Moose Rail (National Capital Region)

[steveintoronto]

I haven't had the opportunity to access the links Potvin has provided, or the frame of mind to quote regs, but a piece of information that may or may not be germane to the specifics of the PoW bridge and the connecting track being discussed:

[...]
OC Transpo's O-Train, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, and Via Rail are all federally regulated, allowing for trains to easily flow over the provincial borders.

"Track sharing is a very popular way of bringing down the transit system costs in Europe and the U.S.," said Jeanes. "That track sharing between a commuter railway and a transit system can only be done if you have one regulatory agency and that would have to be the federal one."
[...]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/lrt-regulatory-changes-sparks-confusion-1.995026

One of the reasons OC Transpo elected for federal status (beside sharing the CP rail line) was a projection to connect across the PoW bridge to Quebec. I'll try and find time to dig for detail and reference later.

 

[Joseph Potvin]

RE: "One of the reasons OC Transpo elected for federal status (beside sharing the CP rail line) was a projection to connect across the PoW bridge to Quebec. I'll try and find time to dig for detail and reference later."

In 1983 the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton lost a case at the Ontario Court of Appeal in which they attempted to argue they were not federally regulated. Here's a paragraph with some references from the MOOSE submission that led off the recent case relating to the dismantled track at Bayview:

5.3 Section 92.10(a) of the Constitution of Canada applies because the work spans two provinces and is subject to an active Certificate of Fitness “in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec” issued to Capital Railway by the Canadian Transportation Agency in Decision No. 745-R-2000. The work is also owned and managed by OC-Transpo whose bus services span two provinces. In section 22.6 of “Constitutional Law of Canada” Hogg illustrates the "continuous and regular service" criterion with reference to a 1983 case decided by the Ontario Court of Appeal which found that the entire OC-Transpo undertaking is federally regulated because a small part of its bus service is interprovincial. Then in section 22.7(a), Hogg clarifies that integrated operations of different parts of a single interprovincial undertaking, in which a part of the undertaking is interprovincial and another part of the undertaking with common management occurs only within one province, are both deemed to come under Section 92.10(a) of the Constitution. Since some of OC-Transpo's buses provide service to Quebec, and since the O-Train is integrated with that bus service, and additionally, since the O-Train and OC-Transpo buses are managed in common, therefore the Capital Railway's undertaking correctly comes under Section 92.10(a) of the Constitution and consequently, under the Canada Transportation Act.

Source: https://www.letsgomoose.ca/wp-conte...ocumentation_RE210-R-2012_2016-07-25c_PDF.pdf

 

[steveintoronto]

In 1983 the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton lost a case at the Ontario Court of Appeal in which they attempted to argue they were not federally regulated. Here's a paragraph with some references from the MOOSE submission that led off the recent case relating to the dismantled track at Bayview: [...]

Excellent! I'm salivating to find time to dig into your provided link, this is the stuff of legal intrigue. I'll save further comment on that for later, OC Transpo has received a number of federal waivers that should be offered to other cities, and I won't try and make the case for Metrolinx at this point on that, I will later with reference, but key to that is that GO Transit Rail applied for and received status as a federally regulated entity when unlike OC Transpo, they didn't have to! GO Rail could have incorporated provincially....as to why they didn't is a curious point...

And yet:

In 1983 the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton lost a case at the Ontario Court of Appeal in which they attempted to argue they were not federally regulated.

I can smell a larger story behind that, made all the more curious by the National Capital Commission status and powers.

Many thanks for that Joseph! You exactly sussed what I was alluding to. Looking forward to more discussion...

 

[Joseph Potvin]

RE: GO Transit Rail applied for and received status as a federally regulated entity

Look for the 1968 Supreme Court of Canada case on the GO Train. The court determined that the GO Train was federal because it was operating on the same track as CN, which was federal.

 

[steveintoronto]

Look for the 1968 Supreme Court of Canada case on the GO Train. The court determined that the GO Train was federal because it was operating on the same track as CN, which was federal.

That's what I first thought, this gets evermore fascinating, I will have to dig out that case and read the presentations and judgement, I might have been misled by GO's own PR. But there's still some dangling corporate questions as to how separate divisions are within the organization as per regulation. Not to mention GO's LRT lines, the regulatory status of which I have no reference at this time.

I know that, for instance, Guelph Junction Railway is provincially regulated, and yet interchanges with other federally regulated entities, and so do a number of other shortlines. This might all be discussed in the case and judgement.

Back later! Must run right now.

 

[steveintoronto]

RE: GO Transit Rail applied for and received status as a federally regulated entity

Look for the 1968 Supreme Court of Canada case on the GO Train. The court determined that the GO Train was federal because it was operating on the same track as CN, which was federal.

http://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/userfiles/other/1192908-fine.pdf

Only just got a chance to start a search on this, but the quote from the ruling is profoundly encompassing. I'm now looking for the case to quote more directly. I note the issue of the decision is per "fares", also intriguing.

Edit to Add:

Found the judgement, it is extensive, and I'll only quote the context the quoted paragraph above is from for now:

The Canadian National Railways, extending beyond the limits of the province of Ontario, is subject to the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada, and the question is whether the commuter service can be said not to form part of this railway. To come to this conclusion, it would be necessary to hold that federal jurisdiction over inter-provincial railways extends only to interprovincial services provided on such railways. It is not possible to so hold. The constitutional jurisdiction depends on the character of the railway line and not on the character of a particular service provided on that railway line. The fact that for some purposes the commuter service should be considered as a distinct service does not make it a distinct line of railway. From a physical point of view, the commuter service trains are part of the overall operations of the line over which they run. Parliament of Canada has jurisdiction over everything that physically forms part of a railway subject to its jurisdiction.

https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/4749/2/document.do

Under the authority of the Commuter Services Act, 1965, Statutes of Ontario 1965, c. 17, the Minister of Highways for Ontario decided to operate a Government of Ontario Commuter Service from Toronto westerly to Hamilton and easterly to Pickering utilizing Canadian National Railways’ trackage in the entire area of its operation. Although no contract for that purpose has yet been signed, the Canadian National Railways, on July 16, 1965, made an application to the Board of Transport Commissioners for authority to discontinue four passenger trains operating between Toronto and Hamilton. It was stated in the application that the train crews on the Commuter Service would be those of the Canadian National Railways performing services for the Ontario Government on an agency basis under terms and conditions to be provided for in a formal agreement to be entered into in the near

[Page 122]

future. By the order appealed from authority to discontinue the four trains was given and in addition the Board declared that:

It has jurisdiction in respect of the tolls to be charged by the Province of Ontario in respect of the proposed services.

The appeal by Ontario is against that declaration only and raises two points:

1. Whether the tolls to be charged by Ontario in respect of the Commuter Service are subject to the jurisdiction of the Board of Transport Commissioners;

2. Whether the Commuter Service comes within the legislative jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada.

On the first question it is not disputed that the Board of Transport Commissioners has jurisdiction over tolls within the meaning of the Railway Act, R.S.C. 1952, c. 234. The issue is whether the tolls to be charged by Ontario in respect of the Commuter Service are tolls within the definition of this word in the Railway Act. The material part of this definition is as follows:

(32) ‘toll,’ or ‘rate,’ when used with reference to a railway, means any toll, rate, charge or allowance charged or made either by the company, or upon or in respect of a railway owned or operated by the company, or by any person on behalf of or under authority or consent of the company, in connection with the carriage and transportation of passengers, or the carriage, shipment, transportation, care, handling or delivery of goods, or for any service incidental to the business of a carrier; and includes any toll, rate, charge or allowance so charged or made in connection with rolling stock, or the use thereof, or any instrumentality or facility of carriage, shipment or transportation, irrespective of ownership or of any contract, expressed or implied, with respect to the use thereof;…

Appellant points out that the tolls in question will not be charged by the “company” within the meaning of the definition since they will be charged by Her Majesty in the right of the Province of Ontario. The answer to this contention is that the definition applies not only to tolls charged by the “company” but also to tolls charged “upon or in respect of a railway owned or operated by the company, or by any person on behalf or under authority or consent of the company, in connection with the carriage and transportation of passengers…”. While it is true that the rolling stock used in operating the Commuter Service belongs to Ontario, the railway on which this equipment runs is the “company’s” railway. Therefore, the tolls

[Page 123]

cannot be said not to be “in respect of a railway owned” by the Canadian National Railways; they are obviously a charge for the transportation of passengers over this railway by means of such equipment.

It is worth noting that under the Railway Act the rolling stock, is not considered an essential part of the railway. Although it is included in the definition of “railway” it is also included in the definition of “traffic”:

(33) “traffic” means the traffic of passengers, goods and rolling stock;

It should be further noted that under s. 315 of the Railway Act, a railway company is obliged to furnish “suitable accommodation for the receiving and loading of all traffic offered for carriage upon the railway”. Therefore it cannot be said that the operation of a commuter service by means of rolling stock owned by the Government of Ontario is not an operation of the “railway” within the meaning of the Railway Act. On the contrary, to the extent that the tolls charged to the passengers can be said to be charged in connection with the use of the rolling stock they are expressly covered by the last quoted part of the definition: “and includes any toll… so charged in connection with rolling stock, or the use thereof… irrespective of ownership”.

This is reminiscent, a century later, of the SCC rulings on Grand Trunk and CP v. City of Toronto that I quoted in the Rail Deck Park as per ownership of the "Esplanade" (and subsequent air-rights), and how the competence remained completely with the Parliament of Canada:

[...]
The Dominion statute could not give capacity to the City of Toronto. This was done by the Ontario statute. The Dominion statute was necessary to make the scheme agreed topermanent and final until otherwise provided for by Parliament.

Section 1 enacts that all works done or to be done in order to give effect to the agreement hereinafter mentioned, as well as those affected by it, are hereby declared to be works for the general advantage of Canada.

They cannot, therefore, be considered as private works of railway companies. They are to all intents and purposes federal works remaining under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Dominion Parliament, under section 92, par. 10, of the British North America Act.
[...]

https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/9855/1/document.do

That Moose Rail won their case against the City of Ottawa is encouraging to say the least...more later, I've yet to access Joseph's earlier link to legal proceedings.

Late Edit to correct a claim in a previous post: RE: My citing Guelph Junction Railway as an example of a provincially regulated railway...it's not quite that simple:

In Attorney General for Alberta v. Attorney-General for Canada1, Lord Moulton said at p. 370:

By s. 8 of the Dominion Railway Act Parliament treats in a special manner the crossing of Dominion railways by provincial railways. These portions of the provincial railways are made subject to the clauses of the Dominion railway legislation, which deal also with the crossings of two Dominion railways, so that the provincial railways are in such matters treated administratively in precisely the same way as Dominion railways themselves. The Parliament of the Dominion is entitled to legislate as to these crossings because they are upon the right of way and track of the Dominion railway as to which the Dominion Parliament has exclusive rights of legislation, and moreover, as the provincial railways are there by permission and not of right, they can fairly be put under terms and regulations.

https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/9855/1/document.do

 

[Allandale25]

Latest on the LRT plan in this article.

City looking at longer Trillium Line extension in Riverside South

Key line:

"The latest tweak to the plan, which Watson said he expects to be the last major one before the project is put out for tender later this year, doesn’t change rail service to the airport. Riders travelling between there and downtown will still have to change trains twice."

So, as it relates to Moose Rail, my interpretation (and feel free to correct me) is that if Moose Rail wants to be part of the construction timing for the Phase II LRT (or have heavy rail be used on Trillium Line instead of LRT), they would have to get the City to agree this year and before the tender. If not, they'd either have to add onto the design/plans/construction at a later date. Just to confirm, the City's plan is for LRT on the Trillium lines, right?

Here's a map comparison between the Ottawa map (available in the above article) and the Moose plan. I've added the blue dotted arrow lines to assist with the comparison between the plans. As noted before, on the Moose plan, the red and purple routes propose to use the same north-south corridor as part of the Trillium Line, between Greensboro and Bayview. Just as a suggestion to the Moose folks, it would be really helpful if a map could be created to show what their plan would look like based off of a Google Maps layer (see below). Or, the Railway Association of Canada's Atlas could be used.

I've done the below map to show the junction just to help visualize the situation. Please correct me if I have this wrong. The red and purple lines below match the ones above from the Moose Plan. The dotted orange line is the Trillium Line in the Ottawa plan (it's not orange in colour on the Ottawa map)

 

[steveintoronto]

Latest on the LRT plan in this article.

Excellent 'heads-up'...I find this intriguing:
"The alignment would use a city-owned rail corridor and extend commuter rail service to the edge of Ottawa’s urban boundary". It's ambiguous as to whether they mean sharing the actual track of just the RoW. O-Train already has/had a waiver to mix light and heavy rail, as to how specific that is to just certain trackage is a good question.

I've yet to delve into Joseph's linked legal presentation, it might be referenced, if not detailed, there. As an aside to this, Ottawa was mentioned as "the best place to live in Canada" a few days back in the press.

 

[Allandale25]

Excellent 'heads-up'...I find this intriguing:
"The alignment would use a city-owned rail corridor and extend commuter rail service to the edge of Ottawa’s urban boundary". It's ambiguous as to whether they mean sharing the actual track of just the RoW. O-Train already has/had a waiver to mix light and heavy rail, as to how specific that is to just certain trackage is a good question.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this but I wonder if the author of the article meant to write "LRT" instead of "commuter rail"? In my mind and for our discussion here there can be important differences. I think of the GO train network when I think of "commuter rail".

 

[Allandale25]

Also for those interested in the LRT vs Moose plan, I found some helpful articles here which describe the situation:

(Jan 2017) http://ontarioconstructionreport.co...roposals-for-new-interprovincial-rail-system/

(June 2017) http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/rail-line-breach-of-duty-city-ottawa-1.4151285

(2014) http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...ghts-threaten-peaceful-second-term-for-watson

Did the CTA ever issue a ruling on Moose's request? When will the CTA rule between what Ottawa wants to do, LRT, and what Moose wants to do, heavy rail?

 

[steveintoronto]

I wonder if the author of the article meant to write "LRT" instead of "commuter rail"?

...Did the CTA ever issue a ruling on Moose's request? When will the CTA rule between what Ottawa wants to do, LRT, and what Moose wants to do, heavy rail?

All good questions. Must rush out, will read your latest links when I return. *IF* the intent is to run LRT and "Commuter Rail" (My take is the same as yours on that, it infers heavy rail in *most* cases, but not all) then Ottawa would yet again be showing favourable TC 'waivers' (actually an FRA term) once again, and hopefully set another precedent for Canada, and one Metrolinx could certainly make use of.

 

[steveintoronto]

...
Source: https://www.letsgomoose.ca/wp-conte...ocumentation_RE210-R-2012_2016-07-25c_PDF.pdf

Just getting a chance to read this after downloading.
Whoa! This is *fascinating* reading! (It's going to take me a while to get through this, in fact I'm going to have to forward some of it to an MP in Cabinet who's studying the Esplanade research I did for the Rail Deck Park, it's so incredibly analogous):

This continuous main line railway has connected the Ellwood Subdivision in Ontario to the Lachute
Subdivision in Québec since 1880. In Section 2 of the “Act to incorporate the St. Lawrence and
Ottawa Railway Company” (1867), the Parliament of Canada declared this infrastructure “to be a
work for the general advantage of Canada” under Section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution of Canada.
Sections 14 and 25 of the “Act to Amend The St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway Act” (1872)
maintained this legal status for the planned Chaudière Extension. The "Transport Canada Delegation
Agreement: for Regulation of the Design, Construction, Operation, Safety and Security of Ottawa
Light Rail Transit System" of 1 October 2011 explicitly exempts this separate work from the
delegation of authority.

Compare that to this:

[...]
The Dominion statute could not give capacity to the City of Toronto. This was done by the Ontario statute. The Dominion statute was necessary to make the scheme agreed topermanent and final until otherwise provided for by Parliament.

Section 1 enacts that all works done or to be done in order to give effect to the agreement hereinafter mentioned, as well as those affected by it, are hereby declared to be works for the general advantage of Canada.

They cannot, therefore, be considered as private works of railway companies. They are to all intents and purposes federal works remaining under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Dominion Parliament, under section 92, par. 10, of the British North America Act.
[...]

https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/9855/1/document.do

This gives me great encouragement to the validity of claiming similar for the Esplanade in Toronto, since the CTA have upheld Moose' claim!

And I've barely started reading this...Joseph: Thank you! More to come...

 

[CapitalSeven]

The Trillium line isn't going to be light rail after the coming rebuild, it will still be heavy - ish. I believe the vehicles are not compatible with regular heavy rail standards, but they are essentially European regional rail vehicles. It might actually make more sense for Moose to use the same type for this application, rather than GO-type equipment, at least on the sections shared with OC Transpo.

 

[steveintoronto]

Digging on some details, came across this:

Canada’s Earliest and Most Recent Railway Scandals
May 17, 2017
By Ann Victoria
[...]
In March 2017, Ottawa city council approved a motion instructing Mayor Jim Watson to formalize talks with Gatineau Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin towards improving their transit connections, in particular across the Prince of Wales bridge.

This inter-provincial rail connection remained intact until just a few months ago. However, in late 2016, the City of Ottawa unceremoniously tore out a quarter-kilometre section of that very track originally installed in 1880, and plunked down the new Bayview Station for the east-west LRT Confederation Line. It was positioned precisely in such a way as to permanently obstruct any future extension of south-north operations by the O-Train to Gatineau.

The placement can’t be accidental.When pressed by the Canadian Transportation Agency, Ottawa quietly admitted in an email to the federal regulator in February 2017, that “the main station building . . . will obstruct the Ottawa River Line.”

The City was responding to a letter from the Agency which communicated the Agency staff’s understanding that: “A portion of the Ottawa River Line . . . that connects the north end of the Ellwood Subdivision with the railway in Gatineau, across the Prince of Wales Bridge, has been removed to construct the new west side entrance to the Bayview Station,” and “the Ottawa River Line will be permanently obstructed in its current alignment.”

Ottawa had to admit to the Agency that “the Ottawa River Line . . . is blocked where it intersects the Bayview Station building.”

The City did offer the comment that - “extension of the O-Train Trillium Line across the Prince of Wales Bridge to Gatineau is part of the ultimate rapid transit network and the 2031 network concept. But the City currently does not have funding available or allocated to build or operate that extension, and so no date has been set for the construction or opening of that service.”

The simple fact is that the City of Ottawa unnecessarily removed and permanently blocked the existing federal track without any federal authorization. And it kindly offers, on behalf of a later city council a decade-and-a-half from now, that it will need to spend tens of millions of dollars to somehow build a bypass track.

The original O-Train plan submitted back in 2000 by the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton (RMOC) to the Agency, described the O-Train easily continuing on the existing track north past Bayview Station across the Prince of Wales Bridge all the way out to L’Aéroport Exécutif de Gatineau-Ottawa.

Indeed, the written federal certificate of fitness for the O-Train’s operations still says today that the O-Train does run to Quebec!

And the Interprovincial Transit Strategy for Canada’s Capital Region, written by transportation professionals at the NCC, Ottawa and Gatineau listed “O-Train to Gatineau via Prince of Wales Bridge” as one of the priority “Medium Term Actions by 2018.”

Six months ago, it became physically impossible to run that O-Train to Gatineau.

MOOSE Consortium’s director general Joseph Potvin says that city insiders have indicated to MOOSE that there might be a ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ rationale: to deliberately keep transit in clumsy mode with all areas outside Ottawa’s property tax base.

Could the City of Ottawa’s foreclosing of the No. 1 easy transit option with Gatineau actually be “beggar-thy-neighbour” actions, glossed over with friendly “ever-thy-neighbour” words?

Where indeed are the feds? What’s occurring on their watch runs afoul of the explicit protections for this very section of track passed by the second government of Sir John A. Macdonald, whose legislation quoted Section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution to protect this connecting railway "for the general advantage of Canada.”

The federal regulator has been puttering along for six years with a direct legal challenge by MOOSE Consortium. The company started a legal case in 2011 that informed the Agency about the City’s plans and incremental steps to remove the tracks. Then the company informed the regulator of the violation when a core section of the railway was indeed being dismantled in autumn 2016. And today, some months after the corridor was permanently blockaded, the federal court agency that’s supposed to oversee federal railways has still has not tooted its horn.

This is all happening less than three kilometres from the Agency’s own headquarters, within a clear line of sight from their office windows.

Well, the 150-year history of Canada is riddled with stories of political intrigue involving railways. There’s enough irony in this latest one that you could probably run an imaginary train on it.

http://www.ottawalife.com/article/canadas-earliest-and-most-recent-railway-scandals

 

[Allandale25]

The Trillium line isn't going to be light rail after the coming rebuild, it will still be heavy - ish.

Are you sure? When I went I on the stage2lrt.ca website it said LRT. Do you have a link or document you can point to where it says it'll be something on the Trillium Line other than LRT?