VIA Rail

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

The main difference between intercity rail corridors in Europe and those in Canada is that whereas cities of almost all tiers have highly developped urban, suburban, regional and intercity rail networks which turn their downtown rail termini into buzzing hubs, only Toronto Union offers a remotely comparable connectivity, very unlike Montreal and the cruel joke we call our capital.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The connectivity isn't European levels and will never be. But it's definitely going to be good enough to feed riders to HxR. And that's all that matters to get underway.

I also expect that there will be a suburban stop in both Toronto and Montreal the way there currently is at Dorval and Guildwood which can allow greater space for parking or shorter transit trips for some people. A setup like that wouldn't be hugely different from how people in even the least dense and most car dependent metro areas manage to get to one or a couple airports.

We also don't necessarily need urban rail networks as dense as European cities in general since our roads tend to be wider and straighter allowing for fewer stops and room for more bus/HOV lanes. That means people can travel further on feeder buses to access a rail line in the same amount of time as it would take to access a closer line in some European cities. Obviously we've taken things too far with our small number of very high capacity metro lines in Toronto and Montreal but that's improving. And while bus and HOV lanes pose political hurdles they're also fairly affordable.

[MonctonRad]

What we need is a Canadian solution for Canadian needs. We don't need to emulate Europe. We have vastly different conditions here.

Also, we need to be planning for the future, meaning building now for what we need in 2050.

A Canada in 2050 likely will have much more inconvenient intercity highway travel as a large proportion of personal vehicles by that point will be EV. Unless the charging infrastructure becomes much more comprehensive and efficient, a car trip from Montreal to Toronto will be a real pain in the ass, with breaks needed for recharging at least once along the way in each direction. Imagine a trip from Toronto to Winnipeg through northern Ontario. You would really need to plan ahead for charging stops (especially in the wintertime with decreased battery life).

Air travel will remain the mainstay of long distance routes.
Personal EVs will make do for trips of 300 km or less.

Rail will be necessary for everything else.

- HFR with HSR segments for the Windsor/QC corridor.
- HSR for Calgary/Edmonton
- at least 3x daily intercity rail service on the Halifax/Moncton/Saint John corridor.
- daily long distance trains from Halifax to Montreal (or Toronto)
- daily long distance trains from Toronto/Winnipeg/Edmonton/Vancouver
- daily long distance trains from Winnipeg/Calgary/Vancouver
- 3x daily intercity rail from Saskatoon to Regina.
- other local rail service where deemed appropriate (case by case basis).

Rail will become more important in the latter part of this century due to deficiencies in other modalities. Let's plan now, Is this too much to ask???

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The car obsession is certainly part of it, but there is also a lack of population density. In Europe you are going to encounter a million+ city every 100 km or so from the 60th parallel to the Mediterranean coast.

In most of Europe this just isn't true. Marseilles, for example, is over 300 km from Nice. Even in Germany, one of Europe's most densely populated countries, the big urban regions are pretty much all farther apart than that.

The Windsor-Quebec Corridor, which is home to the majority of Canadians, is on par with most of Europe for population density. Our rail systems will never match theirs but we have the density to support much, much better than we have.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

What we need is a Canadian solution for Canadian needs. We don't need to emulate Europe. We have vastly different conditions here.

Also, we need to be planning for the future, meaning building now for what we need in 2050.

A Canada in 2050 likely will have much more inconvenient intercity highway travel as a large proportion of personal vehicles by that point will be EV. Unless the charging infrastructure becomes much more comprehensive and efficient, a car trip from Montreal to Toronto will be a real pain in the ass, with breaks needed for recharging at least once along the way in each direction. Imagine a trip from Toronto to Winnipeg through northern Ontario. You would really need to plan ahead for charging stops (especially in the wintertime with decreased battery life).

Air travel will remain the mainstay of long distance routes.
Personal EVs will make do for trips of 300 km or less.

Rail will be necessary for everything else.

- HFR with HSR segments for the Windsor/QC corridor.
- HSR for Calgary/Edmonton
- at least 3x daily intercity rail service on the Halifax/Moncton/Saint John corridor.
- daily long distance trains from Halifax to Montreal (or Toronto)
- daily long distance trains from Toronto/Winnipeg/Edmonton/Vancouver
- daily long distance trains from Winnipeg/Calgary/Vancouver
- 3x daily intercity rail from Saskatoon to Regina.
- other local rail service where deemed appropriate (case by case basis).

Rail will become more important in the latter part of this century due to deficiencies in other modalities. Let's plan now, Is this too much to ask???

Without disagreeing that better rail would be a huge advantage in future, Tesla, Hyundai and Lucid already have models that can travel from Toronto to Montreal without needing a charge. There are Chinese vehicles like Nio that can drive 1,000 km without charging (Nio ET7 for example).

If needed on longer trips, charging technology by 2030 (never mind 2050) will be much faster, and wireless EV chargers are also now a thing.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

....A Canada in 2050 likely will have much more inconvenient intercity highway travel as a large proportion of personal vehicles by that point will be EV. Unless the charging infrastructure becomes much more comprehensive and efficient, a car trip from Montreal to Toronto will be a real pain in the ass, with breaks needed for recharging at least once along the way in each direction....

Unless you have a TARDIS or a crystal ball, I don't know how you can justify this statement. That's more than a quarter-century away for a technology that is still relatively young and improving by leaps and bounds year-over-year.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Mister F

In most of Europe this just isn't true. Marseilles, for example, is over 300 km from Nice. Even in Germany, one of Europe's most densely populated countries, the big urban regions are pretty much all farther apart than that.

The Windsor-Quebec Corridor, which is home to the majority of Canadians, is on par with most of Europe for population density. Our rail systems will never match theirs but we have the density to support much, much better than we have.

Are you counting round trips? Marseille and Nice are 160 km apart, 200 by road and they both have closer cities.

Windsor to Quebec City is 1160 km. That would cover all of Western Europe. London to Milan is 1200, for example. Nobody is talking about building a high speed train from London to Milan. It might happen at some point by stitching together other corridors, but that is a very different process.

[ssiguy]

I think the only way Canada will get true HSR in either The Corridor or Edm/Cal is if VIA is NOT involved.

VIA is as much a vote buying political apparatus as it is a rail company. HSR needs a private company that will actually build the system based upon financial viability and not on political advantage. When you have gov't entities building HSR you end up with CHSR with it's massive corruption, endless consultations, environmental reviews that can last decades, routes based upon political expediency, disregard for public funds, and timetables that are endlessly pushed back.

This is quite the opposite of Brightline which is why it's new LA/LV line just started construction and yet will be finished before even the first segment of CHSR line will despite beginning construction 12 years ago.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Are you counting round trips? Marseille and Nice are 160 km apart, 200 by road and they both have closer cities.

Ah sorry I meant Lyon, not Nice. But neither city is within 100 km of another metro area with a million people.

Madrid to Valencia is 360 km. Stockholm to Gothenburg is 470 km. Even London is almost 200 km from Birmingham. Toronto to Ottawa is 400 km. Ottawa to Montreal is 200 km.

Originally Posted by acottawa

Windsor to Quebec City is 1160 km. That would cover all of Western Europe. London to Milan is 1200, for example. Nobody is talking about building a high speed train from London to Milan. It might happen at some point by stitching together other corridors, but that is a very different process.

See now you're moving the goalposts. You were talking about million+ metros being within 100 km of each other throughout Europe. The reality is that most of those distances are similar to the W-C Corridor.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Mister F

See now you're moving the goalposts.

Yep. Throw any excuse at the wall for why Canada is exceptionally bad and that means we should never build anything. No interest in actually solving the problem. NIMBYism of another form. Meanwhile, every year, the Corridor's population grows and it gets a little bit harder to get around.

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Unless you have a TARDIS or a crystal ball, I don't know how you can justify this statement. That's more than a quarter-century away for a technology that is still relatively young and improving by leaps and bounds year-over-year.

The provincial government shares his view. That's why their long term vision is to spend billions 6-laning the 401 over the coming decades. So where is he wrong? But, that won't help in most of the GTA or even in Ottawa and Montreal, where there isn't much room to expand highways anymore.

I am not an EV skeptic, like some others here. And even can I see that EVs and robot cars aren't going to magically fix things to a Corridor growing by 1-2M a decade.

In all these discussions it always seems like people have a really tough time actually imagining what traffic will be like, despite having experienced its growth. 20 years ago, it was possible to get from Mississauga to Ottawa in 5 hours using the 401. Today? That's pushing it. 20 years from now? Zero chance. It's going to be killing our economy to have millions of people sitting in their pods on the road instead of actually getting somewhere.

Will add too, that there's a certain irony to applauding RER as much needed infrastructure development in a region groaning under traffic and then arguing that HxR is unneeded for the very Corridor that includes the region. Apparently traffic doesn't impact you, if you going from Oakville to Ottawa instead of Oshawa.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Ah sorry I meant Lyon, not Nice. But neither city is within 100 km of another metro area with a million people.

Madrid to Valencia is 360 km. Stockholm to Gothenburg is 470 km. Even London is almost 200 km from Birmingham. Toronto to Ottawa is 400 km. Ottawa to Montreal is 200 km.


See now you're moving the goalposts. You were talking about million+ metros being within 100 km of each other throughout Europe. The reality is that most of those distances are similar to the W-C Corridor.

Originally Posted by Mister F

Ah sorry I meant Lyon, not Nice. But neither city is within 100 km of another metro area with a million people.

Madrid to Valencia is 360 km. Stockholm to Gothenburg is 470 km. Even London is almost 200 km from Birmingham. Toronto to Ottawa is 400 km. Ottawa to Montreal is 200 km.


See now you're moving the goalposts. You were talking about million+ metros being within 100 km of each other throughout Europe. The reality is that most of those distances are similar to the W-C Corridor.

Yeah, you can always find exceptions, but in places where high speed rail lines are being built there are usually tightly packed cities around 100 km apart.

Lille is is 85 km from Brussels, which is 42 km from Antwerp, which is 74 km from Rotterdam, which is 55 km from Amsterdam. Brussels is also 178 km from Cologne, which is 24 km from Bonn, 35 km from Dusseldorf, or 150 km from Frankfurt, which is 145 km from Stuttgart, which is 160 km from Zurich, or 170 km from Munich.

South of the Alps, Turin is 120 km from Milan, or 103 km from Genoa or 148 km from Nice. Genoa about 200km from Bologna or Florence. There is a bit bigger gap from Florence to Rome (about 230 km), which is 187 km from Naples.

Also, Gothenburg is 250 km to Oslo and 220 km to Copenhagen.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

....The provincial government shares his view. That's why their long term vision is to spend billions 6-laning the 401 over the coming decades. So where is he wrong? But, that won't help in most of the GTA or even in Ottawa and Montreal, where there isn't much room to expand highways anymore.

I am not an EV skeptic, like some others here. And even can I see that EVs and robot cars aren't going to magically fix things to a Corridor growing by 1-2M a decade....

You've got a valid point about congestion, but that isn't what I was referring to. He asserted that travel would be more difficult because people were driving EVs instead of ICE vehicles, as if a quarter-century would somehow not bring major advancements in range, charging speed and the number of charging stations.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Yeah, you can always find exceptions, but in places where high speed rail lines are being built there are usually tightly packed cities around 100 km apart.

Lille is is 85 km from Brussels, which is 42 km from Antwerp, which is 74 km from Rotterdam, which is 55 km from Amsterdam. Brussels is also 178 km from Cologne, which is 24 km from Bonn, 35 km from Dusseldorf, or 150 km from Frankfurt, which is 145 km from Stuttgart, which is 160 km from Zurich, or 170 km from Munich.

South of the Alps, Turin is 120 km from Milan, or 103 km from Genoa or 148 km from Nice. Genoa about 200km from Bologna or Florence. There is a bit bigger gap from Florence to Rome (about 230 km), which is 187 km from Naples.

Also, Gothenburg is 250 km to Oslo and 220 km to Copenhagen.

I guess I fail to see the difference to Quebec-Windsor then:
Quebec City is 270 km from Montreal, which is 180 km from Ottawa, which is 400 km from Toronto, which is 190 km from London, which is 170 km from Windsor, which is 5 km from Detroit.

Granted, Ottawa-Toronto (and to a lesser extent: QBEC-MTRL) is a bit far, but Paris-Lyon is even further (427 km) and has only one larger city inbetween (Dijon), which happens to match the population of Kingston, Peterborough and Trois-Rivières (~150k)…

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

You've got a valid point about congestion, but that isn't what I was referring to. He asserted that travel would be more difficult because people were driving EVs instead of ICE vehicles, as if a quarter-century would somehow not bring major advancements in range, charging speed and the number of charging stations.

You may be correct that innovation may correct the major problems with charging infrastructure and vehicle range. We'll see.

If we could get range up to 800 km, charging times down to five minutes, and have charging points every 10-15 km along rural and intercity highways, I would remove my reservations about EVs.

TrueNorth's comments regarding congestion however are very valid, and, I remain a proponent for corridor HFR, and for regional intercity rail, even beyond the limits of the corridor.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

You've got a valid point about congestion, but that isn't what I was referring to. He asserted that travel would be more difficult because people were driving EVs instead of ICE vehicles, as if a quarter-century would somehow not bring major advancements in range, charging speed and the number of charging stations.

Missed that. Yes, on that point, he's off. Plenty EVs drive up and down the Corridor easily right now. It's arguably the easiest part of the country to do a long distance trip with an EV. What we need trains for, is to avoid (and relieve) the worsening congestion.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Missed that. Yes, on that point, he's off. Plenty EVs drive up and down the Corridor easily right now. It's arguably the easiest part of the country to do a long distance trip with an EV. What we need trains for, is to avoid (and relieve) the worsening congestion.

Range anxiety is definitely an issue in the outer colonies however. Charging infrastructure even in the larger Maritime cities can be difficult to find. As such, unless your destination is within 250 km or so (reasonable expectation of getting to and from your destination on a single charge), your typical Maritime EV drivers palms would start getting sweaty merely thinking about the drive.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If we could get range up to 800 km, charging times down to five minutes, and have charging points every 10-15 km along rural and intercity highways, I would remove my reservations about EVs.

I'm all for improvements in both battery tech and charger proliferation, but doesn't that seem a bit excessive? I mean, driving on stretches of say, the 401 there only seem to be rest stops with gas stations every 50 km or so and there are plenty of highways I've been on where gas stations aren't every 10-15km. And if the average EV gets an 800km range which is basically the ICE average, that would mostly negate the need for having such frequent chargers.

Of course there's currently always a risk that a charger won't be working or will be occupied, but once EVs are the majority the infrastructure will be given as much priority as gas currently is in that fixing any issues will be a top priority.

Also, with range there are EVs with range of 800km or more now, but they're just high end luxury models. So the technical capability already exists. But I'd personally rather see advances in battery tech focus on getting the current 300-400km average out of smaller, lighter batteries reducing the cost and environmental impact rather than the average range ever increasing. Just seems wasteful to carry around the extra weight to provide multiple times the range most people will need in most situations just for to make a couple fewer stops on the odd longer trip.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Range anxiety is definitely an issue in the outer colonies however. Charging infrastructure even in the larger Maritime cities can be difficult to find. As such, unless your destination is within 250 km or so (reasonable expectation of getting to and from your destination on a single charge), your typical Maritime EV drivers palms would start getting sweaty merely thinking about the drive.

The Maritimes has 5% of the country's population. And a miniscule fraction of global population. They aren't going to driving national policy or design. More to the point, I'm not even sure how the struggles of the Maritimes (wrt EV range anxiety) are relevant to whether we build HSR in the Corridor.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'm all for improvements in both battery tech and charger proliferation, but doesn't that seem a bit excessive? I mean, driving on stretches of say, the 401 there only seem to be rest stops with gas stations every 50 km or so and there are plenty of highways I've been on where gas stations aren't every 10-15km. And if the average EV gets an 800km range which is basically the ICE average, that would mostly negate the need for having such frequent chargers.

Of course there's currently always a risk that a charger won't be working or will be occupied, but once EVs are the majority the infrastructure will be given as much priority as gas currently is in that fixing any issues will be a top priority.

Also, with range there are EVs with range of 800km or more now, but they're just high end luxury models. So the technical capability already exists. But I'd personally rather see advances in battery tech focus on getting the current 300-400km average out of smaller, lighter batteries reducing the cost and environmental impact rather than the average range ever increasing. Just seems wasteful to carry around the extra weight to provide multiple times the range most people will need in most situations just for to make a couple fewer stops on the odd longer trip.

It'sa different topic. But I'll just note that the broad consensus seems to be about 500 km of range. And Tesla seems to building their Supercharger stations about 50-150 kms apart with the longest stretch here being Carleton Place to Peterborough (220 km). And yet, Hwy 7 seems to be quite popular with Teslas despite the gap being so large. I suspect the nav software helps here.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Range anxiety is definitely an issue in the outer colonies however. Charging infrastructure even in the larger Maritime cities can be difficult to find. As such, unless your destination is within 250 km or so (reasonable expectation of getting to and from your destination on a single charge), your typical Maritime EV drivers palms would start getting sweaty merely thinking about the drive.

As I wrote on Groups.io, I invite anyone with “range anxiety” to plot any kind of longer car drive with Tesla’s route planner and to compare how much the travel-and-breaks pattern differs from your normal driving behaviours:

I've plugged Saint John/NB to Montréal into Tesla's route planner, selected the model with the shortest range ("Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive" with 438 km) and it gave me 3 charging stops (10' in Baileyville/ME [i.e. right after the border], 55 minutes in Brewer/ME [i.e. just after Bangor] and 15' in Magog/QC [i.e. just after Sherbrooke). That yields a total travel time (i.e. including the charging stops) of 10 hours for 738 km, thus an average speed of 74 km/h (quite respectable, given that less than half the distance is covered by Highways). And in my personal opinion, anyone planning less than 80 minutes of breaks for a 700+ km drive is quite a maniac...

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

I guess I fail to see the difference to Quebec-Windsor then:
Quebec City is 270 km from Montreal, which is 180 km from Ottawa, which is 400 km from Toronto, which is 190 km from London, which is 170 km from Windsor, which is 5 km from Detroit.

Granted, Ottawa-Toronto (and to a lesser extent: QBEC-MTRL) is a bit far, but Paris-Lyon is even further (427 km) and has only one larger city inbetween (Dijon), which happens to match the population of Kingston, Peterborough and Trois-Rivières (~150k)…

Distance aside. We don't even really need the speeds they have in Europe. I'd argue there's some reasonable service goals that are far cheaper than full HSR.

1) Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal in 4 hrs.

2) Ottawa-Montreal in 1hr 15 mins.

3) Montreal-Trois Rivieres-Quebec City in 2 hrs.

4) Half-hourly departures in each direction.

5) Electrified for cheaper operations and faster acceleration.

Hit that and the service will be plenty competitive with flying while still avoiding all kinds of expensive realignment and grade separation that necessitates higher fares (needed for competitiveness with single occupant driving). I'd argue this is even enough to potentially justify closing Billy Bishop.