LemonCondo
Active Member
If only they just used this hydro corridor
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
MisterF
Senior Member
Hydro corridors don't necessarily make good rail corridors, especially when they go over the Canadian Shield. They go over extremely rough and difficult terrain that would present major challenges for a rail line. Cliffs, frequent water crossings, etc.
crs1026
Senior Member
The quandry is whether to build at lowest cost and fastest implementation, or take more time and build to higher performance at greater expense and time to completion.
Personally I'm much more interested in capturing modal share from the highways than from air travel. That does not require air-competitive speeds, and can enable a much greater emphasis on having regional trains in the mix. One can reduce GTA highway congestion by removing the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal autos, or by removing an equal number of Toronto to Oshawa/Newcastle/Port Hope/Cobourg/Belleville/Kingston drivers. Or some of each. Adding road capacity is the ultimate high-cost wrong-direction strategy that we most need to prevent.
The airport authorities will tell us when it's time to build a high-end virtual air service between T-O-M that has a viable business case to compete with air on time and price (and freeing up runway/gate slots for other things). That may imply a new threshold for routing and speed (and therefore cost to build) that is beyond the HFR envelope. Avoiding the need for new incremental investment in air is a priority, and is more important than winning away existing air passenger ridership - for now. So attracting air travellers need not exceed the rate of growth in that sector, until the airports need the gates.
But we've circled through all this before. I wish Ottawa would get shovels in the ground so that we have something to make use of, instead of debating the different types of services that we don't have.
- Paul
Personally I'm much more interested in capturing modal share from the highways than from air travel. That does not require air-competitive speeds, and can enable a much greater emphasis on having regional trains in the mix. One can reduce GTA highway congestion by removing the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal autos, or by removing an equal number of Toronto to Oshawa/Newcastle/Port Hope/Cobourg/Belleville/Kingston drivers. Or some of each. Adding road capacity is the ultimate high-cost wrong-direction strategy that we most need to prevent.
The airport authorities will tell us when it's time to build a high-end virtual air service between T-O-M that has a viable business case to compete with air on time and price (and freeing up runway/gate slots for other things). That may imply a new threshold for routing and speed (and therefore cost to build) that is beyond the HFR envelope. Avoiding the need for new incremental investment in air is a priority, and is more important than winning away existing air passenger ridership - for now. So attracting air travellers need not exceed the rate of growth in that sector, until the airports need the gates.
But we've circled through all this before. I wish Ottawa would get shovels in the ground so that we have something to make use of, instead of debating the different types of services that we don't have.
- Paul
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Urban Sky
Senior Member
Historical awareness is beneficial if it goes beyond “trains used to take less than 4 hours between Toronto and Montreal”, but becomes a liability when it omits the parts where sub-4h travel times were only achieved by a single daily token Express train during one single month in 1967 and again for two periods in the 1990s and 2000s. Which was exactly what I already explained to you 3 years ago:
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The travel times implied by the RFEOI are so aggressive that they won’t be possible without substantial realignments and large stretches of grade separations (580 km divided by 4h13 equals an average speed of 138 km/h or 78% of 177 km/h, i.e. the legal barrier of sound for operating with at-grade crossings. Either ambitions will have to be scaled down or the scope will creep up drastically and escalate capital costs towards HSR territory.
Just two questions to anyone familiar with rail transit in Toronto:
1) At how many stations do Stouffville trains currently stop between the intersection of Uxbridge (ML) and Belleville (CP) Subdivisions and Union Station?
2) At which GO station will three different rail transit lines meet by the end of this year?
lenaitch
Senior Member
Utility corridors often look a lot better from above. They are able to handle changes in vertical elevation better than any transportation corridor could, can often traverse water and wetlands with a few piles (or none at all if they simply choose to span it via greater elevation) and can cross private property, like farmland, by using easements and still leave the majority of the land in production.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
I thought that hydro corridor might work well for the Hyperloop if, you know, that were an actual thing.
rbt
Senior Member
Hyperloops, for people rather than cargo, will need to be extraordinarily straight (10km curve radius at the minimum > 500km/h). Hydro corridors often have very tight turns both horizontal and vertical. Also, falling electrical lines on a conductive metal tube may cause issues.
In fact, they should be call Hyper-lines because the curve for a loop is large enough nobody will ever build one in an actual loop; they'll build 2 adjacent lines instead with some non-trivial mechanism for turning cars around.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
On our recent topic of train pricing, Wendover Productions has done a great video on the rise of discount trains in Europe. It's worth watching the whole video to understand the impact of competition and lower fares.
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nfitz
Superstar
I know the schedule - I very regularly used the train during the 1980s (when 4.5 hours was achievable) and the 1990s, and am well aware that less than 4 hours was achieved relatively recently for the best part of two decades around the turn of the century. Travelling nowadays seems like a step back in many ways.
What can be done in the past can be done again, with relatively cheap regulatory changes. If they can run one train under 4 hours a day, they can run 10 under 4 hours with proper regulation of CN and relatively less significant infrastructure improvement, such as longer sidings, and stretches of third track.
I also mentioned 3 years ago, that it seems unlikely that they can achieve under 4 hours with the HFR route - let alone improve on it - and playing with GO trains all the way from Toronto to Agincourt is only going to make things worse.
If they have the project well defined, for achieving, say, a 4-hour run time from Toronto to Montreal, then scope creep shouldn't be too significant. I think "ambitions scaled down" is going to be the keywords for this project. And we've already seen this with the time-losing alignment change in Toronto - where perhaps the biggest issue isn't the slightly longer route - but being stuck behind GO trains - particularly from St. Clair to Sheppard where there's only going to be two tracks. In Montreal, the decision not to have VIA use the tunnel will result in Montreal to Quebec City trains backtracking all the way to Lachine (or have they found a way to get onto the Adirondack subdivision - which would still take them through CSL.
There's been 3 meeting there at Kennedy for years. The Line 5 opening has though been delayed until next year; it's not clear whether that happens before of after the permanent closure of Line 3 in fall 2023. Line 7 will also likely terminate there, but that could easily be mid 2030s or later (if ever) the way the city is dragging their feet.
So yes, a VIA stop at Kennedy is in some-ways a no-brainer - at least from a transit perspective. BUT, it's not really comparable to suburban stops like Oshawa, Oakville, and Dorval - which primarily cater to automobiles and not transit.
Agincourt is the first location the line intersects a major highway - though it's ugly traffic around there already; but there'd be a subway station there. I'm not sure anything else makes sense until Locust Hill station.
I'm not sure there's any really great car-accessible locations. So no doubt it would be Kennedy if HFR or a Peterborough service is done.
LemonCondo
Active Member
We can't build elevated HSR like a real country!
It is possible to make the route VIA has selected work, it's just going to take a huge amount of work to make it world class. (i.e., it's not happening)
Mythbusting VIA’s HFR travel time claims
ERRATUM: Some of the assumptions made in the below article have been subsequently proven to be poor. The speed of trains through curves can actually be somewhat faster than I assumed. This results …
ontariotrafficman.wordpress.com
nfitz
Superstar
Wow - I hadn't seen that. I suggested year ago that someone had sold VIA a dud plan. But the numbers in there make it very clear that it's just not possible with 100+ km of new alignment.It is possible to make the route VIA has selected work, it's just going to take a huge amount of work to make it world class. (i.e., it's not happening)
Mythbusting VIA’s HFR travel time claims
ERRATUM: Some of the assumptions made in the below article have been subsequently proven to be poor. The speed of trains through curves can actually be somewhat faster than I assumed. This results …
So who is pushing HFR (F must stand for Farce)? Follow the money is the normal way to figure these things out. Which consultant is making the $ off this? Though consultants will make money off any route, and could just as well be pushing VIA Fast. Still - something seems very amiss. It seems like the fiscally disastrous planning for the Metro extension to Laval all over again.
LemonCondo
Active Member
Purely political. Oh, I'm sure the consultants would love to plan out a proper route, and I would gladly let them. It's our politicians who can't commit to a real high speed line.
Frank_Lee
New Member
Transportation consultants in North America have a pretty poor reputation as far as doing things cost efficiently and fast (see California HSR, for example). They have an interest in dragging out projects and endless redesigns, not prompt execution.
LemonCondo
Active Member
There is a pretty big difference between California HSR and Via HFR. Even if the consultants are making a muck of it, at least the project itself is world class. I would gladly swap!
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Have you ever bid on a multi billion dollar project? A project of this scale is almost impossible to accurately price out.
Unless you do what Metrolinx did and price it with no cost overruns. At that point you have established a ceiling of some sort but at the same time the approval is going to be almost impossible.
How do you account for covid and the highest inflation in history not to mention supply chain issues all at the same time?