High Speed Rail in Canada

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

It maybe a somewhat biased article but it makes a good point..............why spend $4 billion to run trains no faster than the ones running today? VIA has legitimate beef about needing dedicated track but even if they were to get them the country would still need to spend more money on top of that to get the needed HSR.

VIA is being very selfish but I won't say I don't have some empathy for them. The feds have forced VIA to operate lines that are huge money losers {which is basically everything outside The Corridor} for strictly political reasons and yet not provided the subsidies to run those routes. The result has been VIA having to spend a vastly disproportionate amount of it's revenue subsidizing these very low ridership lines and the money invariably comes out of the lines bringing in real money........The Corridor routes.

If VIA wasn't forced by Ottawa to subsidize these routes then it's possible that VIA would already have dedicated track in the entire Windsor/Quebec corridor and therefore wouldn't have lost as many passengers as it has due to it's slow speed and reliability.

VIA sees an Ontario HSR line from London to Windsor as just the start of a bigger problem. They know that HSR to London will be a first step with Windsor coming next and potentially Ottawa and Montreal. Ontario wants to build on the turf it gets 90% of it riders from. An extension to Windsor would also mean that anyone coming from the US south or west of Detroit can get to Toronto and completely bypass VIA altogether.

It's is self centred of VIA but when it's all said and done it's Ottawa that has forced them into this position.

What should be happening instead is VIA taking the leadership role and development of HSR in the Corridor. They should also have had more support from the feds and been able to have dedicated tracks and higher frequency.

[swimmer_spe]

As I see it, Via is doing what it needs to do to be competitive.

Dedicated track at current speeds will not be enough to draw customers. HSR will.

Having more ways than 1 to get somewhere means people will make choices based of of many factors including speed and price.

GO started as 2 lines running along the lake shore. It was almost 10 years before they did more.
The Yonge line had the same fate; first built a small section, then expanded about 10 years later.

By starting with something simple, to Kitchener or London, they can show that it is feasible and then build it out.

If within 50 years they could connect all the major cities in Canada by HSR, that would deliver a crippling blow to the regional air carriers. It would be nice to see it much sooner, but I am being realistic.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

It maybe a somewhat biased article but it makes a good point..............why spend $4 billion to run trains no faster than the ones running today? VIA has legitimate beef about needing dedicated track but even if they were to get them the country would still need to spend more money on top of that to get the needed HSR.

VIA is being very selfish but I won't say I don't have some empathy for them. The feds have forced VIA to operate lines that are huge money losers {which is basically everything outside The Corridor} for strictly political reasons and yet not provided the subsidies to run those routes. The result has been VIA having to spend a vastly disproportionate amount of it's revenue subsidizing these very low ridership lines and the money invariably comes out of the lines bringing in real money........The Corridor routes.

If VIA wasn't forced by Ottawa to subsidize these routes then it's possible that VIA would already have dedicated track in the entire Windsor/Quebec corridor and therefore wouldn't have lost as many passengers as it has due to it's slow speed and reliability.

VIA sees an Ontario HSR line from London to Windsor as just the start of a bigger problem. They know that HSR to London will be a first step with Windsor coming next and potentially Ottawa and Montreal. Ontario wants to build on the turf it gets 90% of it riders from. An extension to Windsor would also mean that anyone coming from the US south or west of Detroit can get to Toronto and completely bypass VIA altogether.

It's is self centred of VIA but when it's all said and done it's Ottawa that has forced them into this position.

So that when the government asks them that question, they can say 'well, for $3 billion more we can have highspeed beyond urban built up areas'.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

It maybe a somewhat biased article but it makes a good point..............why spend $4 billion to run trains no faster than the ones running today? VIA has legitimate beef about needing dedicated track but even if they were to get them the country would still need to spend more money on top of that to get the needed HSR.

VIA is being very selfish but I won't say I don't have some empathy for them. The feds have forced VIA to operate lines that are huge money losers {which is basically everything outside The Corridor} for strictly political reasons and yet not provided the subsidies to run those routes. The result has been VIA having to spend a vastly disproportionate amount of it's revenue subsidizing these very low ridership lines and the money invariably comes out of the lines bringing in real money........The Corridor routes.

If VIA wasn't forced by Ottawa to subsidize these routes then it's possible that VIA would already have dedicated track in the entire Windsor/Quebec corridor and therefore wouldn't have lost as many passengers as it has due to it's slow speed and reliability.

VIA sees an Ontario HSR line from London to Windsor as just the start of a bigger problem. They know that HSR to London will be a first step with Windsor coming next and potentially Ottawa and Montreal. Ontario wants to build on the turf it gets 90% of it riders from. An extension to Windsor would also mean that anyone coming from the US south or west of Detroit can get to Toronto and completely bypass VIA altogether.

It's is self centred of VIA but when it's all said and done it's Ottawa that has forced them into this position.

I believe that the approach that VIA is taking is very wise given the population distribution along the corridor.

HSR in itself will only deliver point to point service. It cannot deliver service properly to intermediate locations. There are numerous significant population centres along the entire Windsor to Quebec City corridor that can attract customers if service is made available.

The whole point of this is to deliver faster, more frequent and more reliable service. If we can get travel times down to 2.5 hours between Ottawa and Toronto as is being reported, this will be very competitive with the airlines and will be much faster than car travel.

So it is wrong to suggest that we are spending $4B to deliver the same speed of service. At the present time, the fastest VIA rail train between Ottawa and Toronto is just under 4 hours, so this is a significant improvement.

The newspaper report clearly indicates that one of the issues is that track maintenance is only occurring to the degree needed by freight trains which is limiting the speed of passenger trains.

Furthermore, upgrades to true HSR can be implemented in phases once you have dedicated track depending on a proper cost/benefit analysis.

I am gung-ho about this proposal and hopefully it will be sufficiently attractive to bring in private investment.

[eternallyme]

For the "mandatory" lines that serve remote communities, would it make sense to build low standard 2-lane roads to reach those areas and avoid the need to wait for a single, twice-weekly train to leave?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

For the "mandatory" lines that serve remote communities, would it make sense to build low standard 2-lane roads to reach those areas and avoid the need to wait for a single, twice-weekly train to leave?

In most cases we are talking about building hundreds of km of all weather road through very difficult country, rock, rivers, lakes, swamp. This is why it hasn't happened yet. When the railway already exists, the cost is comparatively small to use the railway.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

For the "mandatory" lines that serve remote communities, would it make sense to build low standard 2-lane roads to reach those areas and avoid the need to wait for a single, twice-weekly train to leave?

I think in some cases the provinces these tracks run in should be running the lines. Ontario has Ontario Northland serving Moosonee, but Manitoba has VIA servicing Churchill. Perhaps Manitoba should be running that service; its main purpose is to link Churchill to the provincial capital.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

I think in some cases the provinces these tracks run in should be running the lines. Ontario has Ontario Northland serving Moosonee, but Manitoba has VIA servicing Churchill. Perhaps Manitoba should be running that service; its main purpose is to link Churchill to the provincial capital.

Of Saskatchewan, maybe.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Of Saskatchewan, maybe.

I thought the VIA service to Churchill linked to Winnipeg?

(EDIT: It does indeed enter Saskatchewan but does not provide a direct link from communities along that railway to major cities in Saskatchewan.)

[eemy]

VIA has service to remote communities in Ontario as well.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

(EDIT: It does indeed enter Saskatchewan but does not provide a direct link from communities along that railway to major cities in Saskatchewan.)

The fact that it enters Saskatchewan makes it hard to offload to one province. It's also worth noting that most of the population it services is the responsibility of Ottawa.

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

The whole (London-)Kitchener-Toronto discussion has confused me since it first arose a couple of years ago. Ontario is talking about HSR, VIA about more service, and GO in there with more trains as well. What Waterloo Region needs is more frequent train service that gets you Downtown to Downtown in under an our. We certainly don't need three different trains services. At some point somebody needs to bring some order to the planning.

HSR is the only option that will do this. GO RER and VIA never will and I guess that is not their purpose.

[waterloowarrior]

But Via president and chief executive Yves Desjardins-Siciliano sees it differently, attacking high-speed rail and arguing that conventional trains are better.

“Less than 10 per cent of rail travellers (in Europe) travel by high-speed train,” he told The Canadian Press. “Why? Because conventional-speed rail stops every 50 to 100 kilometres and therefore is an alternative to the car,” he said.

I've seen these figures cited by the right wing Reason Foundation
http://reason.org/files/high_speed_rail_lessons.pdf

In most European and Asian countries, intercity rail travel (including both conventional and highspeed rail) represents less than 10% of all passenger miles traveled on land. Eighty percent of European rail travel is on conventional rail. Rail’s share of passengers continues to decrease in Europe. In 1980, rail carried 8.2% of all intercity passengers. In 2000, rail carried 6.3% of all intercity passengers.

The introduction of high-speed rail has not stopped commuters from shifting to automobile or plane travel. Residents of France use high-speed rail more than residents of any other country in the world. And the average citizen travels 7,600 miles by auto each year and only 400 miles by high-speed train. From 2004 to 2009 the number of passengers on German rail declined by 16 million despite the completion of hundreds of new miles of high-speed rail.European Union citizens average 100 miles of high-speed rail travel per year.

To make matters worse, the popularity of rail travel appears to be declining throughout the world. In most countries high-speed and conventional rail service represent less than 10% of all passenger-miles traveled by land. This is a decrease of almost 10% over just the last 15 years.

But when you look at the statistics they cite there are lots of issues:

In 1980, rail carried 8.2% of all intercity passengers. In 2000, rail carried 6.3% of all intercity passengers.

Mainly due to significant loss of rail share in Central/Eastern Europe (e.g. Poland down 12.6% rail to 4.7% 1990-2006)... western Europe saw gains in almost all countries. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3...PDF/9c90d489-5009-4acc-9810-ae39612897d3

Eighty percent of European rail travel is on conventional rail.

The share of high speed rail passenger km out of all rail passenger km. has gone from 16% to 27% from 2000 to 2011. http://ec.europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/statistics/pocketbook-2013_en.htm

In most European and Asian countries, intercity rail travel (including both conventional and highspeed rail) represents less than 10% of all passenger miles traveled on land. And the average citizen travels 7,600 miles by auto each year and only 400 miles by high-speed train.

Kilometres travelled by car are higher than public transportation in every developed country, but this compares daily commuting and errands with potentially a long distance mode and leaves out subways, LRT etc. Also all these statistics don't include walking and biking, which wouldn't compare well on a kilometer basis anyways.

From 2004 to 2009 the number of passengers on German rail declined by 16 million despite the completion of hundreds of new miles of high-speed rail.

16 million sounds like a lot, but it's <1% of the total of 2.5 billion passengers, and during an economic downtown. From 2010-2014 the numbers went up 263 million (10%)
https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/...id=378B8C28413F7D1B15C3FD264973112D.cae4

[casper]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

The fact that it enters Saskatchewan makes it hard to offload to one province. It's also worth noting that most of the population it services is the responsibility of Ottawa.

I don't think most people in Saskatchewan even know or care about this route. Honestly it has total of one scheduled stop in the town of Canora (population 2,200). Heading to Winnipeg it stops in the morning and heading North is stops there around 10-12 pm. A few times a week.

All the other stops in Saskatchewan as flag stops in communities with a population of under 100 people going by in the middle of the night or early in the morning. Hudson Bay is the only community beyond Canora that has any population of significance.

Saskatchewan already has a crown corporation that operates inter-city bus service.

I would suspect the Saskatchewan perspective is its Manitoba's call if it wants to operate this service or not.

[ssiguy]

I actually don't see the point of HSR via Kitchener. GO will soon be providing all day / each way service between Kit/Tor so I think it's overkill.

I still think Hamilton would be the best route especially because Hamilton/Aldershot could be a transfer point with a potential HSR line to Niagara/Buffalo where it can connect to an Eastern US system. Win/Lon/Ham/Tor/Mon/QC. Ottawa bound trains could run alternately via Kingston/Ottawa/Montreal. Every other train between Mon/QC could stop in either Drummondville or TR depending if it would take a north or south shore route.

With GO expanding I really don't see the need for other routes. Personally I think VIA should stop running almost every route in the country except The Corridor. I can see bringing in trains like The Ocean during high season but that's it. The only other place in Canada where good rail service makes sense is the one place that it doesn't operate........Edm/RD/Cal corridor. The Vancouver and Montreal trains connecting to the US should be maintained but those are essentially Amtrak trains anyway.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I actually don't see the point of HSR via Kitchener. GO will soon be providing all day / each way service between Kit/Tor so I think it's overkill.

I still think Hamilton would be the best route especially because Hamilton/Aldershot could be a transfer point with a potential HSR line to Niagara/Buffalo where it can connect to an Eastern US system. Win/Lon/Ham/Tor/Mon/QC. Ottawa bound trains could run alternately via Kingston/Ottawa/Montreal. Every other train between Mon/QC could stop in either Drummondville or TR depending if it would take a north or south shore route.

With GO expanding I really don't see the need for other routes. Personally I think VIA should stop running almost every route in the country except The Corridor. I can see bringing in trains like The Ocean during high season but that's it. The only other place in Canada where good rail service makes sense is the one place that it doesn't operate........Edm/RD/Cal corridor. The Vancouver and Montreal trains connecting to the US should be maintained but those are essentially Amtrak trains anyway.

The main purpose of the HSR proposal is to knit together the Waterloo-Toronto high tech corridor, in response to pressure on the Province from the high tech sector. As you note, GO is planning to add trains and there's another VIA train coming (London-Kitchener-Toronto). Unfortunately, unless other improvements are made, GO trains take two hours to go from Kitchener to Union Station and VIA over 90 minutes.

[ssiguy]

I know GO and VIA are slow but if they were to provide express service {as it already owns the track} then Kit to Tor would be quite fast and could still have one intermediate stop at Malton to connect with Pearson. The line will be electrified within 10 years regardless and with regular EMU trains easily cruising at 150km/hr, the trip would be fast and enjoyable.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I actually don't see the point of HSR via Kitchener. GO will soon be providing all day / each way service between Kit/Tor so I think it's overkill.

I still think Hamilton would be the best route especially because Hamilton/Aldershot could be a transfer point with a potential HSR line to Niagara/Buffalo where it can connect to an Eastern US system. Win/Lon/Ham/Tor/Mon/QC. Ottawa bound trains could run alternately via Kingston/Ottawa/Montreal. Every other train between Mon/QC could stop in either Drummondville or TR depending if it would take a north or south shore route.

With GO expanding I really don't see the need for other routes. Personally I think VIA should stop running almost every route in the country except The Corridor. I can see bringing in trains like The Ocean during high season but that's it. The only other place in Canada where good rail service makes sense is the one place that it doesn't operate........Edm/RD/Cal corridor. The Vancouver and Montreal trains connecting to the US should be maintained but those are essentially Amtrak trains anyway.

The point of VIA Rail outside of the corridor is to provide service to remote locations not otherwise accessible by road and to provide service for tourists on the transcontinental run, which is world renowned. I am not sure how eliminating any the remaining train routes can be done and still address those needs.

I am hoping to take the train to Vancouver in a couple of years and it will not be during peak tourist season. This is something every Canadian should do in their lifetime.

Regarding service to Ottawa, it is pointless running alternate trains via Ottawa and direct to Montreal. This delivers nothing beyond what we have today as far as frequency is concerned and requires two routes to be segregated and electrified in Eastern Ontario at additional cost. The point of the project is deliver 15 round trips per day (approx. hourly) serving all three major cities on the corridor compared to 6 to 8 trips currently.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

The main purpose of the HSR proposal is to knit together the Waterloo-Toronto high tech corridor, in response to pressure on the Province from the high tech sector. As you note, GO is planning to add trains and there's another VIA train coming (London-Kitchener-Toronto). Unfortunately, unless other improvements are made, GO trains take two hours to go from Kitchener to Union Station and VIA over 90 minutes.

The whole point of corridor service in general is also to deal with highway congestion.

Those who live out west do not fully understand how big an issue that is becoming and will only get worse in the future. An alternative is needed and improved rail service is probably as cost efficient as its going to get. Road expansion will likely cost even more. Airline service is expensive and cannot serve the 'in between' cities at all.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by casper

I don't think most people in Saskatchewan even know or care about this route.

I'm talking legally, not in practical terms.