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Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation

EnviroTO said:
If the focus was on transportation they would extend the Polar Bear Express to Timmins but I suspect that would not do well politically in Cochrane where not having a convenient connection or through train is a hospitality industry win. Cochrane is Ontario's more remote version of Breezewood Pennsylvania. On a map it barely makes sense Highway 11 goes there.
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That is not possible for a few reasons...
1) The vehicle loading and unloading is in Cochrane. It needs to be done prior to making the train up.
2) Train crews currently do the entire round trip route. They would not have enough time to be able to if it were extended to Timmins.
 
lenaitch said:
I think they've already announced that the train will terminate in Timmins. The value of any type of connection between Timmins and Cochrane will be in the timing of Northlander vs Polar Bear. Sure, there will be people who will actually be destined for Cochrane, but if the significant ridership from Northlander, of even just from Timmins, is heading further north, it would benefit from some reasonable connection timing; otherwise people are left with either taking a hotel or wandering the town.
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Has there been anything other than the purchase of the trainsets, since they announced the updated business case last year? The government website doesn't show anything new.

That had the train going to Timmins. And refer to a rail connection to Cochrane. The report implies that the same trainset goes on to Cochrane from Timmins. And I don't see any point doing anything other than that.

EnviroTO said:
If the focus was on transportation they would extend the Polar Bear Express to Timmins but I suspect that would not do well politically in Cochrane where not having a convenient connection or through train is a hospitality industry win.
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I'm not sure why from a transportation perspective, that extending the Northlander from Timmins to Cochrane wouldn't work just as well.

Here is the Metrolinx figure of the three options they examined. They selected Option 2.

1694883773613.png
 
Of the options examined, Option 2 is definitely the preferable one, and perhaps since the Timmins route will not reach Timmins but will instead stop at Porcupine perhaps that is the best option. However, if the station in Timmins was located closer to town then making Timmins the regional hub would make more sense. Timmins has the largest population in the area, the airport, and a much larger inventory of accomodation and dining options.
 
Number 3 when the trains arrive, and then number 2 once the station in Porcupine is built would be the best options.
 
EnviroTO said:
Of the options examined, Option 2 is definitely the preferable one, and perhaps since the Timmins route will not reach Timmins but will instead stop at Porcupine perhaps that is the best option. However, if the station in Timmins was located closer to town then making Timmins the regional hub would make more sense. Timmins has the largest population in the area, the airport, and a much larger inventory of accomodation and dining options.
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A bit of a pedantic point, the proposed terminus is, in fact, in the City of Timmins, just not the city centre. Porcupine is currently served by city transit. The proposed terminus is the end of active rail. They could go closer to the centre, but not to it, but would have to rebuild the infrastructure. The ROW to the former station has been re-purposed or built over.
 
lenaitch said:
A bit of a pedantic point, the proposed terminus is, in fact, in the City of Timmins, just not the city centre. Porcupine is currently served by city transit. The proposed terminus is the end of active rail. They could go closer to the centre, but not to it, but would have to rebuild the infrastructure. The ROW to the former station has been re-purposed or built over.
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They could get it to Highway 655 which is within the old city of Timmins. All of the ROW to there is mainly intact, if not completely intact. Where it is planned, is not bad, but there could have been better, closer places.
 
micheal_can said:
They could get it to Highway 655 which is within the old city of Timmins. All of the ROW to there is mainly intact, if not completely intact. Where it is planned, is not bad, but there could have been better, closer places.
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I believe rail is still in place up to the Hydro One substation, but unserviceable. Beyond a point near Hwy 101, according to my reading of a map, there are two lakes, a subdivision and an open pit mine in the way, but go ahead and draw some lines on a map for us. Lets drive the costs way up.
 
lenaitch said:
I believe rail is still in place up to the Hydro One substation, but unserviceable. Beyond a point near Hwy 101, according to my reading of a map, there are two lakes, a subdivision and an open pit mine in the way, but go ahead and draw some lines on a map for us. Lets drive the costs way up.
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Don't look at the map....
I was there over the winter and the old ROW is part of the local sled trails. You most definitely can get to where it crosses over the 101 by the McEntire area. The old ROW that followed the highway may not be there anymore.

OpenRailwayMap

OpenRailwayMap - An OpenStreetMap-based project for creating a map of the world's railway infrastructure.
www.openrailwaymap.org www.openrailwaymap.org
 
ShonTron said:
The entire ROW is intact to Downtown Timmins, though in Schumacher, it is occupied by a realignment of Highway 101 constructed after that part of the railway was abandoned in 1990.
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I wasn't completely sure, but I thought so.
So, if that is the case, is this the caseof yet another snub by the provincial government of the North,like normal? Or, could this be a long term temporary situation like the North Bay downtown bus terminal was?
 
ShonTron said:
The entire ROW is intact to Downtown Timmins, though in Schumacher, it is occupied by a realignment of Highway 101 constructed after that part of the railway was abandoned in 1990.
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Which I suppose is my point. An intact right-of-way which is now occupied by something else is not, in my mind, "intact". Yes, they could get it closer to downtown, but it might have been a 'juice vs squeeze' decision; 'x' millions more to get a passenger train closer to downtown (solely for that purpose - the ROW has no freight value) vs getting passenger rail to the city, period. Was the city and/or province willing to expropriate and/or eliminate a popular trail and parkland at the risk of the government killing the whole idea over costs? Dunno.

Apologies since I'm really not that good at these things but here is a screen grab. You can see the ROW at lower right, then reappear at the upper left (near the Schumacher Lions Park. It the part in between that would be challenging and expensive.

1694968867905.png
 
lenaitch said:
Which I suppose is my point. An intact right-of-way which is now occupied by something else is not, in my mind, "intact". Yes, they could get it closer to downtown, but it might have been a 'juice vs squeeze' decision; 'x' millions more to get a passenger train closer to downtown (solely for that purpose - the ROW has no freight value) vs getting passenger rail to the city, period. Was the city and/or province willing to expropriate and/or eliminate a popular trail and parkland at the risk of the government killing the whole idea over costs? Dunno.

Apologies since I'm really not that good at these things but here is a screen grab. You can see the ROW at lower right, then reappear at the upper left (near the Schumacher Lions Park. It the part in between that would be challenging and expensive.

View attachment 507166
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So then build the station on the lower right. That is about 10 km closer to the city proper, where most people live, and where most city bus lines are.
 
micheal_can said:
So then build the station on the lower right. That is about 10 km closer to the city proper, where most people live, and where most city bus lines are.
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Which goes back to my 'juice vs squeeze' argument. It's all academic, anyway - the train is (allegedly) stopping in Porcupine. I'm not aware of any lobbying to change that.
 
lenaitch said:
Which goes back to my 'juice vs squeeze' argument. It's all academic, anyway - the train is (allegedly) stopping in Porcupine. I'm not aware of any lobbying to change that.
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The lobbying that has been going on for over a decade has been to return the Northlander service. So,the government is going to give the minimum amount it can, not the best it can.
 
EnviroTO said:
The lobbying that has been going on for over a decade has been to return the Northlander service. So,the government is going to give the minimum amount it can, not the best it can.
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You'd think. But reading the report they are more serious than that. And brand new trainsets?
 
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