Quote:
Originally Posted by FFX-ME
Reality check. You need distance for high speed rail to make a distance
VIA rail speed on dedicated tracks: 177 km/h
French TGV average speed: 250 km/h
and so:
Toronto-Waterloo (c.a. 113 km), time savings: 9 minutes
Toronto-London (c.a. 190 km), time savings: 19 minutes
Toronto-Ottawa (c.a. 400 km), time savings: 40 minutes
Ottawa-Montreal (c.a. 200 km), time savings: 20 minutes
Toronto-Montreal (c.a. 540 km), time savings: 56 minutes
Edmonton-Calgary (c.a. 300 km), time savings: 30 minutes
To even consider the Toronto-Waterloo option is incredibly idiotic. Billions of dollars in investment to build a fancy transit line that will save 10 minutes in travel time. What we need are for VIA rail to get dedicated tracks so they can offer faster service and actually use the speed of their current locomotives. All other investments are purely cosmetic. As you can see, the only area where true high-speed rail would actually be of value are in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor, where you can save about an hour in travel time.
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I think you need to look into the speeds and travel times a little more carefully, unless you are suggesting a dedicated track for Via which would allow them to get up to full speed and removing stops at the same time, in that case your numbers would be a bit closer to reality?
Currently it is about 2 hours London to Toronto with Via, the HSR is expected to come in the 70-75 minute range for the same trip so we are talking a pretty significant time savings of around 40-45 minutes
It would be a game changer for people commuting, it would actually make it feasible for someone to live in London and take the 75 minute train in and out Toronto everyday if needed....certainly would be driving up the 401 for 5 hours a day (which for the record I did for a few years almost 5 days a week).