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VIA Rail

EnviroTO said:
I'm curious to know if the fourth bidder that was removed from consideration was from Asia because not seeing a Japanese, Korean, or Chinese consortium is surprising, although I can imagine a Chinese bid being problematic considering the currently strained political relations.

Cadence: Aligned to SNCF operations, CDPQ financing, SNC Lavalin construction. I would imagine CDPQ and SNC Lavalin are leading this. Interesting overlap in who is in this bid and who could make a quality connection at Gare Centrale possible.

Intercity: A real interesting group including Renefe, First Rail (UK) operations, and RATP (Paris Métro). Kilmer which is a trucking company? I would imagine this is really a bid Ellisdon is leading. This looks like a strong engineering and construction team that invited operators onto the team because that was the gap in their skill set.

QConnexion: Deutsche Bahn operations, Fengate financing, and Bechtel construction. Fengate taking the lead perhaps.

Not surprised that rolling stock and equipment partners are not included (like Alstom) personally because this team is going to design, build, and operate so having an equipment manufacturer at the table might limit the ability to get the best deal.
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also note that since this is litterally give us your best proposal of both a hfr system and an hsr system. Bidders cant submit bids with rolling stock manufacturers cause they wouldnt be able to know what they could buy
 
wopchop said:
Kilmer Group has a bunch of different arms, but a major part of it is real estate/infrastructure investment.
They are also a major shareholder of MLSE.
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I may be reading into things a bit too much but Kilmer Group's head honcho (Larry Tanenbaum) is looking at selling off his stake in MLSE to Oxford, so one has to wonder about the timing of that kind of a move.
 
Amare said:
I may be reading into things a bit too much but Kilmer Group's head honcho (Larry Tanenbaum) is looking at selling off his stake in MLSE to Oxford, so one has to wonder about the timing of that kind of a move.
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He is looking at selling of part of his 25% stake, not the full stake. Apparently he wants to sell 20% of Kilmer Sports to OMERS.
Bell & Rogers are challenging it, because they believe they have first right of refusal to buy at a lower price.
The leagues are in favour of the deal (I believe both approved it), because it raises the valuation of MLSE, and thus all the teams.
 
LemonCondo said:
I guess this throws out Japanese maglev technology!

(Not like that was going to happen in the first place... :))
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I am perversely curious as to what ridership an L0 series maglev would spit out over the HFR route. Probably cost 150 Billion CAD or something, though.
 
Frank_Lee said:
I am perversely curious as to what ridership an L0 series maglev would spit out over the HFR route. Probably cost 150 Billion CAD or something, though.
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The Chūō Shinkansen will apparently cost 65.8 Billion CDN for a 285 km route. So Toronto to Quebec City (or even just Montreal), with our cost overruns?

I mean I want it but...
 
Frank_Lee said:
Also possibly relevant---the Ontario Line has apparently started construction: https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail...trolinx-metrolinx-begins-work-on-ontario-line
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Construction has been increasing for some time. We've been discussing in some of the other threads.

I'm not sure there's much impact on VIA services, other than the detours up the Don Valley anytime there's a Lakeshore closure. But that's a frequent occurrence already with the GO Expansion work - for the new track.

The only real long-term impact here, is that Lakeshore East could have been expanded to 6 tracks, giving 2 tracks to national rail (VIA, HFR, HST, whatever) services. This is lost with the move to the above-ground Ontario Line alignment along Lakeshore from the Don to Pape Avenue - where they are adding 1 track for GO and 2 tracks for the subway (to the existing 3 tracks).
 
roger1818 said:
Nothing new, but an interesting read.
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Not a bad statement of where we are at, but I was actually disappointed in the writer's summation because it lapsed back into the old "passenger trains lose money, VIA loses money" thing.

Maybe the writer ought to investigate whether Ontario's planned Highway 413 will "lose money".


- Paul
 
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