Alto High Speed Rail

[vtecyo]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

Starts to sound a lot like the existing PRT corridor through Van Kleek Hill, then between Chute-a-Blondeau or Pointe Fortune. North approach into Montreal. If you take those meeting locations as areas impacted by the routing.

Brownsburg is interesting... Why would the meeting place be so far from the possible crossing if it was at Pointe Fortune? If they cross there I assume they head straight east well away from Browsnburg? Why not hold it in Lachute, since it's slightly closer - and a bigger town?

Since I love to speculate - I'd assume the crossing is closer to Chute a Blondeau. Then it's a straight line right up to the Quebec Gatineau Railway (QGRY) corridor - which goes right through Lachute. Although - that still doesn't tell me why the meeting is in Brownsburg and not Lachute. Although it would make a little more sense.

Or maybe it was just the only place in the area available to rent on that day...

[c_speed3108]

So clicking the link brings you to a building in Saint-Phillippe...

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ticvj8JNuC2JQiqH8

[dougvdh]

Originally Posted by vtecyo

Brownsburg is interesting... Why would the meeting place be so far from the possible crossing if it was at Pointe Fortune? If they cross there I assume they head straight east well away from Browsnburg? Why not hold it in Lachute, since it's slightly closer - and a bigger town?

Since I love to speculate - I'd assume the crossing is closer to Chute a Blondeau. Then it's a straight line right up to the Quebec Gatineau Railway (QGRY) corridor - which goes right through Lachute. Although - that still doesn't tell me why the meeting is in Brownsburg and not Lachute. Although it would make a little more sense.

Or maybe it was just the only place in the area available to rent on that day...

Using most of the existing Lachute subdivision (from near the Gatineau airport though to Mirabel) could be an interesting option and would align pretty closely with some of those survey pins. But then the Van Kleek Hill meeting point doesn't make a lot of sense.

The other logic with that route would be that it would leave pretty much the entire existing corridor untouched for the whole duration of construction and allow VIA to run parallel 'slow train' service to Casselman, Alexandria, etc in the future.

[vtecyo]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

So clicking the link brings you to a building in Saint-Phillippe...

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ticvj8JNuC2JQiqH8

Oh - there are links... I didn't visit the original page...lol.

That just reinforces my suspicion that a northern route crossing would be in the Chute a Blondeau area. It's a narrow part of the river and Saint-Phillipe is in between it and the QGRY... So if they plan to use that rail corridor - it's a straight line from the river right past there.

It also makes sense they'd have a consultation at Vankleek Hill - as it would probably follow the PRT right past it - and then a brief parallel along the N/S corridor portion of the 417 - and then cross the river like so:



Or I could have straightend that bit out and ignored the 417 corridor - I'm just assuming the land acquisition would be cheaper - but maybe a straight line from Vankleek Hill to Chute a Blondeau is worth the extra cost of the land.

If it goes through Lachute - this raises an interesting question. What's the minimum stop spacing they're planning on in the long run? Is Lachute a possible station location? It's about 50KM west of the centre of Laval - although at the moment it's only ~14,000 people. A 50KM stop spacing seems reasonable for a high speed line - while still maintaining a high average speed.

It might make sense one day to add a station - although Lachute would probably be better served by some future EXO extension.

[BGO]

Why would the line pass by Lachute? It's a lost place with poor chance of growing up. I do criticize the Laval stop since its a step away from Montréal and kind of well integrated to the existing system. An idea could be one single stop in Laval with no stop in mtl straight to the existing Montmorency station. Imagine the billions that can be saved there. Even Peterborough doesn't make so much sense to me, kingston might be better but not feasible within the proposed budget. I do think we should stretch the line as far as London via Sauga and Kitchener, that area is going to grow crazy in the next decades.

[vtecyo]

Originally Posted by BGO

Why would the line pass by Lachute? It's a lost place with poor chance of growing up. I do criticize the Laval stop since its a step away from Montréal and kind of well integrated to the existing system. An idea could be one single stop in Laval with no stop in mtl straight to the existing Montmorency station. Imagine the billions that can be saved there. Even Peterborough doesn't make so much sense to me, kingston might be better but not feasible within the proposed budget. I do think we should stretch the line as far as London via Sauga and Kitchener, that area is going to grow crazy in the next decades.

Because - if the ALTO is going to save any money by using existing railway rights of way - then the QGRY freight rail corridor would be the easiest way to get to an existing rail corridor after crossing the river. Otherwise - they could take a slightly straighter route east - but they'll have to acquire a lot more land to do it.

I don't know if Lachute would be a good place to put a station in the long run - it might develop into it if there was a HSR station. Of course - there are a bunch of level crossing to avoid in the middle of town - so maybe the savings aren't what I think they'd be.

Otherwise - if the province wants to be helpful - maybe they could offer up some land south of Lachute along AutoRoute 50.

In any case - about 8 or 9 KM east of Lachute the 50 goes off to the north - and ALTO would have to continue east. From there the QGRY is the straightest possible route into Montreal - if going via Laval. I assume that makes it the cheapest and fastest way to do it.

Here's a map of their network: https://www.gwrr.com/qgry/#map

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by BGO

Why would the line pass by Lachute? It's a lost place with poor chance of growing up. I do criticize the Laval stop since its a step away from Montréal and kind of well integrated to the existing system. An idea could be one single stop in Laval with no stop in mtl straight to the existing Montmorency station. Imagine the billions that can be saved there. Even Peterborough doesn't make so much sense to me, kingston might be better but not feasible within the proposed budget. I do think we should stretch the line as far as London via Sauga and Kitchener, that area is going to grow crazy in the next decades.

I don't think the intent is to put stations in all these places, just that the line will pass through. I expect additional stations beyond the initial 6 or 7 will probably be few and far between (at least initially). The aim here is for the big city travel volumes, not to create milk runs.

[lrt's friend]

I think there are opportunities for local milk runs with strategically located sidings. Milk runs would operate maybe twice a day with the vast majority of trips bypassing smaller stations. Maybe this could be added later as popularity increases that the public will demand more infill stations. I do expect a couple of stations in each of the biggest cities. Not everybody will go to a downtown station. Those suburban stations need to be major transit hubs.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I think there are opportunities for local milk runs with strategically located sidings. Milk runs would operate maybe twice a day with the vast majority of trips bypassing smaller stations. Maybe this could be added later as popularity increases that the public will demand more infill stations. I do expect a couple of stations in each of the biggest cities. Not everybody will go to a downtown station. Those suburban stations need to be major transit hubs.

Which locations do you think would be appropriate?

[Sauvanto]

I gotta say I'm not the biggest fan of that alignment through the North-Shore. My main concerns are
a) it pretty much locks in the requirement for a new mont royal tunnel immediately to meet the advertised travel times
b) adds Laval on the Ottawa-MTL, sure express trains could just zoom through but it does add construction time and costs for Phase 1
c) more bridges than the current VIA rail alignment

Are there serious advantages that would negate this?

[vtecyo]

Originally Posted by Sauvanto

I gotta say I'm not the biggest fan of that alignment through the North-Shore. My main concerns are
a) it pretty much locks in the requirement for a new mont royal tunnel immediately to meet the advertised travel times
b) adds Laval on the Ottawa-MTL, sure express trains could just zoom through but it does add construction time and costs for Phase 1
c) more bridges than the current VIA rail alignment

Are there serious advantages that would negate this?

The main one I can think of is that - by going on a northern route along the PRT it might be the easiest way to straighten the route. There would be less land acquisition than compared to the VIA corridor, or some brand new corridor across eastern Ontario...

I suppose they may just want to avoid disrupting VIA services for ~5 years - and the northern route lets them do that.

[GeoNerd]

HSR would likely try to avoid all urban settlements and level crossings where possible. Considering the likely overall budget for this project, some rural expropriations outside of existing rail corridors won’t break the bank. Milk runs to backwater Burgs along the route is completely unfathomable. Stopping a multi-billion dollar major metro connecting HSR in small towns like Lachute or Hawkesbury is entirely out of the question.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

Starts to sound a lot like the existing PRT corridor through Van Kleek Hill, then between Chute-a-Blondeau or Pointe Fortune. North approach into Montreal. If you take those meeting locations as areas impacted by the routing.

Interesting thought. I drew a map showing the locations of the Alto Open Houses and then connected the dots. I skipped Gatineau as it is likely just a second Ottawa meeting. I also suspect that the route will be straighter as they picked a meeting location in the nearest town. I agree with c_speed3108 that not all locations will necessarily have stations.


(click map to open in Google My Maps)

[Aylmer]

I can see how the Hawkesbury crossing route could work in a technical sense, but for the life of me, I can't understand what benefit it yields that would justify the expense of it compared to the West Island option.

The way I see it, the Laval approach runs much closer to many more homes, making it more difficult to upgrade to higher speeds. And then once you get to Parc Station, you're still many kilometres from downtown. You could build the legendary Parc Ave tunnel, but then I'm back to wondering what advantage this is meant to yield.

The West Island route isn't without its challenges, but it seems to me like it would be better bang for your buck to tackle those.

The West Island route would require the whole CN/CP corridor to be consolidated and upgraded. But I think it has three big advantages over the Laval routing:

1. It can be done incrementally: eliminating the couple of grade crossings and disentangling the freight, suburban, and high speed trains can be done section by section, like Metrolinx's updgrades to its various corridors.
2. The rail corridor is already well-separated from the surrounding area, giving space for stageing and reducing political sensitivities like expropriations or new nuisances
3. It goes downtown and to the airport.

If we're throwing tens of billions at this project, it can be upgraded further with things like a tunnel through the St Charles approach to Gare Centrale, and perhaps new rail bridges onto the Island from the west.

But the big thing is honestly that first point; I'm skeptical of any solution that requires some massive piece of infrastructure from the get-go in order for it to work. That is a huge gamble and a single point of failure. If the Laval routing doesn't work at all without a new bridge or massive new urban tunnel, then it's betting the whole house on a game of double-or-nothing. It would be one thing if we already had experience as a country with an undertaking like this. But like they said in that great CBC clip: we're signing ourselves up for a marathon before we've even laced up our first pair of running shoes.

[roger1818]

You are making a huge assumption, that CN and CPKC would be willing to consolidate their mainlines onto one ROW on the west island. From what I have heard, they don't, and would fight any attempt by the government to force them to do so. So unless you are suggesting that the government would be willing to pass legislation with the Notwithstanding Clause, forcing the two railways to share a ROW, the government would be in a long and expensive legal battle. The bitterness would also eliminate any willingness of CPKC to co-operate with Alto elsewhere.

The other assumption you are making is that they are planning to follow the Parc Sub. Given that one of the Open houses is in Saint-Eustache, they may very well be planning on following the REM's line from western Laval, and either cut down to Dorval and then run parallel to CN and CPCK's lines to downtown, or follow the REM's lines all the way downtown. The later might be difficult as I don't think they can share the existing tunnel.

I know you didn't suggest it, but the option of building a 5th and 6th ROW parallel to CN and CPKC mainlines on the island would likely be very expensive and offer significant challenges to squeeze that many tracks in and still have room for the Exo stations.

[Aylmer]

Following the REM looks good on a map, but would require a prodigious amount of residential expropriation and disruption of brand-new infrastructure.

But of course, as you point out, just about any approach will require disruption, so it's a question of choosing your poison. I have no doubt that consolidating the CN and CP tracks would be a challenging negotiation, but I think it is much easier to negotiate with two entities over which the federal government has enormous legislative authority, as opposed to negotiating expropriations with hundreds or thousands of individual land owners with much more to lose.

I also don't think that it would actually be a bad deal for the railways either. They themselves have willingly negotiated coproduction agreements for directional running around Perry Sound and the Fraser Canyon in the 2000s, and the arrangement has been profitable for both parties. The number of trains going in and out of the Côte St Luc yards is not high, and can be handled quite easily by two one-way tracks. There's even significant advantage to them if the government pays for brand new infrastructure (especially the ageing bridges and overpasses) in exchange for them agreeing to coproduction.

As far as hard-ball negotiations go, this is far from the most challenging; there's space for the desired tracks, little grounds for community opposition, two parties that are used to working together elsewhere, and many carrots and sticks available to incentivize them to play ball. Even so, it will require infrastructure, fine negotiation, and hard work. But I worry that if the people in charge have so little confidence in their ability to thread this needle, I hold little hope for their ability to thread the thousand smaller needles necessary for a more complicated routing through Laval.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Following the REM looks good on a map, but would require a prodigious amount of residential expropriation and disruption of brand-new infrastructure.

I agree it wouldn't be easy, and it may not be their route of choice (we are all just hypothesizing based on existing evidence). Using the Park Sub does have the advantage that most of the infrastructure can be shared by both trains to/from the east and the west, with the trains branching at the junction with the Trois-Rivières Sub (just south of the A440). The tunnel could also be shared with EXO. Yes it would become very busy, but other countries run very frequent service on main lines.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

But of course, as you point out, just about any approach will require disruption, so it's a question of choosing your poison.

Agreed. They have crunched the numbers and we are only theorizing as to what they might be.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I have no doubt that consolidating the CN and CP tracks would be a challenging negotiation, but I think it is much easier to negotiate with two entities over which the federal government has enormous legislative authority, as opposed to negotiating expropriations with hundreds or thousands of individual land owners with much more to lose.

I'm not convinced. The lobbying power and finances for litigation of two of Canada's largest companies is a formidable foe. Individual land owners don't have that power. Also, don't forget that the government gave Alto Special expropriation rules to make it easier to get the land they need, so it may be easier to grab hundreds of R1 parcels than it is to force multinational corporations to do their will.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I also don't think that it would actually be a bad deal for the railways either. They themselves have willingly negotiated coproduction agreements for directional running around Perry Sound and the Fraser Canyon in the 2000s, and the arrangement has been profitable for both parties.

The bidirectional running agreement benefits both railways by increasing capacity and both railways get to keep their own ROW. Should either railway change their mind, they can pull out of the agreement and go back to normal. With this, they would be sharing one ROW and there wouldn't be any easy way for either one to back out of the agreement.

A better example would be the attempt for CN and CP to share a ROW through the Ottawa Valley by combining the best parts of their existing (at the time) ROWs into one. Unfortunately the agreement fell apart shortly after it was signed. Shortly after, both railways tore up their ROWs, and this was for a branch line, not both railway's mainlines.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

The number of trains going in and out of the Côte St Luc yards is not high, and can be handled quite easily by two one-way tracks. There's even significant advantage to them if the government pays for brand new infrastructure (especially the ageing bridges and overpasses) in exchange for them agreeing to coproduction.

The two parallel ROWs aren't only used by trains "in and out of the Côte St Luc yards" but also used by every train going to eastern Canada. With the government wanting to increase trade with Europe, reducing the freight capacity to eastern ports would go against that and would be a bad look.

I had thought building a bypass for CPKC on the south shore would have been a good solution (they could then use the Saint-Laurent railway bridge to get onto the island of Montreal) but I gather CPKC wasn't interested. There may also not have been appetite for the government to give infrastructure for one railway even if it was in exchange for a more valuable ROW (for which CPKC may have wanted additional compensation). CN may also have balked at the idea, and would have wanted a gift from the government as well.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

As far as hard-ball negotiations go, this is far from the most challenging; there's space for the desired tracks, little grounds for community opposition, two parties that are used to working together elsewhere, and many carrots and sticks available to incentivize them to play ball. Even so, it will require infrastructure, fine negotiation, and hard work. But I worry that if the people in charge have so little confidence in their ability to thread this needle, I hold little hope for their ability to thread the thousand smaller needles necessary for a more complicated routing through Laval.

It may not be fair, but small land owners don't have the means to fight an expropriation in court. Even if they did, there isn't much of an argument that they could make that the courts wouldn't just say a larger cheque would make up for (and the lawyer costs would likely be higher than that cheque). A railway's ROW is fundamental to its operation. Removing a section in the middle and telling them to share a ROW with their competitor instead for perpetuity adds significant risk.

• Could it be done? Yes
• Would they want to? No

Once again, this is not the same as a bidirectional running agreement where either railway could tear up the agreement at anytime and both could go back to their old way of operating. This would need to be permanent.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing closer to 10 minutes. It isn't just that it is a shorter route, but has fewer curves (especially on the western approach) so that they don't have to slow down so much. The rumour was a year or so ago, so hopefully it isn't true (I can't seem to find the reference).

I stumbled across the reference. It was a link to an Ottawa Citizen article in Post #2718 in the VIA Rail network developments thread.

[ponyboycurtis]

"A casual look at the NCC’s Plan for Canada’s Capital (2017-2067) and Ottawa’s latest Official Plan (2022) reveals that neither plan has a proactive vision for integrating a significant high-speed rail transit hub."

Fitting as the location on this map is basically nowhere from a connectivity standpoint.

Matter of fact... It's right in the middle of Poets Trail or whatever its called where they are trying to place a new sub division that is getting a ton of push back.

Can someone please give me one of these "Jobs".

I have a really big pinwheel in my basement I can drunkenly write ideas onto and then giver a spin.

I don't see how this saves any actual time over Tremblay once you realize there is no connectivity. Even if you could place the station closer to what is actually Greenboro station some serious work would have to be undertaken at Ellwood diamond to facilitate a station there. That is a bit of a hike to connect to the actual Line 2 which is about a basic station as it gets. Let alone pickup and drop off.

These train aren't going to be blasting through the city at 300kmh.

Build the thing at Tremblay or present a realistic plan with proper connections please. The VIA station is... an actual train station already built... is more or less directly connected to our main east-west trunk line. Is next to the highway. Has been a known location in the city for a long time. Is an award winning design station for whatever that's worth. Also a pile of slated development next to the station and just across the highway. More or less direct access to a large hotel/convention center/baseball stadium.

But yes.. let's save 10 minutes to get dropped off in a field under some powerlines as Riverside bends away from Mooneys Bay.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by ponyboycurtis

"I don't see how this saves any actual time over Tremblay once you realize there is no connectivity. Even if you could place the station closer to what is actually Greenboro station some serious work would have to be undertaken at Ellwood diamond to facilitate a station there. That is a bit of a hike to connect to the actual Line 2 which is about a basic station as it gets. Let alone pickup and drop off.

I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but the time savings wouldn’t be for travel to from Ottawa, but for those travelling through Ottawa between Toronto and Montreal.

These train aren't going to be blasting through the city at 300kmh.

Agreed, especially if it stopping in Ottawa. People tend to overestimate the benefit of travelling at very high speeds of short distances though. The benefit of travelling 100 km/h instead of 20 km/h is much greater than the benefit of travelling 300 km/h versus 100 km/h.