dowlingm
Senior Member
If Brampton really wanted to ensure it didn’t come back, putting new sewer/stormwater infra under the alignment might be a more firm way to say “stop dreaming, it’s over”
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Orangeville-Brampton Railway (OBRY)
- Thread starter SaugeenJunction
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lenaitch
Senior Member
Not necessarily. A portion of the BCR ROW has a major water trunkline. Many rail rights-of-way are protected by utility easements.
History fan
New Member
In today's day and age, once the tracks are ripped up, they never come back. I am not aware of any railways that were ripped up and then brought back.
ShonTron
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Occasionally as transit lines (Los Angeles’ E/Expo Line is an example), but not as general traffic railways. The one that might return is the Lackawanna Cutoff in New Jersey if the NYC-Scranton train gets built, but that’s only a proposal.
Allandale25
Senior Member
Video from 2010 in case folks haven't seen it.
Northern Light
Superstar
IF it happens.......HFR/HSR will reinstate a chunk of railway between Havelock and Smiths Falls; though a bunch of it will likely be realigned.
ShonTron
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Of course! And yeah, it will need a lot of reengineering in sections to avoid slow and swampy sections in Peterborough, Hastings, and Frontenac Counties and probably a bypass around Tweed.
C_Johnson_1995
New Member
I've been thinking about this lately and I don't think it's a bad thing. Redeveloping old rail corridors is a good way to maximize value of land usage and improve the wellbeing of communities. I don't think anyone would look at downtown Toronto today and say they want the rail yards back.
When it comes down to it, rail exists to support high volume transport corridors between the largest cities. Anything less than that and the high fixed costs just make it a brainless proposition. Local and branch line traffic are much better handled by trucks and busses. In the end it was reality that killed the OBRY. Everyone vilifies Sandy Brown, but perhaps he was the one who actually asked the right questions. The industries in town said they would be in bad shape or have to move without the railway, but they are all still there and some have even expanded operations. In reality, they only wanted a handout. The best and most economical practice in rail freight is transloading and containers.
This tweet is particularly relevant to this discussion:
If you want to run a Stadler FLIRT on a rural branch line, first ask why a bus wouldn't suffice. This type of service which was envisioned on the OBRY, BCRY, Vancouver Island, and Cambridge to Guelph is not a good value use of money and would provide objectively worse service on travel times and frequency in most cases. The county of Simcoe were rather foolish in stating in their transport master plan that they would preserve the BCRY corridor for such a dream that will never come, rather than taking Brampton's approach of actually getting the most value out of the corridor they paid for.
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bpbpbpbp
New Member
Has anyone mentioned that The City of Brampton has made a recreation park section for the Orangeville Brampton Rail Trail?
www.brampton.ca
Brampton-Orangeville Rail Trail (BORT)
lenaitch
Senior Member
"Has made" is a bit premature.Has anyone mentioned that The City of Brampton has made a recreation park section for the Orangeville Brampton Rail Trail?
Brampton-Orangeville Rail Trail (BORT)
Northern Light
Superstar
Storage and maintenance of rolling stock is far different than a transportation corridor, the correct comparison here is the through tracks that run through Union Station to the various rail corridors and these were retained, not redeveloped.
Clearly storage and upkeep of rolling stock is necessary, but it can be relocated in many cases to free up land desirable for development, relocating a corridor in a built up area is an entirely different proposition.
No.
Freight Rail exists to move large volumes of goods from producers to suppliers and/or wholesalers and markets.
The original service concept actually featured many local spurs and local movements of goods, not merely between, but within cities, however, clearly today's Class 1's are much more interested in the inter-city business than the intra-city business.
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Lets then add, rail as discussed here is as much or more about passenger service, and passenger service is overwhelmingly intra-regional, and intra-city, and very little volume is inter-city.
Not a reasonable statement. Too extreme.
Often true, not always true.
As opposed to fiction? Yes, the business model for the OBRY was failing; though that is at least, in part, a choice of the class 1s and also a choice of the owners of OBRY who opted not to invest in the quality of infrastructure and to zone and attract the customers that would make it more successful. That is a fair choice to make, but a choice nonetheless.
IF there are no tolls on highways this is likely true. But if, as we should, we toll highways, so that trucking and rail are on a level playing field of having to pay for the infrastructure on which they operate, maybe not.
Sure........but the advantage of an exclusive right of way is the removal of many intersections and of competing traffic, thereby enabling more reliable and quicker service.
If you don't preserve an exclusive corridor, you either lack that amenity, and the service is lesser for it, or you build a brand new corridor at considerable expense.
You are very prone to making absolute statements without providing supporting evidence. I'm not going to suggest that restoring service on Vancouver Island, particularly in its previous form would the be the wisest use of dollars. Its likely it would not be; but lumping every other preserved or potentially preserved corridor in a highly urbanized, growing region in with a largely rural, line on the west coast seems a stretch.
This is another extreme statement and one with which I unequivocally disagree. The corridor was preserved as a bike trail or with a bike trail depending on the section, it produces a large recreational, fitness and transportation benefit as it now is; and the manner of its preservation simply makes it easier/possible to restore a rail service in the future, if desired.
I should add, I think that line will see service again, as a passenger corridor, probably not for two or more decades, but that's a much preferable outcome to widening every rural highway to Wasaga/Blue Mountain/Collingwood, and likely cheaper too.
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I'm not sure why UT rail threads seem to attract such extreme points of view, ranging from people who want hourly service to Sudbury, or to run new rail to every small hamlet hither and yon; and at the other end people who want to rip out anything that a class 1 isn't currently interested in for freight.
There's a great deal of room for more nuanced discussion. The extremes have less value in this regard.
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lenaitch
Senior Member
Indeed. Although shrunken, the network of branch lines in the prairies, operated by both Class 1s and shortlines, exist to to gather a single commodity class. Transloading of some bulk commodities, such as lumber and liquids, often adds costs and, in some cases, safety-based complexities.
urbancog
Active Member
To me there are three sections of the old OBRY: Mississauga to downtown Brampton, downtown Brampton to Old School Rd, & north of Old School Rd. The first and last sections may never generate enough demand to justify a rail based mobility system but the second (downtown Brampton north to Old School Rd is the focus of significant development and either the Region or Metrolinx should be making plans to use the railway alignment as a fully-separated transit corridor. That could be rail-based (always my personal preference) but there may be a business case that a separated Zum trunk corridor would be more flexible and reduce travel times for more people.
There will soon be an expansion of employment in Downtown Brampton with Rogers main office, the Innovation Centre and post-secondary education opening and the City of Brampton has ambitions for it to act as the commercial & entertainment hub for the area, and this would facilitate access from these new areas of Peel.
Red dots are Brampton and Mt Pleasant GO Stations.
Map is from the Peel Region Official Plan schedule "Green Belt Plan Area Land Use Designations - Schedule B-5"
There will soon be an expansion of employment in Downtown Brampton with Rogers main office, the Innovation Centre and post-secondary education opening and the City of Brampton has ambitions for it to act as the commercial & entertainment hub for the area, and this would facilitate access from these new areas of Peel.
Red dots are Brampton and Mt Pleasant GO Stations.
Map is from the Peel Region Official Plan schedule "Green Belt Plan Area Land Use Designations - Schedule B-5"
DirectionNorth
Active Member
I don't disagree, BUT, if we were to go this route:
- You'd need to restore the ROW. Definitely physically - there's been track removal - but maybe also legally, I'm not entirely sure.
- You need an OMSF, and it'd be hard to get one built between Queen and Old School.
- As always, where's the funding?
This thing makes more sense as a branch of Milton GO, when that thing gets the RER treatment in 30 years or whenever; I don't believe that Milton demand will be as high as mainline Mississauga demand. However, I can't see that being politically viable when it's been a trail for that long.
Bojaxs
Senior Member
I don't think it would be all that parallel to the Hurontario LRT. I think this proposal would offer a better connection between the Kitchener and Milton line.
But I would definitely prefer to see this line converted for GO trains to Orangeville rather than a DMU between Mississauga and DT Brampton.