Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Not to mention municipalities in the East (Port Hope, Belleville, Kingston) that would benefit from a high speed limited stop service to the airport.
Mississauga Pearson Transit Hub | ?m | ?s | GTAA
- Thread starter mdrejhon
- Start date
Not to mention municipalities in the East (Port Hope, Belleville, Kingston) that would benefit from a high speed limited stop service to the airport.
rbt
Senior Member
Through service for those towns seems highly unlikely; they'll be transferring. Those trains (when they do run through) will continue going to London via Lake Shore just like today.
Peterborough is far more likely to get a direct Pearson connection if electrified HFR goes through; but that's far from a sure thing. Mainline rail being shifted (versus a high capacity people mover) is also far from a sure thing; one costs $2B and the other is like $200M.
Last edited:
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
The mainline diversion would be very nice on paper, but at the end of the day I end up thinking that two major things
- If the airport ends up looking anything like the last version we've seen rendered a proper peoplemover to Malton or Woodbine GO makes a lot more sense for the foreseeable future
- Kitchener - London service really seems best suited to a shuttle, whoever the operator is. I'd think we could gain more in frequency than is lost in service quality with a transfer so long as the Kitchener station is configured and scheduled appropriately
Streety McCarface
Senior Member
Because Ventilation and fire safety standards are vastly different for tunnels that require diesel trains to run through them and tunnels that only run on electric traction.
It's not impossible but it has to be considered when designing a tunnel. Sometimes the costs of building a tunnel/station complex with these heightened safety standards outweigh the cost of procuring dual-mode locomotives for VIA and GO trains.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I can't imagine how they would hope to ventilate an underground tunnel and station to be used by diesels.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Has anyone figured out how they would divert the Kitchener Line to the hub? I just can't see it. Does it become a Y between Malton and Etobicoke? Where do they bend the line? And it's pretty consequential, if future HSR/HFR trains are also bound for this.
sche
Active Member
GTAA’s master plan looks like this (on page 83)
Basically just a super long tunnel. the legend is on the right if you can read it, orange is tunnel and red is at grade.
Also seems like the Woodbine GO station is not taken into account (was this made before Woodbine GO was a thing?)
from: https://www.torontopearson.com/en/corporate/our-future/master-plan
kEiThZ
Superstar
Interesting. If that's the plan, it makes no sense to divert the Kitchener Line. Just HFR/HSR and an extended UPE through there. Have UPE terminate at Bramalea (or Brampton if Main St LRT works out and 2WAD goes that far) and any passengers from the West who are airport bound can just transfer on to it.
lenaitch
Senior Member
How does High Speed Rail - however that is defined - square with two relatively sharp bends? As mentioned earlier, this seems to assume electrification.
MisterF
Senior Member
I don't think it needs to be looked at quite so rigidly. If it's built as shown on the map then trains can be routed as required; some Kitchener line trains can go directly to the airport while others bypass it. With an upgraded, electrified Kitchener line having multiple train types, it would make sense to route at least some of them through the airport. It wouldn't add much travel time to through passengers.
In other parts of the world HSR trains routinely run on conventional tracks at conventional speeds. They slow down in major cities so they'll be going at conventional speeds through Mississauga and Etobicoke regardless. Plus any train that takes the diversion would be stopping at Pearson anyway, so the curves don't need to be built for high speed.
robmausser
Senior Member
I would imagine that the existing track wont be abandoned. This will just be a spur.
Mrgeosim
New Member
you're absolutely right about the feasibility of running HSR on conventional tracks but actually having HSR on that corridor isn't happening anytime soon. It was a boondoggle proposal by the Liberal government to win seat along the 401 and it was (thankfully) scrapped by the current Ford government.
I'd bet (pun intended) that the folks working on the Woodbine Racetrack GO station will try to find a way to be directly connected to the Pearson Transit Hub. The prospect of international visitors having seamless access to their casino is too lucrative to ignore. Perhaps the developers would even help fund an underground GO station to make it possible. Given the plan to overhaul the UP Express, it wouldn't surprise me to see drastic changes like that.
reteequa
Active Member
I fail to see how you think cancelling faster, more reliable and environmentally friendly rail service in the busiest area of the country should receive a thanks. The ford government is not making anything better by cancelling multiple projects in the region. Who knows how much more damage he will do in the next two years.
Mrgeosim
New Member
Because a HSR line would divert much needed finances away from high priority projects, which is a lengthy list. And I'm not sure if you've been to London or Windsor, but they aren't exactly bustling metropolises (no offense meant to these cities at all). If we're going to build a HSR line, it would make far more sense to build it East towards Ottawa and Montreal, but again, there are bigger fish to fry.
I think the likely service plan with that type of configuration would be that both the current Kitchener Line track and the Pearson diversion track would be used. Express services (some GO trains from Kitchener, some HSR/HFR trains) would bypass it, while more local services (GO RER) as well as some HSR/HFR trips would utilize it.
Though I think from an alignment (both in terms of geometry and cost) it would make more sense to go underneath the Pearson lands instead of under Airport Rd. That way you could build that section mostly as cut and cover.
Though I think from an alignment (both in terms of geometry and cost) it would make more sense to go underneath the Pearson lands instead of under Airport Rd. That way you could build that section mostly as cut and cover.