VIA Rail

[roger1818]

Nobody really disagrees with him saying those cities have to be served. It's the idea that HSR can't be done because those cities have to be served that is the problem. I think he's just being dishonest about not wanting to spend the money and trying to make it look like a technical feasibility or efficiency issue.

But he isn't saying "that HSR can't be done because those cities have to be served." He is saying he wants to make sure those cities don't get sacrificed under the guise of giving us HSR. As others have said, HSR typically builds bypasses around small cities like those, so that the trains don't need to slow down (you typically can't have a train run at 300km/h through the heart of a city if it isn't stopping at the station).

 

[Northern Light]

More than 4? And what would the utility of those tracks be, if they only go as far as Pape?

Previous discussions of VIA HSR involved a high level concept of one dedicated VIA track in the LSE corridor, from Union to Durham Junction, with a dedicated corridor paralleling the GO Sun/CN Kingston thereafter.

There was also a passing/meet track envisioned at Guildwood as I recall.

I don't know if the full concept was ever public, that was ages ago......

 

[kEiThZ]

But he isn't saying "that HSR can't be done because those cities have to be served." He is saying he wants to make sure those cities don't get sacrificed under the guise of giving us HSR. As others have said, HSR typically builds bypasses around small cities like those, so that the trains don't need to slow down (you typically can't have a train run at 300km/h through the heart of a city if it isn't stopping at the station).

HSRs don't normally bypass cities of several hundred thousand. I would expect the Minister of Transport to know that. This sounds like a made up excuse from him.

 

[SashaLemon]

HSRs don't normally bypass cities of several hundred thousand. I would expect the Minister of Transport to know that. This sounds like a made up excuse from him.

Yep. Loads of small towns in Europe are on HSR lines and have stations. They just don't stop every train. However cities as big as Peterborough or Trois-Rivières would for sure be all-stops. I still don't see what the actual issue here is.

 

[robmausser]

I prefer reading what people say, not other people's interpretation of their words. Unfortunately my French isn't very good, so I had to use Google Trnaslate, and here is its translation of his words:


TBH, I don't disagree with what he is actually saying. If the choice is have HSR or serve communities like "Laval, Trois-Rivières. or Peterborough" then I would say lets do HFR. If we can do both then great. One thing a lot of HSR zealotsadvocates here in North America fail to realize is that in most countries with HSR, it supplements frequent, intercity service, not replace it. Building a fast, frequent and reliable intercity service is a good stepping stone to HSR and leapfrogging over it won't serve us well.

If only there was a way to have some trains stop at these places, and some trains continue express. Oh well, if only such a thing were possible....

 

[roger1818]

HSRs don't normally bypass cities of several hundred thousand. I would expect the Minister of Transport to know that. This sounds like a made up excuse from him.

That's good for Laval, but Peterborough has a population of 85,000 and Trois-Rivières has a population of 140,000.

We haven't seen what the consortiums are proposing, but one or more may very well be proposing bypassing all three for their HSR options to speed up the trip and artificially meet certain travel time targets.

 

[roger1818]

If only there was a way to have some trains stop at these places, and some trains continue express. Oh well, if only such a thing were possible....

As I said in a later post:

(you typically can't have a train run at 300km/h through the heart of a city if it isn't stopping at the station).

 

[robmausser]

As I said in a later post:

There is 0% chance that we are getting 300 km/h trains in Canada before youre dead. Dont think about it.

These will be 200 km/h max trains, and that will only be in key sections. They will be regular trains that can hit the 125mph limit of regular passenger rail. Not HSR.

 

[innsertnamehere]

There is 0% chance that we are getting 300 km/h trains in Canada before youre dead. Dont think about it.

These will be 200 km/h max trains, and that will only be in key sections. They will be regular trains that can hit the 125mph limit of regular passenger rail. Not HSR.

You are very confident on that given that the ministry is actively saying that they are open to proposals for HSR components.

Will it happen? Who knows. I definitely wouldn't put it at a 0% chance though.

Perhaps a 0% chance of a California HSR or HS2 type high speed rail project... but I wouldn't be surprised if we see trains doing 300km/h on some segments.

 

[Northern Light]

There is 0% chance that we are getting 300 km/h trains in Canada before youre dead. Dont think about it.

These will be 200 km/h max trains, and that will only be in key sections. They will be regular trains that can hit the 125mph limit of regular passenger rail. Not HSR.

I'm going to side with @innsertnamehere on this, for a couple of reasons.

1) The gov't have been fairly clear that they intend to electrify any new corridor. They could hit 200km/ph with the highest performing Diesel locos, one key advantage of going electric is the added speed capability. The choice to electrify most/all of the corridor is much more significant that the difference in rolling stock costs.

2) The U.S. north-east corridor which is probably the most likely parallel to our would-be project, has new rollingstock on order with a top (as operated) speed of 257km/ph

* noting Innsert's comment below, I want to clarify this as the speed at which the trains will be permitted to operate)

 

[innsertnamehere]

I'm going to side with @innsertnamehere on this, for a couple of reasons.

1) The gov't have been fairly clear that they intend to electrify any new corridor. They could hit 200km/ph with the highest performing Diesel locos, one key advantage of going electric is the added speed capability. The choice to electrify most/all of the corridor is much more significant that the difference in rolling stock costs.

2) The U.S. north-east corridor which is probably the most likely parallel to our would-be project, has new rollingstock on order with a top speed of 257km/ph

The Avelia Liberty trains actually have a tilting top speed of 300km/h - the Northeast corridor is only capable of supporting 257km/h however.

Given HFR is going to involve basically a new corridor, I could definitely see a few stretches with higher speeds. Especially since it would win the Liberals lots of political points to be able to brand the project as a "high speed rail line", even if only 50-100km of the 800+km line is operating at that speed.

 

[roger1818]

There is 0% chance that we are getting 300 km/h trains in Canada before youre dead. Dont think about it.

These will be 200 km/h max trains, and that will only be in key sections. They will be regular trains that can hit the 125mph limit of regular passenger rail. Not HSR.

You are missing the point. People are freaking out because the new Minister of Transport said that given the choice of HSR or local service to "Laval, Trois-Rivières. or Peterborough" he would pick the local service. You then made a sarcastic comment that we could have both HSR and local service. Now you are saying we won't get HSR in our lifetime.

 

[nfitz]

That's good for Laval, but Peterborough has a population of 85,000 and Trois-Rivières has a population of 140,000.

Laval is a suburb of Montreal. If the lines goes through Laval, I'm sure there'll be a stop. But an HSR from Montreal to Toronto can't hit both Laval (population 440,000) and Longueuil (population 415,000).

 

[nfitz]

Previous discussions of VIA HSR involved a high level concept of one dedicated VIA track in the LSE corridor, from Union to Durham Junction, with a dedicated corridor paralleling the GO Sun/CN Kingston thereafter.

There was also a passing/meet track envisioned at Guildwood as I recall.

I don't know if the full concept was ever public, that was ages ago......

It was. I thought they'd gone as far as a preliminary design, with a report from CANAC to VIA - but I may be wrong - it was a long time ago. Not on the Internet I'd think, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't either in the CN Library in Montreal, or the Transport Canada library in Ottawa. The 1980s VIA reports should mention something though.

I'd assume later studies last century would simply have followed on from that.

 

[crs1026]

Peterborough is interesting because both HFR and HSR might require a bypass, partly because the current CP route is intrusive to the city center in the wrong ways, and partly because a bypass to the south may be a more constructable route over the Trent waterway.

To grind a bit of an axe, any routing that runs through Peterborough IS a bypass around the major population centres east of the GTA - and any real serious desire to provide local service to these would not choose that route at all.

- Paul