News   Apr 24, 2024
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Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation

If there is a Ford government, Northland is still dead although I must admit that's how I think it should stay.

Ford get's no support in Northern Ontario so he will not spend any money to appease them. This is similar to Tor/Lon HSR which will go thru NDP territory.
 
he pledges yet can he actually deliver? the statistics dont look very promising unfortunately

A token weekly train that runs on an overnight (18 hour?) trip would be pretty cheap to implement and meet the letter of the promise; to be dropped by the following government again.
 
So now that the election is over and given the results, might as well start speculating on the type of equipment they may use to bring back the Northlander. Apologies if this has already been covered.

Do they still have the rolling stock they used previously? I think I read or heard somewhere that the time slot and track availability used for the Northlander is now gone. Metrolinx has used it for their service increases. I assume they'll be ordered to find room. Also, what track at Union did the Northlander use?
 
So now that the election is over and given the results, might as well start speculating on the type of equipment they may use to bring back the Northlander. Apologies if this has already been covered.

Do they still have the rolling stock they used previously? I think I read or heard somewhere that the time slot and track availability used for the Northlander is now gone. Metrolinx has used it for their service increases. I assume they'll be ordered to find room. Also, what track at Union did the Northlander use?

This might actually be a good promise to break if it comes down to that. The real issue (IMO) is not that there's no train anymore, it's that North Bay's and Cochrane's population are shrinking. Get these two places growing again, and people wouldn't care whether there's a train or not.
 
Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I rode the Northlander, it was an experience, with a dining car and sleeper cars. They took those away and just used regular cars. Ridership fell off. Then they cancelled that. So if we're going to restore it, let's restore it to its glory days. A girl can dream.
 
This might actually be a good promise to break if it comes down to that. The real issue (IMO) is not that there's no train anymore, it's that North Bay's and Cochrane's population are shrinking. Get these two places growing again, and people wouldn't care whether there's a train or not.

According to the website population.city, the population of many of the communities in N/E Ontario have been floating +/- 1% for the past several years. According to the website Toronto, although year-over-year positive growth, has only grown at under 1% per year since 1996. The difference is the raw numbers; 1% of a million is a lot more than 1% of 10,000.
 
According to the website population.city, the population of many of the communities in N/E Ontario have been floating +/- 1% for the past several years. According to the website Toronto, although year-over-year positive growth, has only grown at under 1% per year since 1996. The difference is the raw numbers; 1% of a million is a lot more than 1% of 10,000.

Wikipedia provides population history at a glance for many places.

North Bay: population 51,553 (2016), down from 55,405 (1991)
Cochrane: population 5,321 (2016), down from 5,653 (1991)

Just getting back to 1991 levels would be a tremendous boost for the local economy.
 

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