VIA Rail

[Urban Sky]

There are three ways in which the Conservatives can score points with this project:

• By proving their fiscal conservatism by scaling down the taxpayer exposure (“liberal excesses”) or shelving the project.
• By proving that they are willing to invest and keep Canada “open for business”.
• By proving that unlike the Liberals, they are actually able to achieve results.

At the point where the polls and political odds are, the Liberals can only score points by provoking the Conservatives into shelving the project and to have them upset all the people who had high hopes in the project.

Given this backdrop, letting the scope creep escalate unhindered makes just as much sense as selecting the consortium which includes the one firm (“totally-not-SNC-Lavalin”) which is not only associated with the biggest scandal of the JT premiership, but also the lead proponent of a LRT project right in front of parliament, which has become the joke of the nation and was apparently awarded based on neither merit nor competency.

Just as Wynne, JT seems to be deliberately steering this project against the wall to make sure that his successor won’t be able to scale the project down to something sensible which would then have that successor’s name attached rather than their own.

I really hope I’m getting proven wrong, but all signals I perceive sound highly alarming to me…

 

[micheal_can]

It were the CPC that got the shipbuilding contract going after the Liberals dragged it along. So, this may be one that the CPC will use to one up the Liberals. The wild card will be whether PP sees it as a way to get even more votes next election, he will promise it. If he kills it, and the NDP or Liberals are looking like they could push the CPC out, they will promise it. So, it all will come down with the politics of the day.

 

[rdaner]

Thanks for the scoop! Are any of the big developers involved?

 

[ericmacm]

Thats the first report. Honestly when Air Canada came out on this bidder I think it was kinda sealed.
Though SNC Lavalin doesnt look good.

I agree, I think Air Canada hopping into the Cadence consortium sealed the deal. CDPQ Infra also has a good track record with the REM. I also share similar reservations about SNC/AtkinsRealis given their performance on both Line 5 Eglinton and the Confederation Line, but they were also involved in the REM so we will have to see.

 

[nfitz]

I'd be surprised if Air Canada had much to do it at all. Rather than pricing, alignment, and rail expertise.

If individual companies were a factor, I'd think that Atkins, Systra, and SNCF's high-speed experience would have been more significant.

 

[Bojaxs]

This is what I don't understand. The 407 corridor stretches all the way across the city from Milton to Pickering, right? Couldn't you just build a purely CP bypass along the 407 from Milton to Pickering, maybe with a couple GO tracks added on too, and avoid the York subdivision entirely? I mean, I know the Ontario Liberals original plan was to have CP and CN share the 407 corridor between Milton and Bramalea and then have CP use the York subdivision, but if we accept that as flawed, then why not scrap the part about CN tracks and then have CP stay within the 407 corridor for the Bramalea-Pickering section. If you don't involve CN, then you'd only need to persuade CP, right?

The 407 bypass works for CN
The CPKC bypass can run parallel with the 407, but first it should run parallel with the proposed 413.

RED: CPKC
BLUE: CN
GREEN: GO

Existing GTA track map

Revised GTA track map showing freight bypasses and GO improvements.

 

[guavadelic]

I realize this is a fast moving topic so apologies if this has already been posted here. Will delete when I get home to scroll back to see if this is already been posted. A friend sent this to me and says of this website says that they know who the consortium winner is:

So this report is saying that Cadence is the consortium that has won the VIA HFR-TGF (soon to be renamed Rapid Train rapide) procurement with an announcement to be made in mid November.

Un projet de TGV entre Québec et Toronto bientôt lancé?

Le gouvernement fédéral serait prêt à aller de l'avant avec un projet de train à grande vitesse (TGV) entre Toronto et Québec.

www.noovo.info

(I believe it's dated October 29th)

Cadence members:
CDPQ Infra
AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC-Lavalin)
Systra Canada
Keolis Canada
Air Canada
SNCF Voyageurs S.A.

More info: https://cadence.info/en

Keolis is owned 70% by SNCF and 30% by CDPQ.

AtkinsRéalis and Air Canada are based in Montréal

cc @Northern Light

Between SNC's history with the PM and Air Canada's suspicous involvement, this was the most problematic of the bidders. If report is accurate, Feds poisoned the well before launch.

I guess they feel like they need Quebec's support for this project to be ironclad but this is pandering overload.

 

[Bojaxs]

No doubt the Liberals are trying to move HSR forward now because they're dropping in the polls and need a boost in the upcoming election. Which makes this recent announcement seem disingenuous.
If the Conservatives win the next election, they'll probably scale this project back down to HfR. Which I wouldn't be against. Smaller budget and completed in a shorter amount of time.

CBC just did a piece on this recent HSR development and kept bringing up the fact that Canada is the only G7 country without HSR. But some things to consider, Canada is the largest G7 country by land and smallest by population. Even between Toronto and Montreal, Canada doesn't have the population density to match that of Europe, Japan or the NE corridor in the U.S.
Having VIA trains on their own dedicated tracks with the Siemens Chargers hitting close to 200km/h would be more than adequate. Something akin to Brightline, or the EMR Meridian in the U.K.

Plus if HfR proves successful in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, it would be easier and cheaper to replicate this in Alberta between Calgary - Edmonton.

 

[dowlingm]

Andrew Scheer took a shot at VIA and the Ventures on Twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1851248315041456437

 

[dowlingm]

Fastest train without overhead? We could have had 150mph JetTrain

 

[T3G]

Andrew Scheer took a shot at VIA and the Ventures on Twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1851248315041456437

Not sure whether the bigger fool is the person who reads this and accepts it as being Trudeau's fault as though Trudeau knows the faintest thing about trains, or the person who would vote for him, believing him to be fit for the task of governing a country, for no reason other than the fact that he moved money from one bank account to another.

 

[Urban Sky]

No doubt the Liberals are trying to move HSR forward now because they're dropping in the polls and need a boost in the upcoming election. Which makes this recent announcement seem disingenuous.

I believe the Liberals have already accepted their fate of inevitable defeat at the next election. This project is only about increasing the price the Conservatives have to pay should they chose to continue with it or shelve it. Which indeed is very disingenuous, but in line with everything else they’ve done on this file (unlike the Corridor Fleet Renewal, where they’ve actually proceeded on an appropriate speed, considering the urgency)…

If the Conservatives win the next election, they'll probably scale this project back down to HfR. Which I wouldn't be against. Smaller budget and completed in a shorter amount of time.

Almost the entire railfan community seems to be divided into “doomers” (which believe that PP outrightly hates trains and would shelve the entire project on his very first day in office and burn every single study it produced) and “daydreamers” who believe that a project which has lost every self-restraint and which will (so far: presumably) select a bid where half of its proponents are part either part of Quebec Inc. or chums with the Liberals will work just as well with Conservatives who have a voter base which gravitates around Western Canada rather than Quebec.

Indeed the only thing which can probably save the project is to secretly can be prepared so that something can be presented to PP when he threatens to pull the plug from the project. There seems to be a consensus amongst railfans (at least of the second camp) that the private investors are willing to finance at least 50% of the capital cost and would pull out if the project was descoped to anything slower than French-style TGVs (~300 km/h). I have this bad suspicion that the first assumption is hopelessly overoptimistic and that the second assumption therefore does’t matter, as the RFP could simply be repeated with a more traditional procurement model.

CBC just did a piece on this recent HSR development and kept bringing up the fact that Canada is the only G7 country without HSR. But some things to consider, Canada is the largest G7 country by land and smallest by population. Even between Toronto and Montreal, Canada doesn't have the population density to match that of Europe, Japan or the NE corridor in the U.S.

I can’t find my calculations (though it shouldn’t be difficult to recreate), but once you strip virtually unpopulated Nord-du-Quebec and the Kenora District, you obtain a population denisty for Ontario and Quebec which falls in line with the population density of Norway and Finland, both of which have modest Higher-Speed infrastructure (200 km/h) and very little High-Speed infrastructure (220-250 km/h) with currently not owning a single train capable of using the latter speeds…

Having VIA trains on their own dedicated tracks with the Siemens Chargers hitting close to 200km/h would be more than adequate. Something akin to Brightline, or the EMR Meridian in the U.K.

Amen.

Plus if HfR proves successful in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, it would be east to replicate this in Alberta between Calgary - Edmonton.

HFR will be very difficult to replicate in Alberta, due to the absence of suitable rail corridors which could be reused. It would have to be a new infrastructure and that begs for HSR, but only once we’ve revamped intercity passenger rail in the Q-W corridor…

 

[generalcanada]

Andrew Scheer took a shot at VIA and the Ventures on Twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1851248315041456437

View attachment 608538

As someones whos out of the loop on this. I remember hearing that CN/CP wont let them run ventures on their tracks, but how true is this?

 

[Urban Sky]

As someones whos out of the loop on this. I remember hearing that CN/CP wont let them run ventures on their tracks, but how true is this?

CN has issues detecting Venture/Charger trainsets when they approach certain level crossings due to their low axle count, light weight and different wheel-rail dynamics. The workaround imposed by CN is to reduce speeds to 45 mph until the correct operation of any automatic warning devices can be confirmed. This seems to cause additional delays of 30-60 minutes for Siemens trainsets operating over CN infrastructure…

 

[MisterF]

I can’t find my calculations (though it shouldn’t be difficult to recreate), but once you strip virtually unpopulated Nord-du-Quebec and the Kenora District, you obtain a population denisty for Ontario and Quebec which falls in line with the population density of Norway and Finland, both of which have modest Higher-Speed infrastructure (200 km/h) and very little High-Speed infrastructure (220-250 km/h) with currently not owning a single train capable of using the latter speeds…

The population density of the Windsor-Quebec Corridor is on par with countries like France and Spain. Obviously the overall population is lower so we'll never have an HSR system as extensive as those countries.

There's a lot of talk of full high speed and future governments downsizing a bloated plan. But we still don't know what the plan is. It could be something more modest like the Alstom proposal where only certain sections are high speed and the rest is slower. With previous high speed proposals having travel times to Montreal of ~2.5 hours, the 3 hours being talked about now makes sense in the context of a more modest plan.