Paul: Agreed on most if not all points. I spent a good hour digging on getting definitive NEC figures, let alone Amtrak altogether. There is no such thing! The more I searched, the more wildly differing answers there were, almost all down to "how do you define costs, profits, expenses, track costs, etc". MIT even has a report, and Don Phillips' Trains articles are referred to many times, the actual articles being behind a paywall. The predominant 'gist' is that Metroliner (not Acela, which is up for renewal right now, btw) is the heavy lifter for reducing losses of all of Amtrak's books. What Amtrak has in common with Via, in general, is that a few choice routes subsidize the rest, to reduce the overall operating subsidy. But it still all comes down to definitions. Indeed, as you allude to, the NEC is facing a massive infrastructure investment need again...
I accessed the three links that Sky posted that he/she claimed I missed:
National Post, Feb 29, 2016, The Canadian Press, Jun 4, 2015, Ottawa Business Journaly, July 13, 2015.
One of them I'd already linked, the second I'd read, and the third had pretty much the same 'sketch' that the rest had. "If", "maybe" "when" etc. There was and remains no hard business case. The poster Muller was pretty harsh if not brutal, but he's right as that pertains to schemes of this sort. I like this scheme, make no mistake, but I also like the CSeries, it's a wonderful machine, I have a brother who designs wings for Airbus in Filton, great things are being said about the CSeries, but I wouldn't put a penny of my own money into it. Bombardier have tainted a lot of excellent products with disastrous management.
Which brings me back to the concept of the Feds downloading the Montreal-Toronto HFT (ostensibly via Ottawa at least in part) to the provinces, the obvious agencies co-operating being Metrolinx and AMT. *IF* there is a business case to be made, and the Feds back it (mostly to underwrite the rolling stock)(Desjardins-Siciliano speaks of 'double the present amount now running that service') I still think it might be better to hive it off from VIA for a number of reasons, not the least that the business operating model would be a lot more rational and applied to specific need of that corridor. The overlapping of jurisdiction Fed/Provincial immediately poses problems. VIA and GO work together in ways, but there's many others where they don't.
Some review of the provinces pushing this:
[On January 10, 2008,
Dalton McGuinty (
Premier of Ontario), and
Jean Charest (
Premier of Quebec) announced their two provinces will conduct a joint
$2 million feasibility study into the development of high-speed rail in the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The
federal government has agreed to participate in the study.
[18][19] In February 2009, The EcoTrain Consortium, consisting of firms Dessau, MMM Group,
KPMG, Wilbur Smith & Associates and
Deutsche Bahn International, were awarded a contract to update the feasibility studies for high-speed rail (HSR) in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. The study was expected to take a year,
[20][21] but was delayed.
[22] Michael Ignatieff, then-leader of the
Liberal Party said in 2011 that he would agree to fund the Quebec corridor and described it as a means to unite the country, similar to early railway projects in Canada.
[23] His
NDP counterpart,
Jack Layton, had also pledged to fund the route.
[24] ]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Canada
Which morphed into this: (and the subtext is the change in Fed position)
Postmedia News | November 15, 2011
[The federal government has ruled out funding for a high-speed rail link in the Windsor-Quebec corridor.
Transport Minister Denis Lebel told the
Windsor Star in an email Tuesday that the project is not on the government’s radar. “In these fiscal circumstances, a new project of this scope is not a priority for our government,” Lebel said.
A study released Tuesday said it would cost between $18.9-billion and $21.3-billion to build high-speed rail service in the Windsor-Quebec corridor, including Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty also suggested Tuesday that it’s a bad time to build a high-speed rail system. McGuinty said the Ontario government is already investing about $35-billion over the next three years in transportation projects.
Until recently, McGuinty was an unabashed proponent, calling the rail link a “game-changer” and boasting, in 2010, that “when we build this line here,” it would connect “16-million Canadians together, strengthening our regional economy, better protecting our regional environment.
[...]
On Tuesday he said “the world has changed, and at this point in time I think the responsible thing would be to sit down with (Quebec) Premier (Jean) Charest and Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper, and given our fiscal context, given that we’ve entered into a period of slower growth, given our commitment already to invest some $35-billion in capital over the course of the next three years, I think it’s time for us to pause and reflect on the merits of starting that kind of a project at this point in time.”][...]
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/dalton-mcguinty-cools-on-high-speed-rail-link-with-quebec
Obviously, things have changed at the Federal level, and it's time to revisit discussion with Quebec on this. Would it be problematic? lol...*inevitably*...but at the end of the day, it might suit both Que and Ont far better than to have to deal with this indirectly via the Hill. Electrification makes *much more sense* when both Metrolinx and AMT (the latter, just one line, but the advantage for the main corridor is obvious) share synergy. I like the private sector idea of RoW ownership a lot. (Edit: I'd suggest Metrolinx and AMT enter into an agreement to run a "joint" operation, a la Toronto Terminal Railways, common in the railway world, and private investors own the RoW)
But here's the $64B question: Why aren't private investors approaching the Feds and Provs with this idea?
There may eventually be some investors left over from that startup with capital available and the right outlook as a result having considered investing in the Florida line.
I think this is absolutely key! Perhaps it's Morneau on behalf of Transport that should be soliciting interest! Harper did this for Keystone. (no comment on his methods, the point is that it's perfectly acceptable and done)(Canada's railroads were built this way!)
I'll post a section on Brightline following:
