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Originally Posted by phone
There's a group pushing to privately expand passenger rail service in Saskatchewan, posing Saskatoon-Prince Albert as the initial route. It sounds like a serious attempt at a business pitch, at the very least. Attempting to demonstrate the benefit to rural Sask, which is essential to getting any project like this off the ground in this province. I wish them all the best.
https://saskreconnect.ca/ |
I'm a train guy, but without seeing ridership estimates I have to think the province would be better served by a revival of the STC's bus service. Without a large enough population, it would be a challenge to run full or even half-full trains with any sort of frequency. Add that the group wants to use CN and CPR trackage, and you have a recipe for slow and infrequent service.
Using busses would be cheaper and more flexible. A 40-person bus would be far easier to fill and much easier to run. You could also easily use alternative routes between the major cities to serve a number of rural communities, For example, you could have three routes between Saskatoon and PA: One straight down 11, one using 12 and 11 to ensure Martensville and Waldheim are served, and one using 41 and 2 to hit Aberdeen and Wakaw. The video also mentioned sustainability. The Canadian railway companies have shown no affinity for electrification, but battery electric buses could totally be used for these routes.
I think Saskatoon to Regina is the only route in the province that could potentially justify an inter-city rail connection. And even then, it would have to clearly beat driving (90 minutes or less?). But this wouldn't serve the rural communities because you'd have to skip most of them to ensure speed of service. And you would probably only run two or three trains in each direction per day, with some additional service on Rider game days.
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haha.
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