[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Commenting on speed is being dismissive of frequency? What logic is this?

The point is, people look at the golden age with rose colored glasses. The reality is that even with Turbo, rail service between Toronto and Montreal sucked (and still does).

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

My point was that, at least when it comes to speed, we're spending billions just to avoid going backwards. But yes the frequency gain is valuable. But given that VIA had double digit frequencies along the Lakeshore pre-Covid, the gains aren't necessarily as huge as you think.

Yes VIA has managed to eek out low, double digit frequencies along the lakeshore; however, since the lakeshore route bypasses Ottawa, that capacity is split between Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto service (with a Kingston-Toronto train thrown in for good measure). VIA can't get double digit frequencies to both Ottawa and Montreal along the Lakeshore.

The gains of HFR depend on which city pairs you are talking about.

Montreal-Toronto: This route will go from 6 to 15 trains a day. That 2.5 times the departures.

Ottawa-Toronto: The travel time will drop from approximately 4 hours and 30 minutes to as low as 3 hours and 15 minutes. The number of departures will slightly improve from 10 to 15 trains a day.

Montreal-Ottawa: This will be the biggest winner along the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto segment, also going from 6 to 15 trains a day and travel time will drop significantly (from 1:58 to 1:33).

Quebec-Montreal: If built, this would be the biggest winner overall, going from 5 to 18 trains a day and travel time will drop from 3:21 to 2:10.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The value of HFR is a better tailored schedule (more departures at peak) and improved reliability that comes with owned track enabling high frequencies, and therefore capacity.

Improved frequency, reliability and overall capacity is of course the biggest gain, though with single track, I don't know if they can tailor their schedule as much as you are implying. The intervals will be pre-set by where the passing tracks are located.

Most of my stats are based on this article in JULY 2019, which is well worth a read.