[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The time saving will be achieved by not having to slow down, stop, embark and disembark passengers at Ottawa's two stations. It is not just a distance consideration.

The simplest way to avoid having to “slow down, stop, embark and disembark passengers at Ottawa's two stations” is to simply not stop at these stations. This will maybe save you 5 minutes per station, which means that 4:35h (instead of 4:45h) is the time to beat with your “bypass”…

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Also, HSR upgrades will likely take place in the lesser populated areas first, where there are fewer restrictions on upgrading and rerouting the track and fewer problems in accommodating neighbouring populations.

This does not change the fact that any investment you put into the Winchester Subdivision west of Monkland will be made obsolete the moment HSR gets built, as you won’t be able to beat the travel time via Ottawa in a 300 km/h fast HSR scenario without upgrading your bypass to a speed well beyond 177 km/h (110 mph), i.e. a speed which makes “grade separations” the single-most expensive item on Ecotrain’s cost calculation.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I believe that a 30 minute speed improvement between Montreal and Toronto beyond current HFR plans through Ottawa will make the route that much more attractive and more competitive with the airlines. The current proposal makes Ottawa-Toronto quite competitive with the airlines, not so much Montreal-Toronto.

We’ve now reached the point where we need to talk about “generalized journey time” (GJT), which is basically the travel time perceived by the passenger and converts all other factors affecting ridership (transfers, headways between departures offered, delays and the condition/comfort of the rolling stock) into travel time as travel time penalties. Whereas travel time indeed only decreases by 19 minutes (or 6.2%) from 5:04 to 4:45 hours (the smallest decrease - in nominal and absolute figures - for any of the four major routes served by HFR), the frequency improvement from 6 trains per day (I’ve assumed 15 operating hours when calculating headways: e.g. from 5am to 8pm) to (let’s assume) hourly departures represents a further 36 minutes GJT saved – for a total saving of 55 minutes (or 14.5%), which is still the lowest for all 4 routes, but still a substantial improvement (almost one whole hour) in time-competitiveness over the other modes (car, bus, airplane):

Compiled from: travel time values provided by VIA Rail and GJT values for service headways provided within the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Also, I could see all Montreal-Toronto trains being express skipping Ottawa. I don't see any advantage to passengers making the whole trip for them to travel into Ottawa.

Maybe you do see them now that you’ve learned about GJT and the impact of headways on it. The order size of 16 additional trainsets in the event that HFR goes ahead might be sufficient to provide hourly service on the TRTO-OTTW-MTRL route, but probably not if TRTO-OTTW, TRTO-MTRL and OTTW-MTRL are all separate services. Since choosing a headway of 2 hours adds 24 minutes of GJT compared to a headway of 1 hour, the travel time you need to beat with your bypass decreases to 4:21 hours. Reducing travel time from 84 to at most 60 minutes (i.e. by at least 24 minutes) over a distance of 146 km translates to an average speed of at least 146 km/h (90.7 mph), which means that even though you might be able to grade-separate the entire Winchester Subdivision to match the GJT of hourly HFR service via Ottawa, a modest improvement of only 10 minutes beyond that would bring the required average speed to 175.2 km/h (108.9 mph), which would make such costly investments necessary, while becoming obsolete the moment we have HSR…

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

This is the same as today where some trains between Montreal and Toronto go through Ottawa with a considerable time penalty. Who would choose this? Not many I expect.

Except that the detour via Ottawa currently adds 97 km (633 vs. 539 km) and 88 minutes (6:32 vs. 5:04 hours) to the schedule, while with HFR, that difference will shrink to 41 km (580 km), while travel time will actually become 19 minutes (4:45 hours) shorter than today. I also challenge you to find any precedent for building a 146 km long High(er)-Speed rail segment, which has no purpose other than bypassing one single city – a city which happens to be the national capital and the fifth-largest metropolitan agglomeration with 1.3 million inhabitants…

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As I said, this would be a natural progression if HFR really takes off to offer a yet further enhanced service that does not require very expensive HSR spending.

As per my last paragraph, it does require expensive almost-HSR spending, which becomes obsolete the moment that HSR arrives in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal Corridor. It is not a coincidence that every single HSR study aimed at consolidating the passenger flows between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto onto one single passenger service serving all free cities: it’s the only way to serve this Corridor economically and to unlock the economies of scale (e.g. decreases in unit-costs) we’ve been discussing here…

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Now, this may all change if they want to upgrade portions of the track from Smiths Falls to Montreal to HSR. As we all know, VIA owns the old CPR right of way between Ottawa and Rigaud for this purpose. I think this a completely separate project above and beyond HFR.

Even though it was without any doubt prudent to preserve this ROW for a possible return of passenger rail services, the Ecotrain study (Deliverable 5, p.28) discarded the Corridor with the following explanation:

The ex-CP M&O Subdivision (used as a composite representative route for the 200+/- km/h and as an alternative for the 300+/- km/h options) was abandoned between Rigaud and Ottawa. It has since been sold by CP and transformed into a recreational path (for cyclists and pedestrians) on most of its length.
Transforming it back into a railway line would certainly not prove very popular. Considering the amount and importance of public protest to be expected from such an action, the resultant difficulty that would be encountered in securing its use for HSR, and given that other better option exist, it was agreed with the Technical Committee that this right-of-way would not be carried forward as a representative route in the present study.