VIA Rail

[smallspy]

Interesting news about the performance of Chargers and their trainsets in cold weather: https://www.railwayage.com/news/severe-winter-weather-cancels-empire-builder/

In fairness, there is not much that is going to operate properly at -25C or lower.

Just ask the freight railways. Despite 150 years of progress, they still continue to have problems with the cold. Physics is a cruel mistress.

Dan

 

[kEiThZ]

My suspicion is that the Liberals have painted themselves into a corner where their dream-like vision of HxR has morphed into something so grandiose that when the bids come in, they will get sticker shock and drop the whole idea, in the process abdicating any sense of accountability to build the country in a fact-based way ie proper infrastructure to meet demonstrable needs and agendas.

My bet is other way. They are all talk. Their RFP won't actually reward much beyond the bare minimum. The bids are going to come in and it won't be fancy 300 kph HSR. It will be a re-roled Siemens fleet on a dedicated corridor that gets to Montreal in 4 hrs for $20B. Alghabra can "dare" industry to provide 300 kph bullet trains all he wants. If he isn't willing to actually pay enough to make the business case work, it won't happen.

I think its worth remembering that Ford (and Legault for that matter - and maybe even Smith in AB?!) are spending a lot of money on transit.

What makes you think the federal CPC, led by Pierre Poilievre of all people, thinks anything like the PCPO led by Doug Ford? If PP can run against "Liberal waste" and portray this project as such, why would be not do it?

 

[lenaitch]

In fairness, there is not much that is going to operate properly at -25C or lower.

Just ask the freight railways. Despite 150 years of progress, they still continue to have problems with the cold. Physics is a cruel mistress.

Dan

Yup. When a freight dies in the middle of the bush because of prime mover or brake air problems, it doesn't make the news.

 

[rbt]

My bet is other way. They are all talk. Their RFP won't actually reward much beyond the bare minimum. The bids are going to come in and it won't be fancy 300 kph HSR. It will be a re-roled Siemens fleet on a dedicated corridor that gets to Montreal in 4 hrs for $20B. Alghabra can "dare" industry to provide 300 kph bullet trains all he wants. If he isn't willing to actually pay enough to make the business case work, it won't happen.

Largely agreed with the caveat that faster trains are cheaper to operate (fewer man-hours), so if there is a 50km chunk of existing corridor where they can run 300kph without doing anything more than building track to that tolerance, then they'll probably do that.

The price increase of a 300kph vs 200kph locomotive is offset by reduced man-hours.

 

[Frank_Lee]

My bet is other way. They are all talk. Their RFP won't actually reward much beyond the bare minimum. The bids are going to come in and it won't be fancy 300 kph HSR. It will be a re-roled Siemens fleet on a dedicated corridor that gets to Montreal in 4 hrs for $20B. Alghabra can "dare" industry to provide 300 kph bullet trains all he wants. If he isn't willing to actually pay enough to make the business case work, it won't happen.



What makes you think the federal CPC, led by Pierre Poilievre of all people, thinks anything like the PCPO led by Doug Ford? If PP can run against "Liberal waste" and portray this project as such, why would be not do it?

Also, a hefty part of the federal conservative brand is built on western enmity towards the east, which is obviously not part of Legault or Ford's appeal.

 

[kEiThZ]

There's a point of diminishing returns. The difference between 300 kph and 200 kph for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal (590 km) is 1 hr. Are the man-hours saved going to justify the billions in capital that jump would cost? And what's the opportunity cost of that spending? For example, could the $5B to upgrade TOM from 200kph to 300 kph extend HFR to Kitchener and London?

 

[innsertnamehere]

There's a point of diminishing returns. The difference between 300 kph and 200 kph for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal (590 km) is 1 hr. Are the man-hours saved going to justify the billions in capital that jump would cost? And what's the opportunity cost of that spending? For example, could the $5B to upgrade TOM from 200kph to 300 kph extend HFR to Kitchener and London?

the calculus isn't going to be on that sort of scale.

The calculus will instead be "We can spend $150 million to upgrade this 40km part of the corridor which will cut travel times by 6 minutes and reduce labour and train maitenence costs by 2% - is it worth the additional investment?"

I don't think anyone is claiming they are expecting a full HSR line from Toronto to Montreal, but rather a sort of "HSR lite" line with small segments of HSR operations where upgrading it to such has minimal additional cost implications.

 

[crs1026]

I don't think anyone is claiming they are expecting a full HSR line from Toronto to Montreal, but rather a sort of "HSR lite" line with small segments of HSR operations where upgrading it to such has minimal additional cost implications.

I would expect the design would be more pragmatic than that.

More like, let’s design the curves and acquire the land so that we can upgrade to 300 some day…. but let’s not build even an inch of 300 ready track today because 300-capable equipment is a waste today and we can run 200 with what we have and only take a few extra minutes.

Let the next government make that step. What we get for 200 will get us almost as many votes.

- Paul

 

[Bordercollie]

I would expect the design would be more pragmatic than that.

More like, let’s design the curves and acquire the land so that we can upgrade to 300 some day…. but let’s not build even an inch of 300 ready track today because 300-capable equipment is a waste today and we can run 200 with what we have and only take a few extra minutes.

Let the next government make that step. What we get for 200 will get us almost as many votes.

- Paul

It's not quite clear what Prime Minister Pierre would look like. But he's not the type to spend money on big flashy projects. Infrastructure spending is more of a liberal thing more than a concervative one.

I would say that would position themselves as "fiscally responsible concervatives". But if the builders of the project are types to vote and contribute to the concervative campaign then that's another story. But I doubt it.

 

[innsertnamehere]

It's not quite clear what Prime Minister Pierre would look like. But he's not the type to spend money on big flashy projects. Infrastructure spending is more of a liberal thing more than a concervative one.

I would say that would position themselves as "fiscally responsible concervatives". But if the builders of the project are types to vote and contribute to the concervative campaign then that's another story. But I doubt it.

Infrastructure is actually typically quite popular with conservatives as it's one of the few areas where governments are seen as where they "should" spend money.

Ford's infrastructure spending has far outstripped that of the previous provincial Liberal government, for example.

The problem is that road infrastructure is often more popular in conservative governments given their rural bases - things like intercity public transit aren't a priority.

Regardless, if VIA HFR has a signed contract when a hypothetical conservative government forms power, I don't see them cancelling it. HFR isn't actively unpopular, so I don't see the political motive for it.

 

[Bordercollie]

Infrastructure is actually typically quite popular with conservatives as it's one of the few areas where governments are seen as where they "should" spend money.

Ford's infrastructure spending has far outstripped that of the previous provincial Liberal government, for example.

Maybe but that could be because a lot of proposals fell through.

And we are building some projects that were previously cancelled (Eglinton)

 

[crs1026]

Regardless, if VIA HFR has a signed contract when a hypothetical conservative government forms power, I don't see them cancelling it. HFR isn't actively unpopular, so I don't see the political motive for it.

Hoping this isn't behind a paywall - from today's Globe

Ottawa is finally on board with plan to modernize passenger rail in Canada​

This Globe writer exemplifies the shift in attitudes over the past decade even on the right - he's usually fairly conservative (and LPC-contrarian) in his views. The thing that struck me was that he writes of "subsidies" to transportation in a much more detached and accepting manner than many in the past - conservatives (and many Liberals, actually) traditionally described passenger rail as "money losing" and would only show support for investment in rail if it were "profitable" (which everyone across all viewpoints agreed it would never be).

I found it interesting that this writer could muse that even though the price tag might be high and the project risky, the current situation is unacceptable and the worse choice might be to not move forward. That's a far more tolerant attitude than before.... which makes me hope that we may be at the tipping point where (despite the admitted risks and price) a HFR project would not be generally disparaged by either party as a boondoggle.

- Paul.

 

[dullturtle06]

It's not quite clear what Prime Minister Pierre would look like. But he's not the type to spend money on big flashy projects. Infrastructure spending is more of a liberal thing more than a concervative one.

I would say that would position themselves as "fiscally responsible concervatives". But if the builders of the project are types to vote and contribute to the concervative campaign then that's another story. But I doubt it.

Well social spending is a liberal thing. The liberals haven't done any national infrastructure projects. So far it has been provical concervative governments and bc liberals that spend money on building canada.

 

[kEiThZ]

I don't think anyone is claiming they are expecting a full HSR line from Toronto to Montreal,

Have a look at what HSR bulls like Reece Martin are saying. They are taking the minister's comment about 300 kph trains at face value and think we're going to have Shinkansens between Toronto and Montreal. Come on some of the transitnerd Discords, you'll see this kind of bullishness.

The calculus will instead be "We can spend $150 million to upgrade this 40km part of the corridor which will cut travel times by 6 minutes and reduce labour and train maitenence costs by 2% - is it worth the additional investment?"

Sure. But getting higher overall speeds involves several decisions like that and the numbers add up very fast.

Most notably the question will be what to do about the 170km Peterborough to Perth stretch. This is biggest segment where fast running could be possible. And the choice will be something more like, "Spend $15M/km for 200 kph reusing substantial portions of the corridor, or spend $40M/km on an entirely new corridor to enable 300 kph running and save 17 mins."

 

[Cobra]

I'd say if the government was truly serious about reaching its gas emissions targets and lower on reliance on fossil fuels, HSR would be the way to go as you could drastically reduced the flights within that corridor. I assume that a significant amount of pollution comes from those planes.

But hey, they aren't serious and it's all about being all talk with this government.