I think Via is repeating a number of the mistakes of the California gong show, including running the route through underpopulated areas and not having a clear plan to get the service to the central parts of cities.
The YYC - YYZ plane route runs through unpopulated areas too. Is that route thus a failure? If the intent of a rail line is to service the major population centres, then having the rest of the line run through sparsely populated areas is a good thing, not a bad thing.
You might be right about not having plans to get to the centres of cities, but without funding right now that may be difficult. VIA can't ask the city of Montreal right now to put in accommodations in the tunnel if VIA don't even know if they'll have the money to pay for it, etc. I've probably mischaracterized the situation there, but you get the point. It's kind of chicken and egg - VIA won't be able to start implementing a plan without funding, but those giving funding will expect a much firmer plan than they are able to produce.
In other countries, it would not be a corporation building railways in this way, but a government department with much more spending power and clout. For example, in the UK it would be Network Rail and the Department for Transport that would decide how to most effectively allocate and build rail resources, but in this country it's just piddly little VIA who have no political authority whatsoever.
The YYC - YYZ plane route runs through unpopulated areas too. Is that route thus a failure? If the intent of a rail line is to service the major population centres, then having the rest of the line run through sparsely populated areas is a good thing, not a bad thing.
You might be right about not having plans to get to the centres of cities, but without funding right now that may be difficult. VIA can't ask the city of Montreal right now to put in accommodations in the tunnel if VIA don't even know if they'll have the money to pay for it, etc. I've probably mischaracterized the situation there, but you get the point. It's kind of chicken and egg - VIA won't be able to start implementing a plan without funding, but those giving funding will expect a much firmer plan than they are able to produce.
In other countries, it would not be a corporation building railways in this way, but a government department with much more spending power and clout. For example, in the UK it would be Network Rail and the Department for Transport that would decide how to most effectively allocate and build rail resources, but in this country it's just piddly little VIA who have no political authority whatsoever.
It isn’t a high speed train. For trains travelling at conventional speeds it is not advantageous to bypass significant population centres.
It is not just the tunnel, they don’t have a clear route in and out of Montreal or a plan to get from Agincourt to downtown (or at least one that would align with the cost and time estimates they have provided).
$5B wouldn’t even move the needle. $50B wouldn’t move the needle. For passenger rail to succeed, it would need to match air travel in terms of price and total travel time. That would mean grade separated service through Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto at the very least.
There are already people using VIA even with a significant time penalty over air on those routes, which indicates that there is a market, and AFAIK, the existing line is close to capacity. So it stands to reason that introducing a faster, more reliable, more frequent route there would increase ridership further, even if it still remains faster to fly.
They've tried to build HSR out there, and every time it has failed, which is convenient for those who don't support spending money on anything. But now VIA has come up with a sensible plan that can be built on top of, and it sounds like they are onto a winner, if only they could get funding. It seems insane to me that with a government that came into power with a mandate to fund infrastructure, they won't spend money on something like this.
It's kind of chicken and egg - VIA won't be able to start implementing a plan without funding, but those giving funding will expect a much firmer plan than they are able to produce.
In other countries, it would not be a corporation building railways in this way, but a government department with much more spending power and clout. For example, in the UK it would be Network Rail and the Department for Transport that would decide how to most effectively allocate and build rail resources, but in this country it's just piddly little VIA who have no political authority whatsoever.
That ship sailed a long time ago, as you already mentioned. It's too late to demand exactions from CN or CP.
I think the only opportunities for decent intercity passenger rail in the future are to identify strategic corridors where there's a combination of demand, an unviable freight corridor (usually a short line operator who only runs a handful of trains a week), and the possibility to lever up by selling development rights along the way and using cunning manouevers to convince higher governments to make it easier for you to do so.
FEC's Brightline between Miami and Fort Lauderdale (eventually Orlando) shows how you can pull this off. The obvious objective was to upzone the land that FEC railways owned along a barely used freight line to sell to real estate interests. The promise of frequent passenger rail was the "vehicle" to do so. Once the rail line was built, FEC just turned the operations over to Virgin trains.
I don't know enough about who owns the land adjacent to the underused CP line between Edmonton and Calgary, but that could be a viable strategy there. There seems to be decent real estate potential along the line in places like Inglewood and Old Strathcona, and even in Airdrie and Red Deer.
However, I don't think VIA has this kind of mindset. If they did, they'd probably have gotten more of the HFR proposal off the ground by now.
It isn’t a high speed train. For trains travelling at conventional speeds it is not advantageous to bypass significant population centres.
It is not just the tunnel, they don’t have a clear route in and out of Montreal or a plan to get from Agincourt to downtown (or at least one that would align with the cost and time estimates they have provided).
What would you suggest then? Service on the freight rail lines seems untenable long term, so what other options are there.
You're correct that the final alignment needs to be totally nailed down before the project is fully funded, but I don't think that is reason to write off the entire project at this point.
That ship sailed a long time ago, as you already mentioned. It's too late to demand exactions from CN or CP.
I think the only opportunities for decent intercity passenger rail in the future are to identify strategic corridors where there's a combination of demand, an unviable freight corridor (usually a short line operator who only runs a handful of trains a week), and the possibility to lever up by selling development rights along the way and using cunning manouevers to convince higher governments to make it easier for you to do so.
FEC's Brightline between Miami and Fort Lauderdale (eventually Orlando) shows how you can pull this off. The obvious objective was to upzone the land that FEC railways owned along a barely used freight line to sell to real estate interests. The promise of frequent passenger rail was the "vehicle" to do so. Once the rail line was built, FEC just turned the operations over to Virgin trains.
I don't know enough about who owns the land adjacent to the underused CP line between Edmonton and Calgary, but that could be a viable strategy there. There seems to be decent real estate potential along the line in places like Inglewood and Old Strathcona, and even in Airdrie and Red Deer.
However, I don't think VIA has this kind of mindset. If they did, they'd probably have gotten more of the HFR proposal off the ground by now.
I totally agree. Unfortunately even where passenger rail owning lines does exist, it's still a hodgepodge of different operators. In Ontario/Quebec it would simplify things if instead of exo/GO/VIA etc operating the infrastructure, one body could accommodate running the infrastructure for all of them. It doesn't matter as much right now where passenger rail service is still extremely limited, but as these service develop then things will get increasingly complex with operators running on each other's lines.
As for Calgary, IMO the most likely start point could be either commuter rail between Airdrie and Calgary and towards Banff. But even that is a long shot. 'Apparently' the business case for an HSR line between Calgary and Edmonton is positive, but I am extremely skeptical of that, and unless we get one final massive oil boom, I doubt there is going to be any political will here to invest any money in anything.
There are already people using VIA even with a significant time penalty over air on those routes, which indicates that there is a market, and AFAIK, the existing line is close to capacity. So it stands to reason that introducing a faster, more reliable, more frequent route there would increase ridership further, even if it still remains faster to fly.
They've tried to build HSR out there, and every time it has failed, which is convenient for those who don't support spending money on anything. But now VIA has come up with a sensible plan that can be built on top of, and it sounds like they are onto a winner, if only they could get funding. It seems insane to me that with a government that came into power with a mandate to fund infrastructure, they won't spend money on something like this.
How many orders of magnitude higher is air travel between city pairs in Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal then VIA? If VIA is at capacity that is because its capacity is laughably small. The only advantage rail could offer over air travel is end points near the city center. That would blow the budget right there. Toronto can’t even come up with several billion for the relatively short DRL. Building a dedicated VIA right of way to Union would cost many billions more.
No way is the business case even remotely positive for any route in Alberta. Say one way Calgary to Edmonton were $100. A $10B capital cost would require ~4M trips per year (11K per day) simply to cover financing. An extra lane on highway 2 would cost far less and also benefit commercial and through traffic.
What would you suggest then? Service on the freight rail lines seems untenable long term, so what other options are there.
You're correct that the final alignment needs to be totally nailed down before the project is fully funded, but I don't think that is reason to write off the entire project at this point.
I would like to see a feasibility study from a reputable third party that would come up with realistic cost and speed estimates. Via and the feds have been treating this proposal like the Manhattan Project.
How many orders of magnitude higher is air travel between city pairs in Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal then VIA? If VIA is at capacity that is because its capacity is laughably small. The only advantage rail could offer over air travel is end points near the city center. That would blow the budget right there. Toronto can’t even come up with several billion for the relatively short DRL. Building a dedicated VIA right of way to Union would cost many billions more.
VIA have a plan and a budget for improving intercity rail between the major cities of central Canada, and it is not close to your imaginary numbers. No, it will not be HSR, but it is not intended to be at this point, they are quite aware that their capacity is laughably small, which is why they want to fix it! And you criticise them for that?
VIA can't win in this country. If they propose HSR, the cost is too high and the idea gets panned as pie in the sky. But when they propose a sensible, modest proposal, that gets panned too for not being high speed rail. Should we just abandon VIA and any hopes of efficient intercity transport completely?
I would like to see a feasibility study from a reputable third party that would come up with realistic cost and speed estimates. Via and the feds have been treating this proposal like the Manhattan Project.
I can't speak for the secrecy of the project, but the last thing we need is more studies. We need action, Canada is literally a hundred years behind other countries when it comes to passenger rail transportation.
I can't speak for the secrecy of the project, but the last thing we need is more studies. We need action, Canada is literally a hundred years behind other countries when it comes to passenger rail transportation.
So what? Just because their implementation failed does not mean every rail project in the universe will now fail also.
It wasn’t an implementation problem, it was a rush to start construction before a well thought out plan was in place that was properly vetted, which is also what you seem to be advocating for.
There are already people using VIA even with a significant time penalty over air on those routes, which indicates that there is a market, and AFAIK, the existing line is close to capacity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
No, it will not be HSR, but it is not intended to be at this point, they are quite aware that their capacity is laughably small ...
Sorry to jump into the middle of a conversation, neither the railway or major stations would object if VIA trains doubled in length.
Frequency and speed are definitely limited by the railways; but not capacity at this time. Capacity is restricted by VIA (and their rolling stock) presumably to keep cost recovery reasonable (not flood the routes with hundreds of Escape fare tickets).
Firstly, there is no such thing as property rights, it's a fictional concept. I'm not saying that as a naive socialist, it's just a fact.
I’m not sure what purely technical nitpicking you are trying to make, but the mere existence of an Expropriation Act is a very unsubtle hint that Canadian law of course recognizes and generally protects property rights...
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
I think Via is repeating a number of the mistakes of the California gong show, including running the route through underpopulated areas and not having a clear plan to get the service to the central parts of cities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
It isn’t a high speed train. For trains travelling at conventional speeds it is not advantageous to bypass significant population centres.
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
I would like to see a feasibility study from a reputable third party that would come up with realistic cost and speed estimates. Via and the feds have been treating this proposal like the Manhattan Project.
VIA Rail currently serves 12 different population centers between Toronto and Quebec with a combined population of 13,026,019, but, yeah right, letting 8 population centers of a combined population of 874,973 (or 6.7% of the total count) continue to be served by conventional intercity trains while instead adding 2 population centers of 277,763 onto the HFR route (for a total population figure of 12,428,809 or 95.4% of the current figure) will of course destroy any chance that a business case for HFR could be viable…^^
Compiled with Census 2016 data from: Statistics Canada
If this is the depth and dependability of analysis you apply to already ridiculously accessible data sources, I’m not sure what insights you are hoping to derive from being granted access to the various professional engineering and demand forecasting studies which have been or are currently conducted for HFR…
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
It is not just the tunnel, they don’t have a clear route in and out of Montreal or a plan to get from Agincourt to downtown (or at least one that would align with the cost and time estimates they have provided).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug
How many orders of magnitude higher is air travel between city pairs in Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal then VIA? If VIA is at capacity that is because its capacity is laughably small. The only advantage rail could offer over air travel is end points near the city center. That would blow the budget right there. Toronto can’t even come up with several billion for the relatively short DRL. Building a dedicated VIA right of way to Union would cost many billions more.
You don’t seem to grasp that “dedicated tracks” means tracks for the exclusive use of passenger trains, not just of VIA trains. Also, the main competitor of HSR is the airplane, whereas the travel times and price points of intercity trains are most competitive against driving and taking the coach…
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
It wasn’t an implementation problem, it was a rush to start construction before a well thought out plan was in place that was properly vetted, which is also what you seem to be advocating for.
You are missing the root cause which makes cost control impossible: the requirements written into Proposition 1A, which tied the approval of a bond over $9.95 billion to insanely expensive requirements, as excellently summarized on Wikipedia (i.e. again a ridiculously accessible source):
Quote:
According to Proposition 1A, the train must be electric and capable of a sustained operating speed of no less than 200 miles per hour (320 km/h). There are also a number of travel time benchmarks. The important benchmarks applicable to Phase 1 of the project are:
(1) a maximum nonstop travel time between San Francisco and San Jose of 30 minutes, and
(2) a maximum nonstop travel time between San Jose and Los Angeles of 2 hours and 10 minutes. (Thus, a nonstop time from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2 hours and 40 minutes.)
In addition, the time between successive trains must be less than 5 minutes.
Maximum nonstop travel times for each corridor must not exceed the following times, according to Proposition 1A:
1. San Francisco - Los Angeles Union Station: 2 hours, 40 minutes
2. Oakland - Los Angeles Union Station: 2 hours, 40 minutes
3. San Francisco - San Jose: 30 minutes
4. San Jose - Los Angeles: 2 hours, 10 minutes
5. San Diego - Los Angeles: 1 hour, 20 minutes
6. Inland Empire - Los Angeles: 30 minutes
7. Sacramento - Los Angeles: 2 hours, 20 minutes
There have been some comments by critics (such as the Due Diligence Report (2008)) that the proposed system will not meet the Proposition 1A requirement of downtown San Francisco to Los Angeles travel time of 2 hours and 40 minutes.
The Authority's plan is close to the requirement, but does push the limits of conventional HSR speed.
• San Francisco to San Jose nonstop over the blended-system trackage at 102 miles per hour (164 km/h) for (51 miles (82 km)) = 30 min. (note 30 min. is the maximum allowed).
• San Jose to Los Angeles nonstop at 220 miles per hour (350 km/h) for (417 miles (671 km) or 437 miles (703 km)) = 1 hr. 54 min. or 1 hr. 59 min. (note 2 hr. 10 min. is the maximum allowed). Even at a slower 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) the times would be 2 hrs. 5 min. or 2 hrs. 11 min. (Note: since the final SF-LA route has not been adopted, the route length will be between the two numbers given.)
Both the Due Diligence Report (2008) and Updated Due Diligence Report (2013) state that no existing high-speed system currently meets the proposed operation speed and safety goals. It notes that the highest cruising HSR speed in the world on production runs is about 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) in France, and this is significantly less than the sustained speed of 220 miles per hour (350 km/h) the CHSRA plan requires. They also note safety concerns in running at top speed through highly populated urban areas such as Fresno. For three years Chinese HSR trains ran at 217 miles per hour (349 km/h), but the speeds were reduced due to safety concerns and – mostly – costs. In fact a Siemens Velaro trainset without any modifications has posted a speed record well in excess of 400 kilometres per hour (250 mph), though economic considerations keep them limited to 320 kilometres per hour (200 mph) in revenue service. The French AlstomTGV Duplex is also able to sustain speeds of 360 km/h, as have shown several days of testing in 2008, not to mention all new TGV speed lines designed for 320 km/h are tested at the speed of 352 km/h (commercial speed + 10%) by TGVs.
The current trainset specification requires the capability of sustained speeds of 220 miles per hour (350 km/h). So, ultimately it is up to the trainset manufacturers to meet the Authority's speed requirement, since the proposed route and speed do meet the Proposition 1A requirements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbt
Frequency and speed are definitely limited by the railways; but not capacity at this time. Capacity is restricted by VIA (and their rolling stock) presumably to keep cost recovery reasonable (not flood the routes with hundreds of Escape fare tickets).
Given that the marginal cost of transporting an additional passenger is significantly lower than the price of an Escape ticket, there is no incentive to artificially restrict the number of passengers transported. The chief limiting factor in the seat capacity of any passenger railroad is the number (and availability) of passenger cars in its fleet…
Last edited by Urban_Sky; Mar 25, 2019 at 4:45 AM.
The amount of capital required to build efficient passenger rail in Canada would be enormous, well beyond the capacity of even the federal government. The cost of California high speed rail is over $70B and counting. Building something similar in even the Quebec-Windsor corridor would cost more due to more extreme weather and longer distance, and have less ridership potential due to less population and a less productive economy.
Only a fool would be willing to increase federal debt by say 25% for something as marginal as intercity passenger rail.
Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
Luckily, most of the serious posters in this thread have not proposed doing such. VIA rail's HFR proposal is what, $5B, something like that? So even if that was entirely funded through debt, it would be 0.35% of it. But it won't be entirely funded by debt, and investment in infrastructure improves productivity so the country will almost certainly come out ahead.
California's HSR has obviously been an epic failure, but there is no need to repeat that in Ontario. The failures would have been easy to predict, although perhaps still hard to avoid. It's always NIMBYs, on any project, that cause the big cost increases.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug
$5B wouldn’t even move the needle. $50B wouldn’t move the needle. For passenger rail to succeed, it would need to match air travel in terms of price and total travel time. That would mean grade separated service through Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto at the very least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
VIA have a plan and a budget for improving intercity rail between the major cities of central Canada, and it is not close to your imaginary numbers. No, it will not be HSR, but it is not intended to be at this point, they are quite aware that their capacity is laughably small, which is why they want to fix it! And you criticise them for that?
VIA can't win in this country. If they propose HSR, the cost is too high and the idea gets panned as pie in the sky. But when they propose a sensible, modest proposal, that gets panned too for not being high speed rail. Should we just abandon VIA and any hopes of efficient intercity transport completely?
Let me ask it a different way:
What is stopping VIA from having once a day each way train service to all major cities in this country that still has rail to it?
Why does the government not want to resolve it?
I am not suggesting HSR, or even HFR.
I am suggesting a train with some passenger cars chugging along at track speed stopping at the major stops. Let it grow naturally. Add more cars/trips as is needed.
Really, except for a few places, in Canada we do not need HSR or HFR, we need a reliable means to travel.
Given that the marginal cost of transporting an additional passenger is significantly lower than the price of an Escape ticket, there is no incentive to artificially restrict the number of passengers transported. The chief limiting factor in the seat capacity of any passenger railroad is the number (and availability) of passenger cars in its fleet…
Indeed, operations is low but capital cost isn't. If VIA thought they could fund fleet expansion from the increased ticket revenue (capital from current in some form), I hope they would have done that a long time ago; Harper would have been more than agreeable to that.
Let me ask it a different way:
What is stopping VIA from having once a day each way train service to all major cities in this country that still has rail to it?
Why does the government not want to resolve it?.
Indeed, operations is low but capital cost isn't. If VIA thought they could fund fleet expansion from the increased ticket revenue (capital from current in some form), I hope they would have done that a long time ago; Harper would have been more than agreeable to that.
Okay, I take that VIA only operates passenger cars (even Business ones) which date back to the 1940s because they were too lazy to ask the previous government for a new fleet...^^
Quote:
Originally Posted by J81
Equipment! And lack thereof!
To volunteer other valid reasons:
Funding! And lack thereof!
Mandate! And lack thereof!
Let me ask it a different way:
What is stopping VIA from having once a day each way train service to all major cities in this country that still has rail to it?
Because:
Quote:
Originally Posted by swimmer_spe
Why does the government not want to resolve it?
I am not suggesting HSR, or even HFR.
I am suggesting a train with some passenger cars chugging along at track speed stopping at the major stops. Let it grow naturally. Add more cars/trips as is needed.
Really, except for a few places, in Canada we do not need HSR or HFR,we need a reliable means to travel.
Unless only a rail and no road exists between those cities, at low ridership levels a bus will offer far better service at much lower cost. Forcing VIA to serve these places with a highly expensive train will only drain money from that available to service the routes where the ridership justifies a train.
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