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VIA Rail

As of 10:16 am, I still only see this:
View attachment 384324
Nothing on CPAC channel either (though one might argue the WHO update on Ukraine is more important).

I guess VIA Rail is late :)

Press release:
Ah - it says the announcement by the minister already happened ... I guess something went wrong ... (edit at 10:30).

Ah, it's going now ... gosh, the sound level is very low. (edit at 10:31).
 
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It’s a legitimate step in the (ponderous) procurement process, but it’s a larger statement about how risk-averse government can be with things they don’t really know how to get on with. Push it into a process and hope that it stays on the rails somehow, and leave the hard parts for a later government to juggle.
If you think about it, neither VIA not anyone in Ottawa has actually put together this kind of construction project. Even if the decision to proceed is made, the next phase is all about what could go wrong. I bet the transport ministry people are scared stiff.
The good news is, HFR’s opening ceremony will include a fly-over by several of the RCAF’s new fighter planes.

- Paul.
 
The transport minister was asked if the tunnel would be used to take trains to the north shore and he said no, they would go around. Otherwise, very little information.
 
Press release:


And a website launched:


From the presser:

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Also a link to this web page, which is really just placeholder for a page to be, LOL:


****

Translation of the above, for the common folk.

1) We're not ready to talk yet
2) But we're ready to entertain the idea of talking to you, talk us into it.
3) If we think we might be interested in talking to you, then in 2023 we'll have a process to see if you qualify to be spoken to.
4) Thereafter we'll tell you what we want, one day, at a time in the undetermined future, and you can tell us how much that might cost, depending on what we say, and how long it might take.

VIA HFR taking the proven path of York Region Transit towards a 15-minute Frequent Service Network: One day, we promise, but you won't be alive to see it!
 
The transport minister was asked if the tunnel would be used to take trains to the north shore and he said no, they would go around. Otherwise, very little information.

Excuse my lack of geography but is this Montreal related?
 
I'm not sure why we needed to wait 3/4 of a year to get to this stage. Why couldn't they have just done this last summer after the HFR plan announcement?
 
Seems a bit anti-climactic after 8 years of work. Not even an image for the event.
The transport minister was asked if the tunnel would be used to take trains to the north shore and he said no, they would go around.

She'll be coming around the mountain, she'll be coming around the mountain ...
 
The feds procured both the Champlain and Gordie Howe bridges, which are similar scale multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects.

Yes, and there are multiple Canadian vendors with past experience in building just such structures (albeit smaller, perhaps) under Canadian conditions with Canadian content requirements.

Even writing the spec for HFR is new ground for Canada. There are vendors who build railway lines, off shore. The US lines are progressing but with lots of hard lessons learned. The political risks of a contract that is less than iron clad are apparent - look at Ottawa and Toronto Crosstown LRT’s, for instance.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but for the Ottawa transport bureaucracy, even selecting a vendor and writing a contract is new territory and outside the comfort zone of many.

- Paul
 
They are saying hurry up and tell us you are interested, companies have 2 months to think about whether or not they want to make the investment of time to bid. I'm not sure why they couldn't tighten up the time between the deadline and RFQ... it seems like they could be figuring out what they are looking for earlier. Turning around the RFQ review in a quarter seems normal. An RFP that runs for a year and a half for a project of this scale actually seems reasonable because with a route that long there will be a lot of information to gather to understand all the assumptions being built into the RFP. I'm surprised that there isn't an environmental assessment timeline mentioned because bundling that into the RFP will push timelines for sure and I would think that without a rough design and the start of the environmental assessment work completed the risk left inside the RFP would be much greater.
 
Seems a bit anti-climactic after 8 years of work. Not even an image for the event.


She'll be coming around the mountain, she'll be coming around the mountain ...
Exactly. All the talk about working with the REM team to ensure tunnel access, all the talk about the studies they were doing to prepare this business case, and nothing to show for it that wasn't shown when this whole thing was pitched by VIA many years ago. What is the route? How long will it take?
 

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