Air is not infinite, flights adhere to corridors and levels, with options for delaying takeoff and/or holding in the air to match landing capacity. You understate the concern that one airline might have about its flight getting delayed at gate, while its competitor’s same-timed flight gets sent on its way.
While airlines may grumble, (and work from different terminals) nobody suggests total separation of all their operations or support functions - or airspace. And their system of slot allocation is structured to not allow any one airline to achieve an unjust advantage.
The freight railways paint this as some cruel unworkable intrusion that abuses their shareholders. Their protests are overstated by miles.
That’s the answer I was expecting: local customers, small service yards, and a few key classification points. Nothing that can't coexist with HFR. If CN swapped blocks in Smiths Falls instead of Belleville, is this rocket science?
Belleville is an interesting case study. Independent of HFR, it makes a lot of sense to divert CP along the CN alignment through town. CN would bristle, or look for a windfall. There would be a capital cost, and it would rightfully fall in part to the taxpayer. But it would be money well spent to that town’s growth and quality of life.
Taken nationally, a dozen or more diversion proposals exist, some more practical than others, often involving railways sharing each others' corridors (Winnipeg, London, Regina, Saskatoon, North Toronto......) The railways have a valid concern about how much of their expertise and managerial focus can be diverted towards such projects when their core job is to run a railway as it is. This is not a good reason to resist all of them, however. It's a question of how much can be handled at a time, and how much public money is available, and how much each railway ought to contribute... and not allowing the railways' desire to compete with each other to outweigh the public benefit of making better joint use of their corridors.
As they do now, located at different ends of the country. Plus Metrolinx, AMT, and others. One hears stories about how the interface may not be effective at the moment, but that does not mean they are being managed at their full performance potential.
I continue to ask, if CN and VIA have agreements that will enable HFR east of Coteau, what stands in the way of reaching solutions that could be applied west of there, given assurance that VIA will absorb capital investment?
Almost all grade separations are taxpayer-funded.
What triggers my periodic urge to rehash things I know we have debated before - is some posters' suggestion on the one hand that the Havelock route is the best candidate for being cheaply and easily upgraded to HSR.... yet when other routes are suggested, the response is that the terrain is too difficult, land costs are too high, etc. This argument has to cut both ways.
I accept that the Havelock line can be upgraded to the level promised by VIA for the price they have estimated.... but the total cost of that, and then raising it to HSR later, will be in the same ballpark as building a new line anywhere else.
I'm not aware (but eager to be corrected) that the HFR route through Havelock has been favoured in studies as the preferred HSR route. It's very possible that the Havelock segment of the HFR route will cease to be used should HSR emerge (unlike east of Smiths Falls, certainly).
So the question is, can the same money achieve the same performance as HFR Phase I if invested in a different route west of Smiths Falls, in a way that retains its value through into HSR.
VIA's 2008 capital plan offered an end service pattern not that far below HFR's proposal. It failed, not because it was a bad plan but because the money allocated was spent badly. The overage was only part of a $400M envelope - enough of an embarassment that the government quite reasonably refused to keep spending at the time. However, if there is more commitment (and maybe legal clout) to manage differently.... the HFR expenditure (easily $1B or more for the Havelock segment) would close the gap on the 2008 service plan - and more. This would approach VIA's desire for Toronto-Ottawa, with a better emphasis on the HFR-era Toronto-Montreal service.
Sustained or improved use of the CN line by VIA might force a displacement of some CN through freight, but it need not remove it entirely. I can't imagine that the amount shifted would choke the CP line, especially if it received some investment also. Many double track railroads in North America commonly accommodate 60-80 trains a day. A single track line with good passing capability (which is exactly how the Winchester Sub is configured) has been said to be capable of 70% of that capacity. Do we expect the combined CN-CP throughput between Toronto and Montreal to reach even 42 freight trains a day within 25 years?
Any grade separation along the CN and CP lines (which will remain under every scenario) is money well spent. Any money spent on grade separation on the Havelock line has long term value only if HSR goes there. Are we really ready to nail that down?
@Darwinkgo suggests that pressure for grade separation will follow freight volume, but I would expect it would follow the combination of population and HFR frequency given there will be more passenger trains out there than freight.
I am pessimistic that HSR will be achieved, or the Havelock line upgraded, within 30-40 years. That's a long time to live with the deficiencies of that routing.
I can accept VIA's need to present the most positive case for HFR, and I realise that in political space it's often habit to make things sound like more of a silver bullet than they are. In real life, every proposal will have pro's and con's.
The Havelock line may be all that's affordable, and all that's sellable, but....it has a definite limit on its upper end. When people ask, "is this the best plan", I can answer "it's the only plan that's workable for the money and appetite available".... but one should not undersell the tradeoff's being made. Nor should one undersell what could be achieved if a shift to coproduction were in the picture.
At worst case, I may be suggesting an expense of a further $1-2B, but the value obtained would be worth it.
- Paul
