Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaspertf
Sorry to burst your bubble but the numbers cited by the Van Horne Institute are chronically under valued, High Speed 2 in the UK, which is 70km short of the distance between Calgary and Edmonton, is projected to cost over $27 billion. OVER $27 BILLION!
Also there are very few operationally profitable high speed rail services, one of the most profitable is the Eurostar, this connects London, Paris and Brussels, and recently extended services to Amsterdam. The population of Amsterdam is larger than the combined populations of Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary, the population in the service area of Eurostar is greater than the population of the whole of Canada.
High speed rail in even the Montreal-Toronto corridor is decades away, in Alberta we need to learn to walk before we start running, which is the main reasoning to my idea. Once the population number justify, maybe then we can start thinking about High Speed Rail.
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The Van Horne numbers probably are low, but you can't compare costs to HS2. HS2 is an infinitely more complex railway than what we would have to build in Alberta, including 2 deep bore tunnels on the approaches into Manchester and London, and miles upon miles of tunnel and viaducts elsewhere. The distance between London to Manchester is similar to between Edmonton and Calgary, yet you've got about the population of Canada crammed in there, as well as having to thread the railway amonst the existing infrastructure. HS2 will be vastly more expensive than the very simple railway we would need to build here.