Wouldn't that be Treasury Board (TB)? Transport Canada is the regulator - I wasn't aware they doled out money.
TC, TB, I don’t care which branch of the federal government is the hold-up which prevents VIA from purchasing the Western end of the Guelph Sub - even though it’s of course not that surprising as long as VIA only operates a daily train (84/87) over these tracks.
There are exactly two double track routes over the Ottawa River at Ste Annes (both of them critical to freight)
Either bridge will need to be replaced at some point. An agreement to share them could include a funding agreement for that eventual replacement, ensuring mutual benefits.
, a dubious tenancy on CPKC-CN from Dorion/Coteau to Ballantyne,
Dedicated VIA tracks could be built between Saine-Anne-de-Bellevue and until after Bannantyne (including a grade separation with the latter).
and a fairly tortuous entry into Central Station through St-Henri.
The remaining double-tracked gap between Saint-Henri could be closed, thus creating dedicated VIA tracks across the entire Montreal Island.
If the premise is hourly service in each direction all day long, someone will need to design a way to get trains from the south to the north every half hour somewhere east of Dorion without conflicting with very long freight trains..... and just how willing will CPKC-CN be to share their capacity?
See my comment regarding the Ottawa River bridges. Interference is usually proportional to the differential of average speeds and the length of the shared tracks. Dorion to Sainte-Anne-de-Belleville is fairly short and does not allow high speeds, anyways.
If the premise is HSR with a high premium on extra fast travel times, the project can't afford tight curves and freight interference.....anywhere.
In the long term, there will need to be grade separations to cross over the Belleville Sub near Agincourt and across the Vaudreuil Sub, as well as a dedicated Ottawa River crossing. I’m not convinced that all of that should be part if the initial scope, but if that makes HSR a non-starter (due to the inability to continously electrify the corridor), so be it.
That says to me that the Stouffville line routing is unacceptable for HSR, as the junction at Scarborough Jct and the curves up to Agincourt will be too slow speed. Also, there will have to be new bridges over rivers at both ends and flyovers/unders. A quite pricey proposition. But we shall see, hopefully soon.
- Pul [sic!]
In my view, it matters less how much the terminal speeds are (provided that the really small ones, like <80 km/h are minimized), but how long it takes until no more pesky GO trains are in the way and Higher Speeds (>160 km/h) can be reached - and I struggle to identify an alignment where such point would be reached faster than on the Havelock Sub (when approaching the Belleville Sub and Steeles Avenue East, respectively).