Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Eade
VIA’s current timing between Fallowfield and Ottawa Station varies between 24 minutes (mid-afternoon) and 17 minutes.(last train, after 10pm). The travel time gets better as the evening wears on – presumably because road traffic is lighter, so there is less worry at road crossings. Many of the crossings are grade separated, but there are some that would need separating.
|
Not sure where you are getting your data, but according to VIA's
Ottawa - Kingston - Toronto and
Toronto - Kingston - Ottawa schedules, the minimum travel time is 16 min, the maximum is 20 min and the average (both mean and mode) is 17 minutes. I ignored train 41 (to Toronto) though, as it doesn't document the arrival time at Fallowfield (only the departure time).
Assuming an optimistic 120 km/h
average speed on the 16 km between the stations, the travel time could be reduced to 8 minutes, which saves an average of 9 minutes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Eade
Rebuilding the existing corridor will not be cheap.
|
Nor would building all of the following required for your proposal:
- A new airport terminal on what is now the Hylands Golf Club,
- A greenfield track for HSR,
- A transit extension to the new terminal, and
- A road/highway to the new terminal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Eade
Currently it is only single-track, and a lot of the infrastructure is old. For example, the bridge over Prince of Wales and the one over the Rideau River will need to be replaced completely. This means shutting down existing train service while things are rebuilt. If a new bridge were built to the Airport, then current service could continue until the new station opened.
|
Not necessarily. A new alignment could be used. For example, if an alignment north of the Beachburg Sub was used, it could straighten out the double S curve into something more gradual (increasing speeds). The It would require some expropriation, but not nearly as much as a greenfield airport station.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Eade
Also, if a new corridor is being chosen from Toronto up. It is possible that it might not be easy to connect to the existing track. And, how much of that existing track is already owned by VIA?
|
VIA owns the following Subdivisions in and around Ottawa (from
VIA's Triennial plan):
- Alexandria (From 0.40, To 76.43)
- Beachburg (From 0.00, To 6.00)
- Smiths Falls (From 0.00, To 34.40)
They can also easily obtain the Havelock Sub. They can connect the Havelock Sub. to the Smiths Falls Sub by building dedicated track north of CPKC's Belleville Sub. (either on their ROW or on a new ROW). This will avoid the current conflict crossing CPKC's Belleville Sub in Smiths Falls.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Eade
There is nothing to say that there can't be two stations. One for local trains (Tremblay) and one for high-speed trains (airport).
|
That is theoretically possible, but arguably needless and would add confusion. Cities that have separate stations like this have one of them downtown; something we don't have anymore.
If they really wanted to save time and money, they could make Fallowfield Ottawa's one and only HSR station. It would be about as convenient as a YOW station.
Threaded Mode