VIA Rail

[reaperexpress]

Excuse my ignorance but what is being bypassed? Is that VIA-owned track not a large part of the current existing VIA route between Ottawa and Montreal (with the exception of the CN section as the train enters the metro area)? Isn't the HFR plan itself a massive bypass of the entire Ontario corridor?

In addition to the stopping pattern mentioned by Urban Sky, the current situation is that train service is poorly timed for lakeshore communities since it's optimized for through travel between major cities. For example, the first train of the day from Kingston to Ottawa doesn't arrive there until 11:21, and the first train to Montreal doesn't arrive there until 11:50. Not very useful for commuting or day trips.

With HFR/HSR the limited slots along the Kingston sub can be tailored based on the needs of those communities, since travel direclty between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal would be on the new passenger railway. Kingston would probably have worse service to Toronto (unlikely they'd still have 14-16 trains per day without through passengers propping up ridership), but Kingston would have more useful service to Montreal and Ottawa, and all the intermediate stations would likely have as many or more services as today, given how many of the current services don't stop at minor stations anyway.

 

[Urban Sky]

Similarly, Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montreal trains are often scheduled within a few minutes from each other to minimize their impact on freight operations, which means that even a lower number than the currently up to 16 trains per day (10 TO and 6 TM) could offer a much more useful schedule, if the departures were properly spaced out and would skip less stops…

 

[micheal_can]

Top 5: These Are Air Canada's Most Frequently-Served Domestic Routes

Air Canada operates a wide range of single-aisle and widebody jets on domestic routes.

simpleflying.com

Talk of the busiest routes had me go digging. I found this.

Top 5 routes from this list are:

1. Toronto to Montreal
2. Toronto to Vancouver
3. Toronto to Calgary
4. Toronto to Ottawa
5. Calgary to Vancouver

It is interesting to me that 2 of them are on a potential HSR corridor. It is also interesting that the second busiest route is between Toronto and Vancouver. That shows that there is a demand for cross Canada travel. The problem is, for the foreseeable future, there is no way rail can put a dent in that. ~3 days on a train is not competitive to a 5 hour flight. However, the Corridor, if converted to HSR could very easily compete with air travel. So,lets quit dithering or politicking and build it.

 

[ownthesky]

Top 5: These Are Air Canada's Most Frequently-Served Domestic Routes

Air Canada operates a wide range of single-aisle and widebody jets on domestic routes.

simpleflying.com

Talk of the busiest routes had me go digging. I found this.

Top 5 routes from this list are:

1. Toronto to Montreal
2. Toronto to Vancouver
3. Toronto to Calgary
4. Toronto to Ottawa
5. Calgary to Vancouver

It is interesting to me that 2 of them are on a potential HSR corridor. It is also interesting that the second busiest route is between Toronto and Vancouver. That shows that there is a demand for cross Canada travel. The problem is, for the foreseeable future, there is no way rail can put a dent in that. ~3 days on a train is not competitive to a 5 hour flight. However, the Corridor, if converted to HSR could very easily compete with air travel. So,lets quit dithering or politicking and build it.

It’s wild to think that the top flights out of Ottawa are also to Toronto and Montreal, so you’d knock out a ton of flights out of that airport as well, opening those gates up for long distance flights. There’s about ten flights out of their airport to these destinations tomorrow.

 

[micheal_can]

It’s wild to think that the top flights out of Ottawa are also to Toronto and Montreal, so you’d knock out a ton of flights out of that airport as well, opening those gates up for long distance flights. There’s about ten flights out of their airport to these destinations tomorrow.

And with HSR, if it is fully electric, depending on the source, it could help lower our GHG emissions.

 

[nfitz]

It’s important to not conflate “VIA Rail Canada Inc.” (“VIA Rail”) with “VIA HFR-TGF Inc.” (“VIA HFR-TGF”), as I’m very confident that VIA Rail has never publicly considered using the Winchester Subdivision as Ottawa Bypass…

I don't think it matters much given they have the same ownership - though some do want to Chuck him.

To be fair, that image was released by Transport Canada - in the July 2021 Ministry announcements by the Ministry and Via Rail. So not VIA ABC-DEF. It showed the use of the Winchester sub all the way from Smith Falls to Vaudreuil.

It would be interesting to know the story behind this graphic.

Though a previous VIA figure that was around for a while - at least as early as 2017, did show what some interpreted as a deviation from the Alexandra sub to the Winchester sub, east of Alexandria, rather than joining the blue CN line at Dorion (to Central I'd assume). If you scroll up the thread a few hundred pages, you should see this.

Both simply could be bad graphics.