On track for high speed

[RussianCyclist]

I would suggest replacing the wooden rail ties with concrete ones. Seriously, the wooden ties rot, easily crack, and the outdated spikes that hold the track in place come out very easily. Time to get with the times Canada, this is 2010 and not the 1900s. Those wooden "eyesore" rail ties need to be replaced.

 

[reaperexpress]

Don't run longer trains, genius. I'd rather have more frequent trains. Right now, when I travel to Detroit by Via Rail, I have two reasonable choices for arrival times. And on the way back, I only have one.

Yes, we should run more trains, but we won't make money if we keep running little 3 or 4 car trains, we'll never make money.

The existing corridor is OK for the most part. There are a few curves that aren't too good between Clarington and Prince Edward County, but we can just use bridges and tunnels to make the curves more gradual. I think the real issue is just the fact that Via Rail is too local. I've been on trains that go 160, but they're stopping way too often. Get rid of local service and run buses through all those stupid towns in the middle of nowhere. Then you'll have true HSR.

No. We don't need to get rid of the local service, simply to run more express service. The local trains can use the high speed line, but get off at small towns and get back on afterwards. They shouldn't slow down the express trains, since there will be lots of available line capacity.

Because that's such a minimal increase compared to what we have now. Most people would die for a service that can get you to Ottawa in 3 hours.

It would be a big improvement, but people wouldn't be happy if we spent billions of dollars and only ended up with something we could have gotten for a tenth of the initial cost. VIA Train 66 from Toronto to Montreal currently averages 120km/h, and they claim that once they finish upgrading the track it will average 135. Even with a high speed line, we would only be able to get this up to around 160km/h if we don't upgrade the trains. And if we can run trains at 300km/h, why not do it as soon as possible and get the associated benefits? The cost of the trains would easily be offset by the additional ridership.

 

[dsantesteban]

No. We don't need to get rid of the local service, simply to run more express service.

Sorry. Amtrak pwns Via Rail in its sleep. So what Amtrak does is automatically the right thing to do. The Europeans don't really run much local service either. And we all love European mass transit systems.

 

[reaperexpress]

Sorry. Amtrak pwns Via Rail in its sleep. So what Amtrak does is automatically the right thing to do. The Europeans don't really run much local service either. And we all love European mass transit systems.

Yes, actually the europeans have great regional service. It works in addition to the high speed rail. When I went from Firenze to Roma in Italy, I took the regional train because I wanted to stop in Orvieto, and the Eurostar didn't stop there. It would have really sucked if we had to take the bus. We probably would have rented a car and driven.

 

[dsantesteban]

People who live in Europe never take Regional rail. Buses easily go faster than regional trains in Europe. Amtrak has an extremely ingenial system in many places. They integrate with Geryhound (i think) outside of the Northeast Corridor, so people who live in the middle of nowhere will take a bus to somewhere and take a train from there onwards to their destination. It works much, much better than Via Rail's system because they can save time by not stopping to let one or two people off the train in some Southern Ontario hicktown.

 

[reaperexpress]

People who live in Europe never take Regional rail. Buses easily go faster than regional trains in Europe. Amtrak has an extremely ingenial system in many places. They integrate with Geryhound (i think) outside of the Northeast Corridor, so people who live in the middle of nowhere will take a bus to somewhere and take a train from there onwards to their destination. It works much, much better than Via Rail's system because they can save time by not stopping to let one or two people off the train in some Southern Ontario hicktown.

I find it hard to believe that no one takes Regional Rail, could you back that up? I can see that buses might be faster in Europe but they certainly wouldn't be here if we built the high speed line. The trains would be only limited by their top speed (110mph if we use p42s) on the high speed line, and would be limited to 100mph on the conventional lines. Trains are also cheaper to run per rider, and since we would have the infrastructure to run them I don't know why we would run buses. Yes, make way more express trains, but don't remove local rail.

 

[golodhendil]

People who live in Europe never take Regional rail. Buses easily go faster than regional trains in Europe. Amtrak has an extremely ingenial system in many places. They integrate with Geryhound (i think) outside of the Northeast Corridor, so people who live in the middle of nowhere will take a bus to somewhere and take a train from there onwards to their destination. It works much, much better than Via Rail's system because they can save time by not stopping to let one or two people off the train in some Southern Ontario hicktown.

I guess all the local Europeans I see when riding regional trains in Europe must all be ghosts or something.
And I guess Amtrak trains stopping at the "hicktowns" in New England and the rest of Northeast and drop off a couple passengers is far superior to Via trains dropping off a couple passengers in Southern Ontario hicktowns.

 

[Second_in_pie]

People who live in Europe never take Regional rail. Buses easily go faster than regional trains in Europe. Amtrak has an extremely ingenial system in many places. They integrate with Geryhound (i think) outside of the Northeast Corridor, so people who live in the middle of nowhere will take a bus to somewhere and take a train from there onwards to their destination. It works much, much better than Via Rail's system because they can save time by not stopping to let one or two people off the train in some Southern Ontario hicktown.

Uh oh, looks like you need something checked.

Europe is notorious for it's regional rail systems, which work exactly like local transit in the cities work. Low ridership corridors get busses, while all else gets regional and even local rail. That is the kind of system that we should and very well can model Ontario's transit by.

The answer really is to plop an express service on top of the current service. Make a service that does Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec, then a subservice that does like Windsor-London-Kitchener-Toronto-Oshawa, etc. Then, throw in the very local service. Look at European systems: it all blends pretty seamlessly together.

 

[Long Island Mike]

On Track for High Speed...and better rail track structures...

Everyone: I am interested in high speed rail and track-I noticed the comments on concrete ties but after noting railroads like Amtrak and the LIRR that has had to replace concrete ties that failed because of poor grade concrete after installing these ties
because of the low maintenance they would provide along with a 50-year lifespan. For both Amtrak and the LIRR the tie manufacturer (I believe one was Rocla for the LIRR) provided new ties on a 2/1 basis-two new ties for each bad tie.
The MBTA has had trouble with concrete ties placed on the Old Colony Commuter Rail lines S/E of Boston also.

I am a proponent of concrete ties where they are needed but an interesting thought can be the use of composite plastic ties for railroad track-it can be a cheaper alternative to concrete ties. See these links: www.tietek.com for composite ties.
www.roclatie.com for the Rocla Company and these links to rail forums discussing concrete tie problems:
www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=63829 and www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,789143

Long Island Mike

 

[DavidJamesTO]

Wooden ties are actually quite cost-effective. They last for about thirty years between replacing and are carbon sinks(?) because of the captured carbon in the trees they came from. They're no match for concrete on high-speed runs, though.

 

[saiho]

I would suggest replacing the wooden rail ties with concrete ones. Seriously, the wooden ties rot, easily crack, and the outdated spikes that hold the track in place come out very easily. Time to get with the times Canada, this is 2010 and not the 1900s. Those wooden "eyesore" rail ties need to be replaced.

I don't think wooden ties are ugly also they are pretty robust but concrete does have a more modern look also concrete cracks pretty easily too with acid rain. The key is maintenance because no matter what material you use, if you don't maintain it it will break or worse fail and in north america companies can be pretty bad at keeping up with maintenance.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Uh oh, looks like you need something checked.

Europe is notorious
The answer really is to plop an express service on top of the current service. Make a service that does Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec, then a subservice that does like Windsor-London-Kitchener-Toronto-Oshawa, etc. Then, throw in the very local service. Look at European systems: it all blends pretty seamlessly together.

Agreed.

Run a "Regional" every 2 hours that stops at all the small towns and then an "express" every 2 hours that stops only at Guildwood, Kingston and Dorval/Fallowfield on its way to Montreal/Ottawa. Better yet, coordinate the schedule so that the express catches up to the regional in Kingston so that passengers coming from small towns have a way to transfer seamlessly onto an express or vice versa.

 

[reaperexpress]

Uh oh, looks like you need something checked.

The answer really is to plop an express service on top of the current service. Make a service that does Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec, then a subservice that does like Windsor-London-Kitchener-Toronto-Oshawa, etc. Then, throw in the very local service. Look at European systems: it all blends pretty seamlessly together.

Personally, I would run Ottawa trips separately, because of the geography. Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal are in a straight line, but if you go in a straight line toward Ottawa, there's a lot of hard terrain to cross. Consequently, the rail lines take a relatively indirect route following the St.Lawrence until Brockville, then heading straight north. Going from Toronto to Montreal via Ottawa is 90km longer than going directly from Toronto to Montreal. I would recommend keeping the current arrangement where trains are coupled from Toronto to Kingston, then are uncoupled and run to their respective destinations. So the services would probably be Windsor-Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa, and Toronto-Kingston-Montreal-Québec

 

[Second_in_pie]

Or maybe just run a Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal route, as well as a more direct Toronto-Montreal-Quebec one? I honestly think that even now that kind of service is warranted. It can only be more so in the future as Southern Ontario grows and the massive potential for all of Canada to do so.

I'm not sure. If you had a separate regional service (essentially what VIA runs now,) I'd see Kingston as such a hub. However, I'm not sure how well it would work as a airline-competitive kind of service that an Express one would be.

 

[EnviroTO]

I would run a true high speed Windsor<=>Chatham<=>Kitchener<=>Pearson<=>Toronto<=>North Pickering<=>Peterborough<=>Kingston<=>Ottawa<=>Mirabel<=>Montreal<=>TroisRivieres<=>Quebec City.

With hubs in London, Toronto, Kingston, and Montreal there would be regional services on the existing rail corridors rather than the high speed one.
London Hub (VIA SWO): Windsor, Sarnia, Kitchener, and Toronto via Aldershot.
Toronto Hub (GO Transit): Niagara/Hamilton, Cambridge, Orangeville, Kitchener, Alliston, Barrie, Sutton West, Uxbridge, North Pickering, Bowmanville.
Toronto Hub (ON): Sault Ste Marie via North Bay, Cochrane.
Kingston Hub (VIA EO): Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal.
Montreal Hub (AMT): Rigaud, Candiac, Saint-Hyacinthe, Mascouche, Saint-Jerome, Mirabel via Deux-Montagnes.
Montreal Hub (VIA M): Sherbrooke via Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec City via Drummondville, Ottawa.