High Speed Rail in Canada

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by itom 987

There is just as much fantasy going on with HSR as there is with automated cars.

No there isn't, HSR has been in use for decades, it's proven, it's successful and lots of places are building it. Automated cars are going to be a big thing in the future, certainly, but they will be complementary to HSR rather than competing with it.

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by itom 987

There is just as much fantasy going on with HSR as there is with automated cars.

Neither HSR nor self-driving cars are a fantasy, HSR especially is already a reality in much of the world and will be eventually in Canada.

You can already access much of downtown Toronto within walking distance of Union Station, subways and streetcars can help you access much of the inner suburbs from Union as well. Finally, GO train/bus allows you to access most of the GTHA and much of the world using the Airport Express train from Union Station.

From that same Union Station hub, you can access downtown Ottawa and downtown Montreal's central train stations, which allow you to access their respective downtowns on foot or subway. HSR will only make these connections even faster and more convenient. Self-driving cars will make many out of the way places conveniently accessible.

Using the methods above, one can access a third of Canada's population on foot or by VIA Rail. Imagine that, a day trip exploring Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal made even more convenient and efficient! HSR will reduce the time spent travelling aby half.

[jmt18325]

Saying Ottawa's train station is down town might be a bit generous though.

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

Saying Ottawa's train station is down town might be a bit generous though.

A bit generous, but it is still closer to the heart of the city than the Suburbs; and it will be right on the LRT network, and it is close to dense residential areas. You're only 10-15 minutes (or less, I'm not sure what the timings will be) between the station and downtown.

[FFX-ME]

Chris Selley: The political promise and perils of high-speed rail: It’s as expensive to ride as it is to build

High-speed rail is expensive — to build, certainly, and more on that shortly, but just as importantly to ride. It’s 202 kilometres from Le Mans to Gare Montparnasse in Paris. The first TGV of the morning takes 58 minutes — total average speed, 208 km/h — and will set you back €45. It’s 180 kilometres from Frankfurt’s Hauptbanhof to Cologne’s Hauptbanhof. The 7:27 a.m. ICE train takes 65 minutes — average speed: 167 km/h — and Deutsche Bahn wants €60 for the privilege. Brussels to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is 195 kilometres. The Thalys will get you there in 92 minutes tomorrow morning, at a relatively modest average speed of 127 km/h and for the eye-watering sum of €82.

This is the sort of distance Ontario’s Liberal government says it plans to cover with high-speed rail — from Union Station in Toronto to London via Pearson Airport, Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo. A report and “preliminary business case” by former federal transport minister David Collenette, released Friday, envisions 185 kilometres of track with a maximum speed of 300 km/h in one scenario and 250 km/h in the other, and by 2025.

The London-to-Toronto trip would take 66 minutes in the faster scenario and 73 in the slower, for a total average speed of between 152 and 168 km/h. Either would represent genuine high-speed rail, and it would come at genuine high-speed rail prices: somewhere between $4 billion and $11 billion under the 250 km/h scenario; somewhere between $15 billion and $44 billion at 300 km/h.

Collenette based his ridership forecasts on fares of around $55 from Toronto to London and $30 to Kitchener — lower than I would have expected. Politically, this will be of some help to Premier Kathleen Wynne and her sales staff. But I suspect it won’t be enough to keep Ontario’s hordes of naysayers from tearing this to shreds — certainly if it ever starts moving toward actually being built, and maybe even during an election campaign. Politically, never mind technically, there are just so many places to grab hold.

Start with this: the Liberals are selling this as Toronto-to-Windsor project, but London to Windsor is “phase two” — after 2025 — and by rights, it should be dead on arrival. Using a magic calculator, Collenette worked out benefit-over-cost ratios for the various speeds and segments of the Toronto-to-Winsor corridor. The only one where the benefits exceeded the costs was Toronto to London at 250 km/h, and only by a wafer-thin ration of 1.02.

The number for London to Windsor was, ahem, 0.24.

Even if you trust the numbers, in other words, the business case isn’t much to look at — and it’s nothing at all past London. You can just see the attack ads: the GTA gets fancypants trains; the rest of the province gets to pay for them. In the GTA, meanwhile, I suspect the discussion would descend into the same populist mess we saw during the Union-Pearson Express debacle: the one per cent gets fancypants trains, the rest of us get to pay for them.

And similar to the UPX, I’m already hearing people ask who in their right mind would pay $30 to get from Kitchener to Toronto in 48 minutes when, for half the price — theoretically, under the GO RER plan — you can get there in 72. It’s a very Toronto question that I can only answer with another question: Why would people all over the world do it and not us?

There are much cheaper ways to get from Le Mans to Paris and Frankfurt to Cologne and Brussels to Amsterdam; some aren’t even all that much slower. Amtrak’s Acela Express between New York and Washington is about 12 per cent faster than its regular service. It costs almost double, and it’s packed out.

I’m not saying these naysayers are wrong, incidentally. Torontonians are not exactly famous for putting a high value on their time. Green lights are a polite suggestion. In the same conversation your average motorist might bemoan the state of traffic and the parking ticket he got while grabbing coffee during rush hour.

So it’s a bit of a conundrum for the Liberals. This is a big offer — just the sort of thing people in the GTA say they want when they come back from Cologne, Paris and Amsterdam. It ought to be a reasonably compelling plank of an election platform.

But many Ontarians wouldn’t trust the Liberals to see an HO-scale model of this plan to fruition on time or on budget. It’s vulnerable to the sort of grievance-mongering and populism that sometimes makes it hard to tell a New Democrat from a Tory these days. We haven’t even gotten into the technical details. And ultimately, I’m just not really convinced people want this to happen as much as they say they do — not unless it’s free, and stops just the right distance from their back yards.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-commen...s-as-expensive-to-ride-as-it-is-to-build

The chosen route for the HSR is idiotic. To be useful the trains would need to go north, not south, from Toronto.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-commen...s-as-expensive-to-ride-as-it-is-to-build

The chosen route for the HSR is idiotic. To be useful the trains would need to go north, not south, from Toronto.

I'm awaiting HSR to Timmins and Cochrane.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

I'm awaiting HSR to Timmins and Cochrane.

Lol, I meant to Ottawa and Montreal, obviously, not strait north.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by itom 987

Fair enough, at least the Ontario market may be big enough to handle extra options, I can’t say the same for Alberta though.

Nobody's talking seriously about HSR in Alberta yet. And there's no way that happens before Ontario and Quebec, where the business case is more solid.

Originally Posted by itom 987

WRONG The article states 75% of Washington-to-New York traffic. This article is only deals with air and rail traffic, automotive traffic is NOT mentioned in this article for an obvious reason, there is no accurate way tell how many people drive from Washington to New York. Furthermore, that article just proved my point about market splitting making services unviable. What if the airlines invent a new plane that ends up being more efficient than a train? Bye bye HSR and we are left with a scar on the landscape.

As an aerospace engineer, I will personally guarantee you that there's no way to make a plane more efficient than a train. The laws of physics won't allow it. So let's get past that one. There will never be an airplane or car as efficient as a train. Simply put most technological advances that makes a car or plane more efficient will be deployed by rail makers to make their trains more efficient.

And my mistake on reading the stats. You're right that it was modal share of air/rail.

As for this:

From article: Amtrak says that over the past five years, its share of the Washington-New York market has grown to 75 percent, up from 35 percent a little more than a decade ago. Its top producer — Acela — runs near capacity and annually produces $550 million in revenue while spending $360 million.
Given the competition, low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines is eliminating service between Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and two New York metropolitan airports, LaGuardia and Newark.

You mean to say a low margin discount carrier might have a tough time with competition? Ain't it great that we don't have an airline like Southwest in Canada, then. All our airlines will see is a slight drop in profit. And if Pearson airport is right, they'll be able to use the freed up slots to launch more profitable international flights. They'd rather get 300 passengers on a 777 in that landing slot than 100 passengers from Ottawa on that slot. Read up on Pearson's proposed transit hub including high speed rail.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/tor...concept-for-transit-hub/article33931364/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ma...h-pearson-regional-transit-hub-1.4054268

http://www.metrolinx.com/mobilityhubs/en/map/mobility_hubs_map/MHP_Pearson.pdf

They want to reduce local flights to the minimum possible. You want to tell the airport and airline CEOs that you know their business better than them?

Also, you might want to go back and look at New York - Washington DC flights. Still plenty of them. Just not on Southwest.

Moreover, why the heck should our national interests be subordinated to protection of the airlines and their profits. It's in our interest to improve regional connectivity, transport efficiency and reduce costs and carbon emissions (as mandated by government in that last case). Why should all that be sacrificed to protect airline profits?

Originally Posted by itom 987

You just proved my point again. No one uses the road at 2am which makes it great for travelling in a driverless car while you are sleeping. More people travelling at night means fewer people travelling during the day.

No. You proved my point again. None of what you have shown is as comfortable as my own bed, or a hotel bed. And your solution doesn't fulfill the number one desire for most air travelers in the corridor: same day return.

Moreover, your solution will only be allowed under a situation of complete automation. And we're at least 20 years out from that. More likely 30-40 years out. That's an awful long time to pass up on infrastructure development to wait for technology to solve our problems. The economy will choke on traffic in urban areas by then and will require tens of billions in road construction on trunk roads like the 401 in the interim.

Originally Posted by itom 987

We are not talking about today, we are talking about the future. You're challenging me to sleep for a night in a 2017 model car? WTF

I would rather sleep in something more practical like this:

I wouldn’t be surprised if the seats would be able to turn into a bed.

So now, instead of a $100 train ticket, I have to buy a $50 000 automated RV to take a roadtrip? This idea is a sure to take off..... Everyone just has $50k sitting around in savings. This is like arguing we should completely get rid of public transit because everyone can just buy a car instead.

Originally Posted by itom 987

I have travelled by train in China and it was great, I had plenty of room to sleep at night and had a chair with table to sit and watch the scenery go by all day. I didn’t feel like a zombie after 25 hours on the train. Keep in mind that it would be possible to get just as much room in an automated car. I have also ridden on a Chinese sleeper bus. The photo I showed you is a typical Chinese sleeper bus, it looks cramped because it is sized for the average Chinese person, european people are larger. So yeah, it was a little cramped but still more comfortable than sleeping on a plane. It would be very easy to reconfigure for larger people. I have taken transit from Gatwick airport in London to my relatives place after visiting Greece; it was cramped, everyone was stuffed like canned sardines we were carrying our backpacks and there was a handle from a child’s stroller jabbing at my back. One of the worst experiences in transit I ever had.

I'm amazed that you traveled in China and didn't notice that they have the largest High Speed Rail network in the world. Did you go to Venice and only notice the walkways?

Looks to me like this is a lot more comfortable than your sleeper bus and faster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvl1S49Z6MU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUtS8M90Fto

High Speed Rail is simply a massive development in China:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99eVCnaRddc

You should ask the Chinese whether they prefer high speed rail to night buses. I am willing to take a bet on the answer.

Originally Posted by itom 987

This information really wasn't need for this debate but it tells me that you are a student. Students are learning and tend to make mistakes. If you call my arguments 'strawman', then I call your rebuttals swiss cheese.

This student has over a decade and a half in the air force as a pilot and aerospace engineer. Drop your condescending bullshit. I was sent back for a mid-career masters to transition into a job buying advanced systems for the military.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

To be useful the trains would need to go north, not south, from Toronto.

See VIA's High Frequency Rail project. It covers Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal. The provincial proposal is to expand on the GO Kitchener Corridor work so that they can tie in the tech hub (Waterloo) to the financial hub (Toronto) and the aviation hub (Pearson). The extension to London is so that they can save London from suffering economic devastation as manufacturing slowly unwinds there.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by itom 987

I think car share companies will give automated car manufacturers the opportunity to show everyone what automated cars are capable of doing. It is a good way to introduce a new product to market.

They still aren't going to prefer to loan it out for longer periods. Those car share firms want return on assets (the cars). Their ROA will not improve with long haul rentals. It's exactly why Zipcar and the like make it prohibitively expensive to rent for the weekend. Go look at their rates.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

See VIA's High Frequency Rail project. It covers Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal. The provincial proposal is to expand on the GO Kitchener Corridor work so that they can tie in the tech hub (Waterloo) to the financial hub (Toronto) and the aviation hub (Pearson). The extension to London is so that they can save London from suffering economic devastation as manufacturing slowly unwinds there.

But for that network you'd only save about 15 minutes on the travel time from GO. Those connections already exist, making a slightly faster one is just idiotic and a waste of funds.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

But for that network you'd only save about 15 minutes on the travel time from GO. Those connections already exist, making a slightly faster one is just idiotic and a waste of funds.

How do you figure? GO Kitchener to Union Station is two hours. The HSR would bring that down to under one hour.

[MolsonExport]

^which is a game-changer for commuters in search of affordable SFHs.
HSR to London would...transform this moribund city.

[MolsonExport]

Sorry, but every HSR that I have traveled on to date (Japan, Korea, China, France, Holland, Belgium and Italy) has offered bargain-basement prices compared to comparable distance on the snail trains of VIA. It isn't even close. Return trip from Marseille-Lyon was less than 100 Euros, whereas the comparable trip from Toronto-Montreal (return) was at least 3 times this price (with half the comfort and three times slower). There is no bullshit of having to take a taxi way out of town (or paying an arm and a leg for parking...have you ever had to park at Pearson for a few hours?), 2 fucking hours before your flight, security, security, and yet more security; surely security staff, and maybe 30 fucking minutes (or more) waiting on the tarmac ("uuhh, this is your captain speaking.....we have....uhhh, we need to wait to get clearance from the tower to take off...so we will just sit tight and hope to get on our way in 30 minutes or so...thanks for your patience. Mesdames et Messieurs..."). Then more endless slow taxiing (shit this can take 30 goddamn minutes), security, customs, baggage waits on the other end, then getting from timbuktu to downtown....

Like others have said, the train offers the best potential for a comfortable, convenient, rapid, and reasonably-priced intercity journey.

BTW Chinese HSR is fanfuckingtastic.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

But for that network you'd only save about 15 minutes on the travel time from GO. Those connections already exist, making a slightly faster one is just idiotic and a waste of funds.

Chris Selley and you are sort of missing the point here.

Let's start with the times for Kitchener-Union. GO RER: 72 mins. HSR: 48 mins. As per Selley's numbers.

That's a 24 min saving.

Generally speaking, people have a rough limit of travel time. A travel time budget if you will. If your limit is 1.5 hrs. Your radius is basically limited to the area around Union station with GO RER. With HSR? For a given 1.5 hr time, you could switch to the subway at Union and reach any station along Yonge or Spadina or most of the Bloor Danforth. Were you to switch to GO RER and go east? You could reach Oshawa. That 24 mins makes a difference.

Moreover, there's this assumption that it will be a standalone line. With any luck, it will not be the Ontario government doing this. If it gets rolled into VIA's efforts for the Toronto-ottawa-Montreal proposal, you end up with a line that's going through Union, not terminating there. So now, that extra 24 mins means that you will have reached North Durham as a minimum. It also makes the train overall more attractive for long-haul trips like say Kitchener-Ottawa (which would be around 3.3 hrs when you combine both proposals). The train actually becomes competitive with flying when you consider transit and/or pre-boarding times at Pearson.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

How do you figure? GO Kitchener to Union Station is two hours. The HSR would bring that down to under one hour.

I believe the numbers quoted are for GO RER. Which people assume will be faster to Kitchener because electrification does improve acceleration, and they will have trains with limited stops from Kitchener.

Still 1 hr 12 mins is rather optimistic from today.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Sorry, but every HSR that I have traveled on to date (Japan, Korea, China, France, Holland, Belgium and Italy) has offered bargain-basement prices compared to comparable distance on the snail trains of VIA.

VIA's CEO has covered this in their High Frequency Rail proposal. He said that simply speeding up the trains to full speed (160 kph) not high speed (200kph), by building a dedicated passenger rail corridor means that they can get more asset utilization. That means for the same number of trains, and same staff count, they can offer more trips, which in turn means more seats and lower unit costs for those seats.

He foresees trips Toronto-Ottawa fares being competitive with bus services. Of course, they buses get killed if VIA has $50 fares to Ottawa and is 50% less travel time. They are also planning on hourly service. Which means, you don't have necessarily schedule a trip. You should up at the station and get a ticket and board the next train.

http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail/governance-and-reports/dedicated-tracks

A great presentation by VIA CEO to explain the concept:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw7PbIaxjOc&feature=youtu.be&t=4m11s

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol...ng-quebec-ontario-route/article29638997/

VIA is actually being smart here. They are not pushing for a $10 billion high speed rail line which will be fantasy in Canada given Canadian attitudes towards rail investment. They have a plan to improve travel times substantially largely using full conventional speeds (like Acela in the US) at a project cost that can attract institutional investors. Hence, the infrastructure bank:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol...ng-quebec-ontario-route/article29638997/

This is actually happening in the background. Even if most people don't realize it or understand it.

[swimmer_spe]

Let's say you live in Kitchener, or London and you have an important meeting in Ottawa. It is a challenge. Either you have a very long drive, a long train ride, or an annoying multi modal ride. HSR would be fast enough that it would be better than the train due to time, and overall it would be better than flying due to the challenge just to get to the airports.

The real challenge are the construction and operating costs.

[itom 987]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

So now, instead of a $100 train ticket, I have to buy a $50 000 automated RV to take a roadtrip? This idea is a sure to take off..... Everyone just has $50k sitting around in savings. This is like arguing we should completely get rid of public transit because everyone can just buy a car instead.

You are making a black and white statement, and we both know this is not the case.
I never said that transit should be removed but the majority of people in Alberta own a car. I don't know what the ratio would be in Ontario but I am sure it would be similar. The ones that don't are students, seniors or have jobs located by a transit route that is convenient. I took transit from Inglewood to downtown Edmonton 15 years ago. It was convenient for me because I didn't want to pay to park my car downtown.

$50,000 for a new car isn't expensive when you factor in inflation 20 years from now. Even if the automated car cost $50,000 in today's dollars it would be affordable to many. For example, if a family today can afford two $23,000 cars. Then the family in the future can do with one $50,000 (todays dollars) car and share it amongst themselves. How would that work? The father goes to work, then tells the car to go by itself back home to pick up the mother to go where ever she needs to go.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I'm amazed that you traveled in China and didn't notice that they have the largest High Speed Rail network in the world. Did you go to Venice and only notice the walkways?

I went to China for 2 months in 2005, back then the only HSR working was going from the Shanghai Airport into Shanghai. I met a local on the plane that offered to drive me to my hotel, free of charge. So I never had the opportunity to check it out. I did see the elevated track alongside the highway into Shanghai though, it looked very expensive.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You should ask the Chinese whether they prefer high speed rail to night buses. I am willing to take a bet on the answer.

I haven't been to China if 10 years but I wouldn't be surprised if they would prefer HSR to night busses but I won't be surprised either if half of the population can't afford it. The video you showed of a guy demonstrating his HSR business class seat converting into a bed. The bed sizes between HSR and sleeper busses are not that far apart.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Drop your condescending bullshit.

I am willing to drop any condescending bullshit that is coming from me, but I expect you to do the same.

[ssiguy]

I went from Rome to Florence this year a distance of 300km at 250km/hr non-stop for just 25 Euros.