Quote:
Originally Posted by bodaggin
The only ones that might make sense are the Selkirk run. Maybe Gimli run on weekends. Doubtfully Warren. And even still they only make sense if CoW converts existing rails to LRT because intermodal creates an automatic transfer.
Rail is high capacity. Rural towns are the opposite, barren. It makes more sense to slap a bus on a medium capacity route (IE within 20min of Wpg) and have the flexibility to change route at any time without having to build a whole new rail line. Roads are flexible.
Any less volume for rural towns doesn't even support a bus or fixed route and gets back to car-pool.
Car pool is the only way this can viably be done on a rural small town basis. Is demand enough? I dunno. Everyone rural has cars.
I would say I'd consider building out an app. But Poparide is basically at critical mass. Around 1m users. From a business standpoint, any build would be a takeover target to Poparide. Not sure it's worth it.
They've basically got this one solved man. A little more growth and the network will reach all corners. Even rural. Not trying to burst your bubble. Just laying reality.
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You're not wrong, I know that they'll never run a train to Hamiota or Zhoda, MB but you brought up what I was thinking, the North South line would actually be useful. Connecting the lines in E Selkirk and Selkirk and adding some track to Winkler would connect Winkler - Morden to Winnipeg, Winnipeg to Selkirk to the lake country around Winnipeg Beach and Gimli. That's a lion's share of the province using existing track. An East West to Brandon would be a lot harder to swallow but for now, if existing short runs could run passenger rail, that'd be a huge win for movement and connectivity in Manitoba and Canada writ large by connecting most of our cities (Thompson, Portage and Dauphin are already connected via Via Rail but it isn't nearly frequent enough to be useful) for a fraction of the cost of new rail. For rolling stock I'm sure it wouldnt be tough to find some cars and use the existing format of power on those tracks.
Something like this might even incentivize people to spread out from Winnipeg. If I could live in Gimli on the lake with all the nature around it but I could commute to work on a 80-90 MPH train, I'd make that move, bringing my wages with me (bearing in mind I have no clue what the state of those tracks are like, to get them to 80-90 MPH/ Class 4 Class 5 ratings might be prohibitive.
Obviously a pipe dream but I can dream nonetheless haha.