VIA Rail network developments

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Back when VIA first starting planning the project in-house as a conventional rail project there were planned stations in Smiths Falls, Sharbot Lake, and Tweed, and they held some town hall type events in the local communities to discuss these plans. At one point VIA was open to adding stops in Havelock & Perth as well. They did caution locals that these stations would likely only have very ceremonial levels of service: only 1 or 2 trains a day and no train would stop more than once between Peterborough & Ottawa so you'd have no ability to travel locally within the corridor.

But the newer plan seems to forgo local stops entirely (other than maybe Smiths Falls). On the one hand, these communities are VERY small (Sharbot Lake, for example, has a population of about 300) so it seems a bit ridiculous to serve them. Although with only 1 train a day and using a skip-stop model to ensure no single trip stops more than once between Toronto & Ottawa the impact on travel times is minimal.

But on the other hand.. the former rail corridor in this area no longer exists. It was ripped up between Havelock & Perth quite some time ago and has since been built over in every village it passes through. Restoring the line on its exact former route means a lot of demolition. Sharbot Lake, especially.. you'd have to destroy its doctors office, dentist office, post office, grocery store, and the village's main park, in order to restore the railway ROW. I presume the plan will be to build a new ROW through the area instead. But even that is tricky because the area is full of cottages and protected wetlands.. not to mention indigenous land claims.

The original HFR concept had a lot of holes and throwing the planning over to the private sector was probably a good idea, but VIA was smart to try to get ahead of the inevitable controversies by proposing stations in the area right at the beginning to get the locals on board.

If the corridor is gone, and even if it'st here it would need a lot of grade seperation, why not avoid the turn south to Smith Falls and cut a new path further north through Missippi Mills and then through the forest to Peterbourgh with maybe something like the plan above giving options to even bypass that. The country may need a lot of grading work but avoiding expensive land aquisition might be a good trade off?