micheal_can
Senior Member
Will he still be in power once the future HxR gets to Toronto?
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Quebec-Windsor Corridor
- Thread starter kEiThZ
- Start date
Adjei
Senior Member
That’s why he needs to start making noise about when he is in power.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I feel his focuses are on the 401 tunnel and removing bike lanes than rail transportation that wouldn't even be tendered for at least 15 years.
guavadelic
Active Member
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.
micheal_can
Senior Member
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.
Sunnyside
Active Member
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.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
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:
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…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!
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.
lenaitch
Senior Member
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.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
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:
However, crossing through Stratford and St. Mary’s would be quite challenging…
micheal_can
Senior Member
London - Windsor is almost arrow straight. It would take little modification to straighten it if they wanted to use it.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Indeed. It was the "paralleling the corridors" part that would be tricky. Towns and villages, Chatham, etc.
micheal_can
Senior Member
They own that subdivsion
KingJames
Active Member
Would love to see that line extended to Hamilton and terminate at YHM
Sunnyside
Active Member
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.
afransen
Senior Member
It seems like Toronto-Buffalo rail service will never be all that convenient unless the customs/border checks are on the Buffalo side.