service, with the UP Express still servicing the existing station. There really needs to be a proper rail-to-air hub so that people travelling west to east can access the station, so people using GO and VIA have convenient access. Maybe extend the people mover, maybe do something else, but some type of transfer will probably be necessary do to the nature and location of the airport.

I was disappointed that Metrolinx wouldn't let VIA stop trains at Weston station as they requested for UP Express transfers. I know tons of students who live out of town and fly to Pearson and take the VIA to London for school, and they currently have to back track to do so.

 

[ssiguy2]

2 hours to London not good enough and won't entice anyone driving to switch to rail. Again that means that London/Union will still be slower than it was 40 years ago. If they can't manage London/Union within 75 minutes then it's a waste of money.

 

[gweed123]

Something would have to be done about Malton though. Shuttle bus from the airport kills the appeal. Even extending the people mover isn't ideal.

The way I see it there are two basic options: either you build a station on the existing track alignment and build some type of connection to the airport to service it (PM extension, etc), or you build a new station on a new alignment within the terminal complex to avoid the need for a connection service.

I'm having trouble seeing how Option 2 could be reduced to in cost to even close to the cost of Option 1. Option 2 would almost be the equivalent of building the Scarborough Subway.

 

[kEiThZ]

2 hours to London not good enough and won't entice anyone driving to switch to rail. Again that means that London/Union will still be slower than it was 40 years ago. If they can't manage London/Union within 75 minutes then it's a waste of money.

2 hrs isn't great. But it's about as fast as a car given GTA traffic. And decently competitive during peak. If pricing is decent, you'll see a lot more people forego the hassle of driving.

Like I said, if it's 2 hrs, it becomes an occasional service, not a commuter service. It would be amazing if it's greater than 2 hrs of course. But that was my point. The goals aren't lined up. HFR is supposed to be conventional service with higher frequency. And on the other hand, Queen's Park came up with this HSR proposal out of nowhere. And people are assuming that they'll merge. But they seem to have conflicting goals. Add to that, there's probably some ceiling on demand.

 

[mdrejhon]

There for sure needs to be a solution to Pearson Airport access. I'd love to see the GTAA invest in a "Pearson Station" at/around Woodbine for GO/VIA service, with the UP Express still servicing the existing station. There really needs to be a proper rail-to-air hub so that people travelling west to east can access the station, so people using GO and VIA have convenient access. Maybe extend the people mover, maybe do something else, but some type of transfer will probably be necessary do to the nature and location of the airport.

I have brought up the LINK II idea where the peoplemover is overhauled and extended to a Pearson GO RER station that also can eventually serve HSR trains.

Or an electrified UPX becomes the LINK II peoplemover itself. (Would require really major modifications to the Pearson UPX / LINK station, though!). Some cities' electrified/light rail systems double as the peoplemover between terminals too -- like Minneapolis LRT (Metro Blue Line) going free-fare-zone between the two airport terminals. It may not be practical in Toronto's case given the differing needs -- but one possible outcome is to modify UPX to terminate at, say, the future Spadina RER station, to permit 4 to 6 minute frequencies by staying away from the Union bottleneck. HSR would handle the direct Union-to-Pearson(RER station) trips.

Or a rail-based LINK II could actually share a somewhat-modified UPX spur with LINK trains (6-minute frequencies, interspersed between UPX trains, using a CBTC moving-block signalling system to permit tight headways on the spur).

All theoretical. More likely scenario (if it happens) is a rail-based LINK II overhaul that connects to a Pearson RER Station (either Woodbine or Malton).

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

There seem to be conflicting goals between the TKL HSR and the HFR proposal.

HFR is meant to provide a more conventional frequent service. That probably would be sufficient for London even if the train takes 2 hrs. Sure, nobody will be using it for commuting. But an hourly service would at least make Toronto much more daytrip convenient for business and tourism.

Kitchener-Waterloo though needs faster service and they probably would like more than hourly frequency if this to be a major link to Pearson. Also, if it's the airport link, then being dropped off in Malton is not going to be viewed favourably.

Maybe they split the difference and do hourly RER service till Kitchener and hourly HFR service. That would give every point east of Kitchener with half hourly service. VIA could charge more. Something would have to be done about Malton though. Shuttle bus from the airport kills the appeal. Even extending the people mover isn't ideal.

2 hours to London not good enough and won't entice anyone driving to switch to rail. Again that means that London/Union will still be slower than it was 40 years ago. If they can't manage London/Union within 75 minutes then it's a waste of money.

2 hrs isn't great. But it's about as fast as a car given GTA traffic. And decently competitive during peak. If pricing is decent, you'll see a lot more people forego the hassle of driving.

Like I said, if it's 2 hrs, it becomes an occasional service, not a commuter service. It would be amazing if it's greater than 2 hrs of course. But that was my point. The goals aren't lined up. HFR is supposed to be conventional service with higher frequency. And on the other hand, Queen's Park came up with this HSR proposal out of nowhere. And people are assuming that they'll merge. But they seem to have conflicting goals. Add to that, there's probably some ceiling on demand.

It should be 1 hour. Same with the east route to Kingston. We would have to show this is serious and not another Liberal project. Get people out of the cars completely.

 

[crs1026]

There seem to be conflicting goals between the TKL HSR and the HFR proposal.

HFR is meant to provide a more conventional frequent service. That probably would be sufficient for London even if the train takes 2 hrs. Sure, nobody will be using it for commuting. But an hourly service would at least make Toronto much more daytrip convenient for business and tourism.

"Competitive with driving" doesn't have to mean "quantum level better than driving". If Toronto-London could be kept below 2 hours - even by a small margin - it would be an alternative that is attractive simply because one isn't in a car for that time.

I haven't rode in VIA 1 since the last makeover, so I don't have an opinion of the latest interior, but I have seen all sorts of British/European stock with a first class interior that would be extremely attractive to "commuters" as a workspace - table, working wifi (not traditional VIA quality wifi), sufficient room and good washrooms. Two hours may be the upper limit on how long people will sit still, but a commuter trip of 1:50 gives time to do some work, have a coffee, take a short nap, etc. UPE wasn't wrong to apply those concepts to their trains, it was just the wrong line for that kind of amenities.

Kitchener-Waterloo though needs faster service and they probably would like more than hourly frequency if this to be a major link to Pearson. Also, if it's the airport link, then being dropped off in Malton is not going to be viewed favourably.

Maybe they split the difference and do hourly RER service till Kitchener and hourly HFR service. That would give every point east of Kitchener with half hourly service. VIA could charge more. Something would have to be done about Malton though. Shuttle bus from the airport kills the appeal. Even extending the people mover isn't ideal.

A major focus on this line has to be getting the Kitchener-Malton and Kitchener-Union times down to something reasonable. I like the idea of "express" on the hour and some form of RER on the half hour. People will quickly remember an hourly format so "Express departure at X:15, local departure at X:45" is marketable. For reasons of pure capital expense, I would limit true RER to Mount Pleasant.... perhaps Mount Pleasant should be similar to Aldershot, if you are going to a local stop east of there, that's where you transfer to RER. Guelph, Acton, Georgetown as added stops on the half hour remains sellable.

I'm not so sure that shuttle buses are a dealbreaker here. One just has to look for the model of where it is done well. I would nominate Boston, and the Phoenix Airport Car Rental shuttle, as two good ones. In Phoenix, taking the bus to the rental car depot is pleasant and painless. Frequent service, traffic priority or separate lanes, not overcrowding the vehicles, and nice vehicles themselves kept spotless make a huge difference. Just ask Disney. Heck, even Albuquerque has that kind of arrangement at their airport. But yes, 192 Rocket grunge and sardine factor is not acceptable. Again, steal from UPE and provide some form of airline check-in so the bus is time saved at the terminal....for that matter, check in on the train.

- Paul

 

[steveintoronto]

There's deep irony in searching for anything new in the way of "Ontario High Speed" (there's nothing I can find, and I've searched every which way. Someone check Collenette's closet to see if he's been stashed there by Queen's Park) but using the search parameters for Ontario High Speed renders something far more relevant, and *this* is where emphasis must be placed, as VIA (Desjardins-Siciliano) and Morneau have and continue to do so, albeit information is still scant:

From the Financial Times, this is subscription, so I can only post a little and very edited, but enter this into Google to get the entire article, or subscribe:

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan
HS1 owners consider sale of Britain’s only high-speed rail line
Strategic review could lead to £3.6bn sale of 109km concession

December 8, 2016
by: Arash Massoudi

The Canadian owners of HS1, the 109km high-speed UK railway line that connects London to the Channel tunnel, are exploring strategic options including a possible sale of the business after receiving a number of approaches.

Borealis Infrastructure and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan are close to appointing a financial adviser to help with the review process, according to people close to the matter.

These people cautioned that there was no guarantee the review would lead to a sale. The two Canadian pension funds acquired the HS1 concession, which lasts until 2040, for £2.1bn six years ago.
[...]
The review comes as a number of high-profile UK infrastructure holdings have changed hands over the past 18 months, as investors continue to pursue traditionally lower-yielding assets in a low-interest rate environment.

Ontario Teachers, which manages $171bn, and Borealis, the infrastructure arm of another Ontario pension fund that manages C$77bn, have been among the most active infrastructure investors in the UK.

The duo were part of a consortium of investors that won the £2bn auction for London City Airport earlier this year.
[...]

https://www.ft.com/content/5ed4e89e-bd36-11e6-8b45-b8b81dd5d080

OMERS, officially the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, is a pension fund created by statute in 1962 to handle the retirement benefits of local government employees in the Canadian province of Ontario. It has become one of the largest institutional investors in Canada.[1] Over the past 20 years approximately two-thirds of the capital added to the pension fund has been through investment returns, while about 1/3 has been added by contributions split evenly between employees and employers. As of December 2013, OMERS had 65.1 billion Canadian dollars in net investment assets.[2] OMERS serves 982 employers and almost 440,000 members, retirees and survivors, including municipal workers, firefighters, police, emergency services staff, Children's Aid Society workers, school board staff (non-teaching), and transit and hydro workers.[1]
[...]
OMERS is governed by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Act, 2006, an Ontario law which superseded the older Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System Act.
[...]
Investments
OMERS has five major investment divisions:[2]

• Borealis Infrastructure, which invests in public infrastructure
• OMERS Capital Markets, which manages investment in the public markets, such as government bonds and stock in publicly traded companies
• OMERS Private Equity, which concentrates on private equity investment
• Oxford Properties, which owns real estate such as office buildings and shopping centres
• OMERS Strategic Investments, which includes a venture capital arm, OMERS Ventures.
• [....]

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMERS

Ontario Teachers you should all be familiar with.

Here's the point: (And this does overlap the VIA forum at this site) This debate is no longer about HSR in Ontario, it ain't gonna happen, but what has a very high likelihood of happening is HFR, and with it, The Missing Link. The Link is common to almost anything to do with passenger rail in Southern Ontario. It even has national implications...

And Ontario retirement funds have massive amounts of capital looking to 'come home' and grow at a steady albeit stable rate. And the future of rail infrastructure beyond the glacial pace it's happening now in this province lies with them. At $45 a shot one way for "commuters" to use HSR is a dream. Let them fly. The future is HFR, and the money is there to finance it, which is what D-S is hinting about as per (gist) "watch for developments in 2017".

I can only hope, trust and pray that Morneau, Garneau et al are in deep discussions right now on The Missing Link. Without The Link and HFR, there's virtually nothing of major consequence that I can see happening save for Metrolinx building more skyscraping monuments to the parking of the Almighty Automobile sucking good money out of real transit options to do it.

•