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VIA Rail

Air Canada's most popular flight to Montreal is the one that leaves Toronto at 7am. That gets you to Montreal at about 830am.

They run a 630 flight on a smaller plane.
 
If the trip from Toronto to Montreal with HFR will take 4:45 then really this doesn't help with driving more passengers on this route. Right now the route takes about 5hrs at best of times. A 15min savings even with more frequent services won't do much. It would increase more leisure passengers sure for the convenience and cost over flying but it won't tackle the business crowd. 5hrs is too long to get to Montreal by train. It needs to be between 3-4hr window to compete with flying. Get it under 4hrs and frequent service and people will take the train over flying this short distance.
 
First departure from Ottawa to Toronto based on the current VIA schedule is 5:30 am

I have been on a 1 am departure from Pearson to Ottawa, which gets you into Ottawa around 2 am. Surely, late departures and arrivals by rail will also work.
 
I will also like to point out that there is something like 17 departures today from Toronto to Montreal and Ottawa. Going to 18 departures with HFR in a way is underwhelming.
 
There are also Porter and Air Canada flights from the island to Montreal.

With flying though you also need to account for getting to the airport about 2 hours before your flight.
 
kEiThZ said:
@Urban Sky You're better at this. For a hypothetical HFR from Toronto to Quebec City, with hourly departures, how many trains would be needed? My very rough ballpark says 18-22.
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1) Add the travel times for TRTO-MTRL and MTRL-QBEC.
2) Add a realistic dwell time for Montreal's Gare Centrale. The minimum scheduled dwell time is currently 15 minutes (train 35, arrive 11:49, depart 12:04) and I didn't find any shorter dwell time for since VIA introduced Quebec-Montreal-Ottawa trains in December 2012.
3) Add a realistic turn-around time. VIA's fastest scheduled turn-around time between two different train services travelling in two different directions I'm aware of is 75 minutes (train 73 arrives Windsor at 16:30 and departs as train 78 at 17:45), which includes physically turning the train, whereas I've seen JR Central/East scheduling as little as 6 minutes between the arrival and departure of their (obviously bidirectional) Shinkansen trains from/to Tokyo at Kanazawa (a dead-end terminus station).
4) Multiply the result by 2 and round up to the next full hour. The resulting number of hours is the minimum number of cycles you'll need to allocate with trainsets during the day.

In order to calculate the number of physical trainsets you require, you need to also consider the following:
5) Are there any departures for which I may need two trainsets (think of the ICE-2, ICE-3 or TGV Duplex), to cope with demand?
6) How many trainsets are needed as guard trains at strategic points?
7) Take the calculated number of trainsets and add a margin for planned or unplanned vehicle unavailabilities (training, maintenance, defects, repairs, wrecks).

I hope this helps! :)
 
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hw621 said:
when comparing travel time between driving and train, I would like to remind that driving time is usually door to door, while for train one has to figure out connection between the station and the final destination. That usually adds another hour, or even two.
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Which is why we're always looking at downtown-to-downtown travel times. It's the most appropriate comparison.

Even door-to-door driving is not always faster. I have done the math for an Ottawa-Scarborough trip with HFR. A regular personal trip. This would be as fast or faster, door-to-door, as driving.

It's the Western half of Toronto that has worse door-to-door times because of higher station access times. That should improve as HSR extends through Union, to Pearson and beyond.
 
narduch said:
It's the Western half of Toronto that has worse door-to-door times because of higher station access times. That should improve as HSR extends through Union, to Pearson and beyond.
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And as we get RER on various lines.

It dawned on me catching a mid-morning VIA train to Montreal recently, and looking at the connecting Lakeshore East GO ... that now trains are every 15 minutes, I didn't really have to think about the schedule much!
 
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kEiThZ said:
Which is why we're always looking at downtown-to-downtown travel times. It's the most appropriate comparison.

Even door-to-door driving is not always faster. I have done the math for an Ottawa-Scarborough trip with HFR. A regular personal trip. This would be as fast or faster, door-to-door, as driving.

It's the Western half of Toronto that has worse door-to-door times because of higher station access times. That should improve as HSR extends through Union, to Pearson and beyond.
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What HSR?
 
If we get the current HFR plan built, I can see HFR being extended to London and Windsor in some format. In the long-term, run this to Detroit and Chicago. This will generate more ridership if we can find effective border crossings.

I have always said, that we can improve track sections to HSR standards so that speeds on those sections can be increased. I experienced that between Dresden and Berlin a few years ago, while the rest of that journey between Prague and Dresden was at standard VIA speeds.

Incremental HFR to HSR is likely the only way we get to HSR.

Also, I have spoken of using the Winchester sub east of Smiths Falls for Montreal express trains. Who says we can't upgrade that section of track to HSR standards right away? It is a great opportunity given how straight that track is and could further speed up service to Montreal.

Hey, I can dream.
 
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kEiThZ said:
Typo. Meant HFR continuing through to Pearson.
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Why? Can just change to the airport train at Pearson. Most passengers on the 5-car trainset, won't be heading to Pearson ... and you'd have to build additional platforms at Pearson.

Easier to extend to Aldershot, Milton, or Brampton ... or even Hamilton.
 
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