Quebec-Windsor Corridor

[Admiral Beez]

The name “High Frequency Rail” was chosen by VIA to highlight the entire rationale behind their project: that creating a game changer for intercity rail travel in the Corridor can capitalize on frequent intercity rail services as those operating every half-hour

Does High Frequency Rail mean I'll get to where I want faster? I do not need frequent service, I only have one arse no matter how many chairs you offer me, but I want fast service. Get me from Toronto to Montreal in under three hours - which would need to run at about 200 kph. For comparison sake, Germany's ICE - InterCity Express run at up to 300 km/h on high speed lines and up to 230km/h on upgraded conventional lines.

This is high frequency trucking, but nothing is arriving quickly.

 

[Urban Sky]

It is mind blowing that the (is it CTA or Transport Canada) signed off on the abandonment of that track.

Indeed, it’s the incredible wisdom of selling the Deux-Montagnes line for $125.4 million, just to have to eventually pay $10 billions to build a new tunnel. That’s why I call the REM “infrastructure vandalism where sane cities engage in strategic transportation planning”…

Does High Frequency Rail mean I'll get to where I want faster? I do not need frequent service, I only have one arse no matter how many chairs you offer me, but I want fast service. Get me from Toronto to Montreal in under three hours - which would need to run at about 200 kph. For comparison sake, Germany's ICE - InterCity Express run at up to 300 km/h on high speed lines and up to 230km/h on upgraded conventional lines.

Funny you bring up Germany, as Berlin and Munich are exactly the same distance apart as Toronto and Montreal (504 km, as the crow flies) and even though 73% of that distance allows at least “Higher-Speeds” (i.e. at least 200 km/h) and 45% allows “High Speed” (i.e. at least 250 km/h), the fastest travel time is still almost exactly 4 hours, i.e., a full hour slower than what rail fans in this country believe to be the absolute minimum they should expect:

VIA Rail

Running more EV’s, using more polluting lithium batteries, is now the answer to fixing rail in the busiest corridor of the country? This incremental approach doesn’t add up to much if train trips are still going to take well over 4 hours between Toronto and Montreal. It’s a weak plan. I’ll...

urbantoronto.ca

And that is the danger with becoming too obsessed with HSR: the higher you set the threshold of what kind of improvement you deem acceptable to yourself, the higher your risk of ending up not just with disappointment, but in fact: with nothing…

This is high frequency trucking, but nothing is arriving quickly.

This is not “high frequency trucking”, as frequency measures the volume of vehicles which arrive at their destination within a given period, not which are on the road at a given time. The current frequency of these stopped trucks is the same as their current speed: zero.

 

[micheal_can]

A new tunnel, say, from the Gare Centrale to the Gare Parc, would be a very expensive undertaking, well over a billion and perhaps into plural billions of dollars. It's hard to justify that for the demand for the ~1 million or so persons of Trois-Rivières and Québec.
Entering from the south side as today adds a mere 15km, but today it is limited by having to traverse the Taschereau yard. If it were possible to proceed at a relatively high speed from Sauvé onward the impact would not be quite as bad. Yes, the capacity is limited from having to turn trains from all directions at the Gare Centrale, but there will not be huge volume on Quebec-Montreal.

There comes a point where the only justification is that there is no other viable option.Which is why activating a new route along the future HxR route would allow the voters to show the government that there is enough demand for spending the billions on it. Right now we can all sit back and think it is not worth it. Until trains start tolling on that route, we won't know. The longer we dither, the higher the cost will be.

Don't forget that Metrolinx has also coined their own usage of "rapid rail" in reference to the high-frequency, high-capacity commuter/suburban lines on which the RER project was based. That usage is elaborated on at length in the full business case.
To be honest, I found it a pretty nice idea. In many English-speaking North American circles the common definitions for commuter rail and regional rail clash with those used in many places elsewhere.

I feel the reason that it is as you say is because they want the voters to think they are getting something wonderful. It is kinda like when a bag of salt says GMO free. Of course it is, but a select group of people will buy it because it has that label.

 

[Rainforest]

I checked at int.bahn.de; the fastest Berlin - Munich train makes 2 stops en route. Most of trains make 4 or more stops. At the high speed, every stop adds substantially to the travel time, as the train has to slow down and then re-accelerate.

Dependent on the total frequency, it might be possible to have some of the HSR trips not stopping anywhere between Toronto and Montreal (not even in Peterborough and Ottawa). If so, a travel time in the range of 3 to 3.5 h might be attainable.

There is no hard threshold (not like up to 3 h is great while a bit over 3 h is worthless). The impact of travel time on the attractiveness of service is always gradual. Yet, the faster the better. There is nothing wrong in aiming high, and perhaps accepting something slightly worse but still decent at the end.

 

[Urban Sky]

I checked at int.bahn.de; the fastest Berlin - Munich train makes 2 stops en route. Most of trains make 4 or more stops. At the high speed, every stop adds substantially to the travel time, as the train has to slow down and then re-accelerate.

You seem to overestimate the travel time lost in cities like Halle, Erfurt and Nürnberg, as the allowable travel speed through these main stations is rather low (80, 100 and 80 km/h, respectively).

Dependent on the total frequency, it might be possible to have some of the HSR trips not stopping anywhere between Toronto and Montreal (not even in Peterborough and Ottawa). If so, a travel time in the range of 3 to 3.5 h might be attainable.

There won’t be any trains skipping Ottawa, as the marginal revenues won by speeding up Montreal-Toronto by a few minutes will always be dwarfed by the revenues lost by skipping Ottawa and thus offering Montreal-Ottawa and Ottawa-Toronto passengers with worse service.

There is no hard threshold (not like up to 3 h is great while a bit over 3 h is worthless). The impact of travel time on the attractiveness of service is always gradual. Yet, the faster the better. There is nothing wrong in aiming high, and perhaps accepting something slightly worse but still decent at the end.

There is no problem with aiming high, but by eliminating cheaper alternatives (such as those which are slow enough to not trigger requirements for complete grade separations), you are dramatically increasing the risk of ending up with nothing, as the price tag will exhaust investors’ appetite and funding falls through.

The original HFR proposal was designed to avoid the dangers of scope creep, but “VIA HFR-TGF” increasingly seems doomed to repeat the same mistakes which have reliably killed previous HSR initiatives…

 

[nfitz]

There is no problem with aiming high, but by eliminating cheaper alternatives (such as those which are slow enough to not trigger requirements for complete grade separations), you are dramatically increasing the risk of ending up with nothing, as the price tag will exhaust investors’ appetite and funding falls through.

Should be more than a few minutes if direct Montreal-Toronto trains stay on the Winchester sub - which is what one previously shown government map shows. I assume none of us is privy to the 6 different plans that have been submitted in response to the recent tender.

 

[Urban Sky]

Should be more than a few minutes if direct Montreal-Toronto trains stay on the Winchester sub - which is what one previously shown government map shows. I assume none of us is privy to the 6 different plans that have been submitted in response to the recent tender.

As I explained here a few months ago, if there is no commercial case to have Montreal-Toronto Express trains skip Ottawa, there can’t be any economic case to build dedicated infrastructure for any form of Ottawa Bypass, especially if it’s something like 90 miles long:

CPKC’s Winchester Subdivision measures 90 miles from De Beaujeu (MP 35) to Smiths Falls (MP 125). This means that such an Ottawa Bypass would add 145 km (or 25%) to the 580 km of rail infrastructure which needs to be built or upgraded between Toronto and Montreal. This is a considerable cost escalation.

At the same time every Toronto-Montreal train which bypasses Ottawa loses more TO and OM passengers than it gains TM passengers from cutting travel times by maybe 15 minutes, as I’ve shown here:
View attachment 597293

VIA Rail

Conversely, bypassing Ottawa with Montreal-Toronto express trains undermines the key trick to minimize operating costs and fleet size: by merging the Montreal-Ottawa, Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto trains into one one single corridor, while outsourcing the intermediary markets onto...

urbantoronto.ca

The Ottawa Bypass thus entails high incremental capital costs (when building it) and negative incremental revenues (when using it). It’s an absolute no-brainer to discard this idea as unviable.

 

[kaptrice]

There comes a point where the only justification is that there is no other viable option.Which is why activating a new route along the future HxR route would allow the voters to show the government that there is enough demand for spending the billions on it. Right now we can all sit back and think it is not worth it. Until trains start tolling on that route, we won't know. The longer we dither, the higher the cost will be.





I feel the reason that it is as you say is because they want the voters to think they are getting something wonderful. It is kinda like when a bag of salt says GMO free. Of course it is, but a select group of people will buy it because it has that label.

Well, from a modelling standpoint, there can only be so much traffic coming from the direction containing a population of about a million, compared to the other way, where there are some ten millions. As it is today, HFR-TGF says they will serve Laval, which already means a different route than the crawl through the St Laurent sub today. Laval is accessed on the Parc sub; you might imagine a low-cost option in which trains enter and reverse out of Lucien L'Allier and take a route around the mountain, or perhaps a different one where trains run through the Gare Centrale through a new tunnel towards the gare Parc. The former is much cheaper, not too much slower if the line can be traversed at moderate speed (say 70+ km/h), but very constraining on capacity - and who knows about Lucien L'Allier. Nonetheless, it's clearly a viable option. Personally, I would prefer for a tunnel to be built and shared with suburban services, but God knows the lack of vision for rail transport in this country...

The "rapid rail" moniker was pretty useful, in my opinion. "Commuter rail" can be almost pejorative here compared to its usage abroad; "suburban rail" can give off bad sounds, and "regional rail" is, I think, an inaccurate title.

 

[micheal_can]

Well, from a modelling standpoint, there can only be so much traffic coming from the direction containing a population of about a million, compared to the other way, where there are some ten millions. As it is today, HFR-TGF says they will serve Laval, which already means a different route than the crawl through the St Laurent sub today. Laval is accessed on the Parc sub; you might imagine a low-cost option in which trains enter and reverse out of Lucien L'Allier and take a route around the mountain, or perhaps a different one where trains run through the Gare Centrale through a new tunnel towards the gare Parc. The former is much cheaper, not too much slower if the line can be traversed at moderate speed (say 70+ km/h), but very constraining on capacity - and who knows about Lucien L'Allier. Nonetheless, it's clearly a viable option. Personally, I would prefer for a tunnel to be built and shared with suburban services, but God knows the lack of vision for rail transport in this country...

Picture this, half of Via's routes into Toronto use Union,while the other half uses a new Toronto North station on the Midtown Corridor. Now imagine trying to get between the 2 with a suitcase. What you suggest is much the same situation.

Even if all they do is run on the surface along the yard, doing that new route could be good overall and can show what the true demand is to make it faster. The question is how much faster would the tunnel make it?

 

[kaptrice]

Picture this, half of Via's routes into Toronto use Union,while the other half uses a new Toronto North station on the Midtown Corridor. Now imagine trying to get between the 2 with a suitcase. What you suggest is much the same situation.

Even if all they do is run on the surface along the yard, doing that new route could be good overall and can show what the true demand is to make it faster. The question is how much faster would the tunnel make it?

In the first place, Lucien L'Allier is about 500m away from Gare Centrale, compared to the 4+km between North Toronto and Union. They're a stop away on the Orange line, although access to Centrale is a bit convaluted from Bonaventure. The big missed connection would be the REM, rather than the long-distance services IMO.
The tunnel saves a distance of some 15km. That might save some teens of minutes over going around the mountain - not huge for Quebec-Montreal, but fantastic for suburban services that might share it.
I recall seeing that the underground city gets in the way of extending the tracks onward from the central station. Was there any word on that?

 

[micheal_can]

In the first place, Lucien L'Allier is about 500m away from Gare Centrale, compared to the 4+km between North Toronto and Union. They're a stop away on the Orange line, although access to Centrale is a bit convaluted from Bonaventure. The big missed connection would be the REM, rather than the long-distance services IMO.
The tunnel saves a distance of some 15km. That might save some teens of minutes over going around the mountain - not huge for Quebec-Montreal, but fantastic for suburban services that might share it.

So, using that, imagine that GO operated our of a different station than Via in Toronto. Regardless, it does not make much sense.

15 minutes isn't much. Especially when we are speaking of 3-4 hours.

I recall seeing that the underground city gets in the way of extending the tracks onward from the central station. Was there any word on that?

That may make all of this a non starter.

 

[Urban Sky]

I recall seeing that the underground city gets in the way of extending the tracks onward from the central station. Was there any word on that?

The Underground City and the Autoroute Ville-Marie are indeed in the path for almost any alternative tunnel alignment:

VIA Rail

No I was just throwing a number out there. It would probably be closer to $3 billion or so for the tunnel, since you cant just tunnel where the existing tunnel is, youd have to bypass the above ground portion of the REM as well all the way to the A40 station where the Mascouche line now...

urbantoronto.ca

The only path I could possibly see would be underneath Robert-Bourassa, but that would imply closing it between Saint-Antoine and René-Levesque:

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[roger1818]

The Underground City and the Autoroute Ville-Marie are indeed in the path for almost any alternative tunnel alignment:

VIA Rail

No I was just throwing a number out there. It would probably be closer to $3 billion or so for the tunnel, since you cant just tunnel where the existing tunnel is, youd have to bypass the above ground portion of the REM as well all the way to the A40 station where the Mascouche line now...

urbantoronto.ca

The only path I could possibly see would be underneath Robert-Bourassa, but that would imply closing it between Saint-Antoine and René-Levesque:
View attachment 606338

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It might be too late (they should have planned to do it during REM construction), but a better option might be to widen the first 500m of the tunnel (up until it bends further to the west under Sherbrooke St W) for triple or quadruple track, and then continue with a new tunnel in a straight line (or veer further to the north) and have it join up with CPKC's Parc Sub. Widening the existing tunnel should have minimal effect on the underground city, and shouldn't have any issues with the Autoroute Ville-Marie as it is perpendicular to the tunnel. North of Sherbrooke there shouldn't be any conflict with the underground city. See blue line in map below as an approximate route.

 

[Urban Sky]

It might be too late (they should have planned to do it during REM construction), but a better option might be to widen the first 500m of the tunnel (up until it bends further to the west under Sherbrooke St W) for triple or quadruple track, and then continue with a new tunnel in a straight line (or veer further to the north) and have it join up with CPKC's Parc Sub. Widening the existing tunnel should have minimal effect on the underground city, and shouldn't have any issues with the Autoroute Ville-Marie as it is perpendicular to the tunnel. North of Sherbrooke there shouldn't be any conflict with the underground city. See blue line in map below as an approximate route.

View attachment 606367

There unfortunately is no way past McGill REM station:

https://rem.info/sites/default/files/Plans%20d'implantation%202020/PI_Station_McGill_EN.pdf

 

[Towered]

My mum once drove from Toronto to Montreal in under 3 hours...