kEiThZ
Superstar
Link? All I can find is the Hyperloop proposals.
That's insane if they think there's a business case for HSR between two metros of 1.3 million that are 300 km apart (centre to centre) in Alberta.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Link? All I can find is the Hyperloop proposals.
That's insane if they think there's a business case for HSR between two metros of 1.3 million that are 300 km apart (centre to centre) in Alberta.
Darwinkgo
Active Member
Still private alas. Demand is significant because Calgary and Edmonton aren't near anywhere else. So in Ontario where demand from Toronto is split between Niagara, Detroit, Buffalo, London, Waterloo, Guelph, Sarnia and Windsor, for Calgary, it is really just Edmonton.
Here is committee testimony on it:
Attachments
micheal_can
Senior Member
What is the existing daily traffic on the existing freight lines between Calgary and Edmonton?
HSR or HFR, pick one.
Darwinkgo
Active Member
Between 15-20 trains on single track CPR, and about the same on the much less direct single track CN route. Neither have capacity for speed or frequency for passenger rail. VIA ran on CPR for years, but reliability was poor, speed wasn't even competitive with the bus and the route directly parrallelled the highway and the Greyhound route, so they switched to CN to try to serve non-served towns but reliability kept getting worse, then the route was cancelled.
HS&FR
kEiThZ
Superstar
This was in 2013. Is it still relevant today? I thought this was all fed into the various studies the Government of Alberta did.
I'll be happy if something like this can happen and I've long maintained that they probably have a case as good as Toronto-Kitchener-London or Ottawa-Montreal or Montreal-Quebec City. But what has me skeptical is that Calgary-Edmonton is longer than all of these making the costs higher and the business cases tighter, even if there is higher traffic.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Would doubling the CP track be enough to fit the frequency in?
There are HSR routes that aren't also frequent?
Darwinkgo
Active Member
The land is much better for railroad building tbh (no blasting, gravel available everywhere), and with property ownership and roads being on a grid, you don't need a lot of it even with a brand new corridor. Still relevant, while wounded Calgary and Edmonton still have higher average incomes than all other potential corridors, plus the population is still growing.
Darwinkgo
Active Member
Yes, with a full rebuild, and lots of high speed crossovers, and some triple sections. CPR figures they can do mixed operations with passenger service up to 200 kph. Costs are around 65% of greenfield.
Various studies have had different model frequencies - usually with service plans starting at 10 or 11 trains in each direction over 16 hours.
kEiThZ
Superstar
That ain't exactly "high frequency". This is what VIA does today on the Corridor. And HFR is supposed to bump that up to 15 departures in each direction.
Darwinkgo
Active Member
The infrastructure or equipment won't be the constraint - just operational costs. The lost frequencies just aren't projected to have demand. Unless they really discounted 11 am-1 pm frequencies for example.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
You'd be surprised (I'm quoting from the Winter 2019/20 schedule, i.e. pre-CoVid):
| HSR route | Segment | Frequencies (per day and direction) |
|---|---|---|
| Barcelona-Perpignan(-Montpellier) | Barcelona-Perpignan (177 km, double-tracked) | 4 (Summer: 7) |
| Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona | Zaragoza-Huesca branch (80 km, single-tracked) | 1-2 (1xdaily + 1xFrSu) |
| Köln-Frankfurt | Wiesbaden branch (13 km, double-tracked) | 2 (no weekend service) |
Table 13
Table 650a
Table 910
Table 650a
Table 910
kEiThZ
Superstar
This feels like one of "technically correct...." answers. All those examples are branches or stops. That's very different from discussing frequency on the main line itself (which is what I would think Calgary-Edmonton would be).
It's a bit strange to plan a Calgary-Edmonton HSR line at anything less than hourly. How would they expect to compete with WestJet and AC?
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Agreed for Huesca and Wiesbaden, but not for Barcelona-Perpignan, which is a HSR line by itself (only slightly shorter than Montreal-Ottawa or Toronto-London) and used by trains originating in either Madrid or Barcelona and terminating at either Paris, Lyon, Marseilles or Toulouse.
I couldn’t agree more that any HSR line which doesn’t support at least hourly service is a pure commercial failure and it’s not a coincidence that such a low-frequency HSR line exists in Spain of all countries (given what a miserable economic failure HSR in Spain is), but I simply wanted to highlight the existence of HSR lines which are anything but high-frequency...
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Darwinkgo
Active Member
Commercial failure versus projected to perhaps make money? Like seriously. It doesn’t fit what you conceptualizer to be attributes of a successful project. If people want a 11 am frequency then it will be provided. Nothing stopping them.
Even before the pandemic flights between Calgary and Edmonton weren’t hourly (they were up to every 30 mins for commuting hour flights). Mostly since dash 8s got larger. And they can use those planes to fly captive and low frequency routes at suboptimal times times.
And yeah, a 8-12 car train set provides a lot more capacity than a Q400 or 736.
Even before the pandemic flights between Calgary and Edmonton weren’t hourly (they were up to every 30 mins for commuting hour flights). Mostly since dash 8s got larger. And they can use those planes to fly captive and low frequency routes at suboptimal times times.
And yeah, a 8-12 car train set provides a lot more capacity than a Q400 or 736.
roger1818
Senior Member
Both Toronto-Kitchener-London and Ottawa-Montreal are about 200km, which is about the minimum distance that HSR is practical, and at that, the cost/benefit doesn't work as well as it does for a longer route. Just compare the proposed travel times for Ottawa-Montreal with HFR and the 2 EcoTrain speeds:
HFR: 1:33
F200+: 1:11
E300+: 0:57
So for the huge premium in price, you are only saving 26 minutes, which is less than 30%. On a longer route you end up travelling at your top speed for a higher percentage of the trip, so the relative time savings will be higher. I am not saying HSR won't work on these shorter routes, just that they are on the very short end of the spectrum.