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Quebec-Windsor Corridor

Adjei said:
Doug Ford should be ringing them up for a phase 2 or 3 to Windsor with stops at Pearson, Kitchener, and London.
Click to expand...

The thing is it shouldnt be a Phase 2. Toronto-Windsor should be seperately done since it could be done relatively quickly and much cheaper with it likely not needing to be full HSR. A service similar to the UK's Avanti West Coast would serve that corridor well (EMU's max 200km/hr). Service in that corridor would be competing with car trips not flights.

Ontario shouldnt accept the southern leg to be relegated to a future phase after the Toronto-Quebec is done in the 2040s. Propose operating their own service if necessary.
 
guavadelic said:
The thing is it shouldnt be a Phase 2. Toronto-Windsor should be seperately done since it could be done relatively quickly and much cheaper with it likely not needing to be full HSR. A service similar to the UK's Avanti West Coast would serve that corridor well (EMU's max 200km/hr). Service in that corridor would be competing with car trips not flights.

Ontario shouldnt accept the southern leg to be relegated to a future phase after the Toronto-Quebec is done in the 2040s. Propose operating their own service if necessary.
Click to expand...
Ontario also shouldn't accept it to not be HSR if the rest is. The section from London to Union is the most populous section of that route.
 
guavadelic said:
The thing is it shouldnt be a Phase 2. Toronto-Windsor should be seperately done since it could be done relatively quickly and much cheaper with it likely not needing to be full HSR. A service similar to the UK's Avanti West Coast would serve that corridor well (EMU's max 200km/hr). Service in that corridor would be competing with car trips not flights.

Ontario shouldnt accept the southern leg to be relegated to a future phase after the Toronto-Quebec is done in the 2040s. Propose operating their own service if necessary.
Click to expand...
Given how straight it is, I've thought a good 'demo' segment would be Toronto-Niagara Falls or Buffalo via Hamilton.

In either case, I think just paralleling the corridors for fast-ish service (ala HFR) on dedicated track would suffice. It would still lay the groundwork for HSR, and could allow for existing HSR trains to run through into Southern Ontario. Frequency and consistency would be the real benefit here.
 
nfitz said:
Unless the current government goes the PPP route, and puts in a very hefty poison pill, similar to what the Liberals did the the LRT projects that the Conservatives inherited. And (though not PPP) what the City of Toronto did with the Flexity streetcar purchase before Rob Ford became mayor.

Though I'm not sure the current government has enough gumption for that.
Click to expand...
The selection of the winning bidder only kicks off the “co-development phase”, which is expected to last multiple years before the next government makes a “final decision”. There certainly will be some kind of compensation in the case of “not going ahead”, but it will be not significant enough to deterr any government unwilling to invest tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on a single megaproject:
IMG_6975.jpeg
nfitz said:
On one hand I agree. On the other hand, I don't see how you'd get 3 hours with stopping + getting out of Toronto + that infernal post-Bonaventure station 270° loop into Central Station. That would mean they could run the occasional express in 165 minutes if they just ran through Ottawa as fast as the track would allow.
Click to expand...
The 3 hours may sound like a hard constraint now, but they’ll certainly get eased once someone realizes how much capital cost could be saved with a slightly less aggressive travel time. And anyways, Montreal-Ottawa will be Phase 1, so you can always satisfy the 3 hour marker by planning for unrealistically aggressive travel times East of Ottawa and kick the can further down the road until Montreal-Ottawa is starting construction and attention moves towards Phase 2 and you encounter “unforeseen challenges” which cause you to miss the 3 hour target…

nfitz said:
If it's actual real as part of the current contract, perhaps it's for Summerhill station to a new station at Ville St. Pierre metro! :)
Click to expand...
“Toronto-Montreal Airport in 3 hours” is certainly a playsible way to subtly move the goalposts…

Adjei said:
Doug Ford should be ringing them up for a phase 2 or 3 to Windsor with stops at Pearson, Kitchener, and London.
Click to expand...
Had Wynne abandoned her insincere HSR election stunt and instead jumped on the HFR bandwagon, Toronto-London could very well be Phase 3, after MO and OT, but certainly before QM…

guavadelic said:
The thing is it shouldnt be a Phase 2. Toronto-Windsor should be seperately done since it could be done relatively quickly and much cheaper with it likely not needing to be full HSR. A service similar to the UK's Avanti West Coast would serve that corridor well (EMU's max 200km/hr). Service in that corridor would be competing with car trips not flights.
Click to expand...
guavadelic said:
Ontario shouldnt accept the southern leg to be relegated to a future phase after the Toronto-Quebec is done in the 2040s. Propose operating their own service if necessary.
Click to expand...
GO figuring out how to get frequent and reasonably fast regional service beyond Bramalea and Georgetown is unfortunately the prerequisite for any frequent intercity rail service to Kitchener and beyond. However, it would be unreasonable to expect speeds beyond 160 km/h east of Georgetown and the potential travel time saving of a 200 vs. 160 km/h design speed would be insignificant.
Sunnyside said:
Given how straight it is, I've thought a good 'demo' segment would be Toronto-Niagara Falls or Buffalo via Hamilton.

In either case, I think just paralleling the corridors for fast-ish service (ala HFR) on dedicated track would suffice. It would still lay the groundwork for HSR, and could allow for existing HSR trains to run through into Southern Ontario. Frequency and consistency would be the real benefit here.
Click to expand...
Toronto-Niagara Falls is irrelevant for intercity rail and falls into GO territory, but Toronto-Hamilton-Buffalo would indeed be a very interesting HFR corridor, but it would rely on a border facility in Buffalo and on the Americans to tolerate a train without pre-cleared passengers to travel enter US soil at Fort Erie.
 
Unless the alignment is designed with high speed in mind, particularly curves and grades, it would be difficult to turn HFR into HSR. Without looking, I'm going to guess that the current mainline corridors in southwestern Ontario are not high-speed friendly.
 
lenaitch said:
Unless the alignment is designed with high speed in mind, particularly curves and grades, it would be difficult to turn HFR into HSR. Without looking, I'm going to guess that the current mainline corridors in southwestern Ontario are not high-speed friendly.
Click to expand...
You’d be surprised, there are some really straight segments, often linked by very few curves which can easily be straightened. For instance, Komoka-Chatham-Windsor consists of four straights:
IMG_7139.jpeg
However, crossing through Stratford and St. Mary’s would be quite challenging…
 
lenaitch said:
Unless the alignment is designed with high speed in mind, particularly curves and grades, it would be difficult to turn HFR into HSR. Without looking, I'm going to guess that the current mainline corridors in southwestern Ontario are not high-speed friendly.
Click to expand...
London - Windsor is almost arrow straight. It would take little modification to straighten it if they wanted to use it.
 
Urban Sky said:
You’d be surprised, there are some really straight segments, often linked by very few curves which can easily be straightened. For instance, Komoka-Chatham-Windsor consists of four straights:
View attachment 608042
However, crossing through Stratford and St. Mary’s would be quite challenging…
Click to expand...
Indeed. It was the "paralleling the corridors" part that would be tricky. Towns and villages, Chatham, etc.
 
Urban Sky said:
The selection of the winning bidder only kicks off the “co-development phase”, which is expected to last multiple years before the next government makes a “final decision”. There certainly will be some kind of compensation in the case of “not going ahead”, but it will be not significant enough to deterr any government unwilling to invest tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on a single megaproject:
View attachment 608041

The 3 hours may sound like a hard constraint now, but they’ll certainly get eased once someone realizes how much capital cost could be saved with a slightly less aggressive travel time. And anyways, Montreal-Ottawa will be Phase 1, so you can always satisfy the 3 hour marker by planning for unrealistically aggressive travel times East of Ottawa and kick the can further down the road until Montreal-Ottawa is starting construction and attention moves towards Phase 2 and you encounter “unforeseen challenges” which cause you to miss the 3 hour target…


“Toronto-Montreal Airport in 3 hours” is certainly a playsible way to subtly move the goalposts…


Had Wynne abandoned her insincere HSR election stunt and instead jumped on the HFR bandwagon, Toronto-London could very well be Phase 3, after MO and OT, but certainly before QM…



GO figuring out how to get frequent and reasonably fast regional service beyond Bramalea and Georgetown is unfortunately the prerequisite for any frequent intercity rail service to Kitchener and beyond. However, it would be unreasonable to expect speeds beyond 160 km/h east of Georgetown and the potential travel time saving of a 200 vs. 160 km/h design speed would be insignificant.

Toronto-Niagara Falls is irrelevant for intercity rail and falls into GO territory, but Toronto-Hamilton-Buffalo would indeed be a very interesting HFR corridor, but it would rely on a border facility in Buffalo and on the Americans to tolerate a train without pre-cleared passengers to travel enter US soil at Fort Erie.
Click to expand...
Buffalo has shown it is more than interested in seeing better linkages with our side of the border. Not the only party to satisfy by any means, but they would be the primary beneficiary. The State and Feds might feel differently, but the city is no stranger to Canadians, and could push strongly for accommodation from the relevant regulators.

And I imagined a provincially led “HFR” project could hit the TO-NF Corridor, as a GO project for a Euro-Regional-esque service on dedicated track. Not quite intercity, sure, but it could tie upgrading the Niagara corridor to something fast, to show off what’s possible to the public.
 
Sunnyside said:
Buffalo has shown it is more than interested in seeing better linkages with our side of the border. Not the only party to satisfy by any means, but they would be the primary beneficiary. The State and Feds might feel differently, but the city is no stranger to Canadians, and could push strongly for accommodation from the relevant regulators.

And I imagined a provincially led “HFR” project could hit the TO-NF Corridor, as a GO project for a Euro-Regional-esque service on dedicated track. Not quite intercity, sure, but it could tie upgrading the Niagara corridor to something fast, to show off what’s possible to the public.
Click to expand...
It seems like Toronto-Buffalo rail service will never be all that convenient unless the customs/border checks are on the Buffalo side.
 
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