VIA Rail

[MisterF]

The tendency of passenger rail supporters, city councils and business groups from Quebec all the way to Windsor to reject any major passenger rail investment project which doesn't reach their city from day one, effectively means that they are advocating for the entire Quebec-Windsor route.

That may be true, but that's just those municipalities and business groups looking out for their own best interests. If there's a chance of getting a piece of the action, you can bet that they will try. But that's no guarantee that an HSR system would ever get built all the way to Windsor and Quebec City. It could end up being just the Toronto-Montreal section without any further extensions. Or maybe going as far as London if the province goes ahead with its HSR plan.

Besides, even if it eventually goes the full length of the corridor, it's not like it would be the first time that we built more infrastructure than our population might appear to warrant. According to this article Canada has the most freeways per capita in the world. That goes a long way to explaining the state of our passenger trains.

What incentive, however, should CN have to provide CP with the advantage of overcoming the shortcomings of its single-tracked Belleville subdivision if they already enjoy the advantages of their entirely multiple-tracked Kingston subdivision? It would take more than soft pressure and I don't see any sign that the government or Transport Canada were considering to interfere into CN's access to its Kingston subdivision...

Well they wouldn't have to deal with Via trains anymore. That alone could be enough to get them to agree with it. We've already seen Via Fast and now this new plan which both count on consolidating freight traffic. I'd like to think that they wouldn't create this plan and have their president go on a publicity spree unless they'd been in talks with the freight companies already.

In any case, I'd love to see full HSR and I've argued for it on this forum. But I'm all for a less ambitious plan too. It may not be perfect but it's a lot better than what we have now.

 

[crs1026]

What incentive, however, should CN have to provide CP with the advantage of overcoming the shortcomings of its single-tracked Belleville subdivision if they already enjoy the advantages of their entirely multiple-tracked Kingston subdivision?

Absent VIA, the Kingston Sub is waaay overbuilt for the amount of freight tonnage CN moves. And CN pays fixed costs on every square foot. (less whatever they can pass onto VIA, either thru invoice or thru sneaky accounting).

That's what I believe the Havelock Sub exercise may be about, in part. VIA says to CN, Look, we have a (supposedly) credible scheme to get our trains off your tracks. CN isn't thinking "Whew....Finally...." they are likely thinking "Oh, crap!" because VIA is paying not only its own variable cost but some little share of fixed cost.... and now CN has to reconfigure the line to get its revenue/capital statistic back in line.

Then VIA says, "or, we could take the line off your hands, for (some multiple of hundreds of millions), and you could buy into the CP line for a lesser amount and pocket the difference (also likely some hundreds of millions)

Meanwhile, CP, whose line is also operating under capacity and needs expensive siding extensions (because CP has lengthened its own trains without doing so), is watching eagerly. VIA will pay for the sidings (a windfall for CP) and CN will buy a share of the line, giving CP a profit while again reducing the capital value of the line. CP's revenue to capital ratio improves.

It would be a negotiation worth the proverbial fly on the wall, because CP will try to screw CN for every dollar, expecting CN to do likewise to VIA, and CN will play it at both ends..... but fundamentally all three paries have an interest in getting to yes. It's too much profit for CN and CP to face their shareholders and say "we don't like playing with government"

From all HSR studies I've seen for North America, the requirement to grade-separate all level crossings causes a huge jump in costs, which can hardly be justified unless speeds are increased to 240 km/h (150 mph), by which time you cannot share any longer your ROW with freight trains and will have to go greenfield alignments for substantial segment lengths.

Well, you can look at it that way, if you had good data on how travel time affects potential demand in this corridor. But I wouldn't go there. Some part of grade separation in denser population areas is a societal benefit thru safety and savings by saving lives. Which is why government should be tackling grade crossings for major roads anyways. If you set up a fund of $X per year, started in Oshawa and worked east, you'd meet that need and enable VIA. It may be more cost effective to buy out a few farmers than to build anything at the farm crossings.

All these issues are valid and serious, but pale in comparison to having to build any greenfield segments (especially in such difficult areas as with the Gananoque bypass between Kingston and Smith Falls)...

We are trading 200 miles of existing ROW (whose underlying engineering and environmental parameters would have to be studied from scratch) versus 70 miles of greenfield. The latter is actually only 45 miles of greenfield and 25 miles of existing ROW if you assume some of the old CN Napanee line can be reused. The math may still be against Havelock.

But, as I say, Havelock may only be a notional Plan B that polices the price of Plan A.

- Paul

 

[kEiThZ]

@Urban Sky

I appreciate your analysis that this would be an undertaking that's a large step forward. The thing is, I'm not sure how VIA is really sustainable without that step forward. VIA's average speed have dropped over the years. And it's getting worse with more freight congestion. If VIA is to actually contribute to effective relief of the 401 (which might need triple lanes in both directions going forward), we'll need proper rail service in the corridor. And to do that, you're going to be building an exclusive right of way anyway. And again, if you're doing that, the cost of going to full HSR is rather incremental.

I agree that political will is lacking. In no small measure, because we get hooked on the price tag, rather than the reality of incremental development. HSR in the Corridor for example would be built in parts over 20 years. Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal by 2030. Montreal-Quebec City and Toronto-London by 2035. London-Windsor by 2040. With inflation that's a max of $40 billion spread over 24 years. $1.7 billion per year. It's doable. But it requires a firm commitment, on a multi-decade undertaking that should hopefully survive successive governments.

HFR seems like an attractive alternative at first blush. But the more I look at it, the more skeptical I become. The Peterborough route they are proposing would be politically untenable since it would really harm service for all the smaller communities along the corridor. Also, we can't be sure they'd have lots of traffic by cutting out all those smaller communities. It's riskier to base such massive investment solely on tying Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. But if the alternative is then going to be following the Lakeshore, why would we not build HSR? Don't even have to electrify at first. First build the corridor and run semi-high speed diesel services. Perhaps run out the current rolling stock. Electrify down the road (when GO RER is up and running).

 

[innsertnamehere]

Canada has nowhere near 17,000km of freeway. Maybe if you count the dual carriageways that criss-cross the praries, but those aren't freeways. I'm guessing the real count is closer to 7,000km of actual freeway. That would put us roughly on par with Austria and Sweden.

 

[dowlingm]

I am befuddled by the notion that we should look at length of HSR/capita in geographies as disparate as mainland Europe, China and Canada as some sort of benchmark. What matters is population within reasonable catchment of the HSR lines themselves.

 

[MisterF]

Canada has nowhere near 17,000km of freeway. Maybe if you count the dual carriageways that criss-cross the praries, but those aren't freeways. I'm guessing the real count is closer to 7,000km of actual freeway. That would put us roughly on par with Austria and Sweden.

I thought that seemed a bit high too, but you'd think that they'd have a standard way of coming up with those numbers for each country. If Canada's number is so far off, other countries could be too. Then again, other countries with federal highways are easier to figure out.

If Canada does have only 7000 km of freeways that's still higher per capita than most industrialized countries.

 

[mdrejhon]

View attachment 69831

Wow -- I'm surprised to see 300kph high speed routes operate their fastest express services with a slower average speed than today's VIA Toronto-Montreal trains.

And that one city pair for Acela Express outperforms the Shinkansen on one of its popular routes.

There's certainly a lot of overlap for average speed.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Those routes are rather cherry picked. None of them run significant distance on high speed tracks. Barcelona - Lyon has 200km of substandard track. The trips that have real HSR connections for the majority of the route, for example Paris - Lyon, would have much higher speeds. Paris - Lyon covers around 430km in less than 2hrs.

 

[mdrejhon]

This could be what happens to VIA HFR incrementally if HFR is a big success -- high speed trains gets introduced later as we add grade separations & track upgrades that speeds up sections.

So 20% true HSR and 80% HFR, we might be running high speed trainsets mostly on non-HSR routes initially just like these routes. Speeding up the train as true HSR track upgrades are added in additional legs.

 

[Urban Sky]

Those routes are rather cherry picked. None of them run significant distance on high speed tracks. Barcelona - Lyon has 200km of substandard track. The trips that have real HSR connections for the majority of the route, for example Paris - Lyon, would have much higher speeds. Paris - Lyon covers around 430km in less than 2hrs.

I'm a bit bemused that you think I tried to make the case that VIA is generally faster than HSR in Europe. The only case I tried to make is that by no means all Europeans whisk around at average speeds of 200 km/h or faster and that VIA probably runs one of the fastest conventional intercity rail services in the world with trains 68 and 69, which allows them to beat some of the HSR services I've included in that list. And even if you probably doubt it, service speeds as with Wiesbaden-Munich, Frankfurt-Amsterdam or Frankfurt-Interlaken are considered adequate (even though slightly slow) in Europe. The rolling stock determines the maximum speed, but the infrastructure limits the average speed and thus travel times. The main difference between Canada and Germany (my home country, by the way) is not that trains are here so slow, but that you can travel for 500 km and find nothing but a 100k town like Kingston on your way, while a Frankfurt-Amsterdam train will have to stop in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen, Oberhausen, Arnhem and Utrecht, each of which exceeds Kingston in population (and even more in importance) by a wide margin. (I have nothing against Kingston, for the records, it's a lovely city and deserves reasonably frequent rail connections to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto...)

PS: The headline of my graph was "Comparision of Acela Express and VIA Rail (Corridor) services with SELECTED SLOW HSR services on different continents" and I still believe that this made clear enough that I had selected only the slowest HSR services I could find to demonstrate that HSR is not automatically faster than VIA (even if it of course is in most cases)...

 

[MisterF]

The main difference between Canada and Germany (my home country, by the way) is not that trains are here so slow, but that you can travel for 500 km and find nothing but a 100k town like Kingston on your way, while a Frankfurt-Amsterdam train will have to stop in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen, Oberhausen, Arnhem and Utrecht, each of which exceeds Kingston in population (and even more in importance) by a wide margin. (I have nothing against Kingston, for the records, it's a lovely city and deserves reasonably frequent rail connections to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto...)

Yes Germany is quite a bit more densely populated than the Windsor-Quebec corridor. The corridor is more in line with Spain and France, both of which have high speed lines that go the same distance as Toronto-Ottawa without hitting a major city. It's only 400 km, not 500.

 

[kEiThZ]

@MisterF is correct.

I was surprised when I found out how close the densities were.

Southern Ontario: 86/km2
Spain: 92/km2
France: 116/km2

And I'll be if you re-adjust for the high population of Paris, the rest of France looks even more like Southern Ontario. Germany is an anomaly. Even in Europe.

Clearly, the context is there to at least start. And I think Toronto-Montreal via Ottawa is around 600km or so. The only question is how to phase this. For example, I could actually see economic validity in building Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City first. Then working on Toronto-Ottawa. Cheaper and possibly higher return from commuter traffic.

 

[Urban Sky]

Okay, a lot has happened here in the last week, but while I try to catch up, it seems to have become so much that I have to split it into two separate posts, so this is PART 1...:

[...] But that's no guarantee that an HSR system would ever get built all the way to Windsor and Quebec City. It could end up being just the Toronto-Montreal section without any further extensions. Or maybe going as far as London if the province goes ahead with its HSR plan. [...]

This is why the obsession about the entire Quebec-Windsor Corridor was so counter-productive.If you show a $20 billion price tag to a conservative government, they will instantly loose interest.

[...]According to this article Canada has the most freeways per capita in the world. That goes a long way to explaining the state of our passenger trains.

I am befuddled by the notion that we should look at length of HSR/capita in geographies as disparate as mainland Europe, China and Canada as some sort of benchmark. What matters is population within reasonable catchment of the HSR lines themselves.

As I already said two posts back: Population size is an inappropriate measure for comparing the network lengths of road or rail infrastructure, but it definitely influences the pace at which that infrastructure can be built, especially for highly capital-intensive mega-projects like HSR. For instance, the California HSR is expected to cost (at least) $68 billion, which represents only 0.4% of US GDP, but 3.8% of Canadian GDP. Similarly, the three options for implementing real HSR on the US Northeast Corridor are expected to cost between $64 and $308, which represents between 0.4% and 1.8% of US GDP, but 3.6%-17.3% of Canadian GDP, while the $21.3 billion estimated construction costs for the E-300 Q-W scenario in the Ecotrain study translate to 1.2% of Canadian GDP, but only 0.12% of US GDP. Does anyone here seriously want to make the argument that a Canadian project with the capital cost of a few billion $$$ is as easy to finance through public budgets as an equally expensive project would be in the US...?

Well they wouldn't have to deal with Via trains anymore. That alone could be enough to get them to agree with it.

Given that the current regulatory framework allows CN to delay VIA trains with virtually zero consequences and to demand publicly financed infrastructure enhancements in return for any additional frequencies, CN has presumably already optimized its operations so that VIA trains cause very little interferences to their own freight operations. I therefore don't see much motivation on their side to cooperate and I can't think of any reason why a significant proportion of CN's shareholders would deem consolidation with CP's operations an appealing strategic move.

We've already seen Via Fast and now this new plan which both count on consolidating freight traffic. I'd like to think that they wouldn't create this plan and have their president go on a publicity spree unless they'd been in talks with the freight companies already.

In any case, I'd love to see full HSR and I've argued for it on this forum. But I'm all for a less ambitious plan too. It may not be perfect but it's a lot better than what we have now.

[...] That's what I believe the Havelock Sub exercise may be about, in part. VIA says to CN, Look, we have a (supposedly) credible scheme to get our trains off your tracks. CN isn't thinking "Whew....Finally...." they are likely thinking "Oh, crap!" because VIA is paying not only its own variable cost but some little share of fixed cost.... and now CN has to reconfigure the line to get its revenue/capital statistic back in line.

Then VIA says, "or, we could take the line off your hands, for (some multiple of hundreds of millions), and you could buy into the CP line for a lesser amount and pocket the difference (also likely some hundreds of millions) [...]

We are trading 200 miles of existing ROW (whose underlying engineering and environmental parameters would have to be studied from scratch) versus 70 miles of greenfield. The latter is actually only 45 miles of greenfield and 25 miles of existing ROW if you assume some of the old CN Napanee line can be reused. The math may still be against Havelock.

But, as I say, Havelock may only be a notional Plan B that polices the price of Plan A.

Where did you read that HFR was about having CN and CP consolidate their freight operations? VIA's CEO has repeatedly stated that "removing passenger services from freight railway infrastructure is in the best interest of both [i.e. passenger and freight] rail systems and of the Canadian economy as a whole" (p.47), while its most recent Corporate Plan states explicitly that "Investments in third party infrastructure will only be made when necessary, provided there are guarantees of expected benefits. As demonstrated in the recent past, however, these guarantees will be difficult to obtain as market conditions evolve and freight traffic continues to grow. This in turn supports the notion of continuing to evaluate the relevance of operating on a dedicated passenger rail infrastructure" (p.4). I of course fully agree with Mister F's last sentence, though.

[...] Absent VIA, the Kingston Sub is waaay overbuilt for the amount of freight tonnage CN moves. And CN pays fixed costs on every square foot. (less whatever they can pass onto VIA, either thru invoice or thru sneaky accounting). [...]

What do you do if you own redundant infrastructure? You cut it down. Even though the taxpayer has paid for the third track, I believe that there is nothing which would stop CN to tear the tracks out and reuse them elsewhere in their network (or to just sell them for scrap).

[...] Meanwhile, CP, whose line is also operating under capacity and needs expensive siding extensions (because CP has lengthened its own trains without doing so), is watching eagerly. VIA will pay for the sidings (a windfall for CP) and CN will buy a share of the line, giving CP a profit while again reducing the capital value of the line. CP's revenue to capital ratio improves.

It would be a negotiation worth the proverbial fly on the wall, because CP will try to screw CN for every dollar, expecting CN to do likewise to VIA, and CN will play it at both ends..... but fundamentally all three paries have an interest in getting to yes. It's too much profit for CN and CP to face their shareholders and say "we don't like playing with government" [...]

I fully agree that it would be in CP's interest to overcome its competitive advantage of having a single-tracked bottleneck on their Belleville subdivision by pooling assets with its main competitor and potentially securing public subsidies. However, I can't see how CN could be motivated to grant them that free victory and I don't believe that giving public subsidies to private freight-only railroads has ever proven a cost-effective way to improve our passenger rail networks. Also, to fulfil VIA's requirement that any capital improvements paid through its own capital funding will be invested in its own infrastructure only, this would require CN to route its trains off the entire Kingston subdivision, requiring the double-tracking of the entire Belleville subdivision from Toronto all the way up to Smith Falls.

[This post continues below]

 

[Urban Sky]

[This post starts above]

@Urban Sky

I appreciate your analysis that this would be an undertaking that's a large step forward. The thing is, I'm not sure how VIA is really sustainable without that step forward. VIA's average speed have dropped over the years. And it's getting worse with more freight congestion. If VIA is to actually contribute to effective relief of the 401 (which might need triple lanes in both directions going forward), we'll need proper rail service in the corridor. And to do that, you're going to be building an exclusive right of way anyway. And again, if you're doing that, the cost of going to full HSR is rather incremental.[...]

This could be what happens to VIA HFR incrementally if HFR is a big success -- high speed trains gets introduced later as we add grade separations & track upgrades that speeds up sections.

So 20% true HSR and 80% HFR, we might be running high speed trainsets mostly on non-HSR routes initially just like these routes. Speeding up the train as true HSR track upgrades are added in additional legs.

The main challenges faced by VIA Rail is a continuously deteriorating travel time and on-time performance, which together with its inability to increase the frequency of its trains translates into a declining ridership (and a cost-recovery rate on the Corridor which has fallen to 60%, as operating costs are proportional to travel times) and the main objective is to tackle these challenges as soon as possible and to get independent from federal subsidies in the medium term. Given the federal government's lack of appetite for large-scale passenger rail infrastructure spending, the solution has to be as financeable (i.e. affordable) and cost-effective as possible. This is why a design speed of 110 mph was chosen (i.e. the maximum allowable speed which does not require grade separations) and the need for greenfield alignments was almost entirely avoided by choosing former or currently underused ROWs. Naturally, this means that the new dedicated infrastructure will be of limited use for eventual upgrades to HSR, but HSR does not play any role in VIA's planning horizons anyway and VIA won't make it HSR-ready unless the federal government (or its private investors) agree to pay for the associated cost premium. Furthermore, an incremental introduction of HSR would require the trainsets to be Hybrid, as it is extremely unlikely that CN will ever allow electrification of its Kingston subdivision, and be subject to the same capacity constraints and frequency limitations VIA faces currently.

[...] HFR seems like an attractive alternative at first blush. But the more I look at it, the more skeptical I become. The Peterborough route they are proposing would be politically untenable since it would really harm service for all the smaller communities along the corridor. Also, we can't be sure they'd have lots of traffic by cutting out all those smaller communities. It's riskier to base such massive investment solely on tying Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. But if the alternative is then going to be following the Lakeshore, why would we not build HSR? Don't even have to electrify at first. First build the corridor and run semi-high speed diesel services. Perhaps run out the current rolling stock. Electrify down the road (when GO RER is up and running).

VIA's current Corridor trains between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto are basically hybrid trains which try to serve two different markets, i.e. the MTRL-DORV-(OTTW-FALL)-OSHA-TRTO express inter-city market and the regional inter-city market for all the cities in between, which unfortunately have conflicting demands (short travel times for Express and frequent stops for Regional). HFR will therefore allow to serve both markets more effectively, by having frequent and fast Express trains and less frequent, but more frequently stopping Regional trains on the Kingston subdivision. As with "making it HSR-ready", VIA is open to build HFR electrified from the beginning, provided that its investors agree to pay the cost premium.

[...] I agree that political will is lacking. In no small measure, because we get hooked on the price tag, rather than the reality of incremental development. HSR in the Corridor for example would be built in parts over 20 years. Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal by 2030. Montreal-Quebec City and Toronto-London by 2035. London-Windsor by 2040. With inflation that's a max of $40 billion spread over 24 years. $1.7 billion per year. It's doable. But it requires a firm commitment, on a multi-decade undertaking that should hopefully survive successive governments. [...]

Okay, let's look at how your plan for HSR on the Canadian Corridor compares with the leading HSR nations. I have retained Japan (as the first HSR nation), France (as the first and leading European HSR nation), Germany (as the leading hybrid HSR nation where High-Speed trains and Higher-Speed inter-city trains use a mix of dedicated and shared tracks) and Spain (as the world's densest HSR network), while removing Italy (too similar to France) and China (too dissimilar with Canada's political, demographical and geographical reality). As you can see below, your plans appear to be well in line with 3 out of the 4 countries:

Note: The x-axis should rather say "Years passed since government approval of the construction of the first HSR line segment"


However and as I have already mentioned further up in this post, I still insist that comparing the HSR network lengths is a valid measure for the evolution of HSR networks, though not for the final network length itself. Relative to the respective population figures, you plan on having completed MTRL-OTTW-TRTO 2 years earlier than even Spain has managed to reach such a density (15 mm/capita) and that is assuming that the go-ahead comes this year. Furthermore, you are planning to complete QBEC-MTRL-OTTW-TRTO-LNDN during a period in which only Spain had reached such a density (25 mm/capita) and France had only reached half of that. The same can be said about the period in which you want to have completed the entire Quebec-Windsor Corridor (29 mm/capita), with Japan being this time the HSR nation which had only reached half that figure (and let's not talk about Germany):

@MisterF is correct.

I was surprised when I found out how close the densities were.

Southern Ontario: 86/km2

Spain: 92/km2

France: 116/km2

And I'll be if you re-adjust for the high population of Paris, the rest of France looks even more like Southern Ontario. Germany is an anomaly. Even in Europe. [...]

I'm afraid that Spain and France are the anomalies, while among the 11 European countries with dedicated HSR infrastructure, only Switzerland and Italy are closer to the average density of these 11 countries than Germany:

PS: I'm of course not sharing any internal information here. However, please let me know if you want me to provide you with a public source for any information I provided here.

 

[innsertnamehere]

again, you can talk all you want about km per capita and years after initial opening, but it doesn't change the fact that those metrics are crap. What matters isn't how many km per capita some random nation has, what matters is whether the project makes sense in the corridor it is in. Fankly, I couldn't give a rats a** about how many km per capita Spain or Japan have, what I care about is what is the best and most realistic option for rail travel in the Corridor. How the hell does the feasability of HSR from Toronto to Montreal relate to how many people live in freaking Vancouver or Calgary? It doesn't, at all.