For the record, I think Calgary-Edmonton could be a viable corridor, but I don't think it's clearly a better one than Montreal-Quebec City.
I agree. I even said that:
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Originally Posted by roger1818
I agree it would be weaker, but I don't think it would be weak.
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Originally Posted by Acajack
Even outside of the cities, southern Quebec is more populated than the main Alberta corridor overall, and almost certainly has more population in closer proximity in other jurisdictions that might provide some "gravy" ridership for the train as well.
Is southern Quebec north of the St. Laurence (along the proposed HFR corridor) significantly more populated? Looking on Google Maps, east of Repentigny looks to be mostly farm land to me. There are few bridges across the St. Laurence, so you can't count on those who live south of the river. Not saying the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is any more populated (it also has lots of farm land), though it doesn't have a massive river limiting access.
For the record, I think Calgary-Edmonton could be a viable corridor, but I don't think it's clearly a better one than Montreal-Quebec City.
Neither Quebec nor Alberta should wait around for VIA to initiate a frequent rail project, because that's like waiting for Godot.
If the provinces are serious about intercity rail within the province, they should operate these services themselves.
Under the Wynne government, Metrolinx began buying up trackage and incrementally expanding its service. Some of the best opportunities for intercity rail were actually on routes owned by short line operators that hardly used their tracks. They seemed happy to sell.
It's moving very slowly, the network isn't close to being complete and nobody knows the fate of some of these projects under Doug Ford, but Metrolinx will, at least at some point in the future, be able to run frequent service on tracks that it owns between places like Toronto and Kitchener and, hopefully, Toronto and Niagara.
Neither Quebec nor Alberta should wait around for VIA to initiate a frequent rail project, because that's like waiting for Godot.
If the provinces are serious about intercity rail within the province, they should operate these services themselves.
Under the Wynne government, Metrolinx began buying up trackage and incrementally expanding its service. Some of the best opportunities for intercity rail were actually on routes owned by short line operators that hardly used their tracks. They seemed happy to sell.
It's moving very slowly, the network isn't close to being complete and nobody knows the fate of some of these projects under Doug Ford, but Metrolinx will, at least at some point in the future, be able to run frequent service on tracks that it owns between places like Toronto and Kitchener and, hopefully, Toronto and Niagara.
I do agree, but the track that would be best for a Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton line is owned by the CPR, though it is a branchline (see OpenRailwayMap).
The CPR might be willing to sell the track with an appropriate deal for them to maintain access rights. That way they loose the responsibility of having to maintain the track and will benefit from any upgrades that are done to it. OTOH, they then loose control as to when they can run trains, but that might not be too big a deal, depending how much they use it.
Regarding Quebec, I expect they are happy to let the feds trip over themselves to buy votes and spend their money elsewhere. For that reason, I think VIA's Dedicated Tracks plan has hope. With it being an election year, I wouldn't be surprised if the Liberals approve funding for the plan when the timing is right.
But given that the CP line is only a secondary line in the CP network, maximum track speeds are unlikely to exceed 50 mph (80 km/h), which makes such a service at least a full hour slower than by driving (3 hours for 300 km, according to Google Maps).
I was thinking more about this comment and am curious why you say 50 mph? There are no standard classes of track with a limit of 50 mph for passenger trains. See Subpart A - Classes of Track
While Class 2 track has a maximum speed of 30 mph and would definitely be too slow, Class 3 track has a maximum speed of 60 mph (about 95 km/h). If it is Class 3, it would still be slower than driving, but much closer than you were saying and, given that trains are a much more comfortable way to travel, it could still draw a lot of riders.
Later upgrading key segments to Class 4 (80 mph) or better yet, Class 5 (95 mph) would close the gap and make the train very competitive to driving.
Neither Quebec nor Alberta should wait around for VIA to initiate a frequent rail project, because that's like waiting for Godot.
In Halifax the city wants to start up commuter rail again, but CN owns all of the track, which is still used for freight, and VIA claims to be the best option to operate the service. It's been 3 years of negotiation since VIA came onto the scene. CN has insisted that meetings with the city up to this point be held in camera so it's hard to know if meaningful progress is being made.
The project potentially involves funding from 3 levels of government plus CN and VIA. Even if it were a profitable no-brainer type project it would take years and year to get off the ground because there are 5 different bureaucracies involved.
Another problem in Halifax shared by a lot of cities is that there is no equivalent of the MBTA or TransLink. Instead there's Halifax Transit (essentially views itself as providing a bus/ferry service that would compete with VIA-operated commuter rail), the NS Department of Transportation (really NS department of highway construction), and the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission (which only builds and maintains bridges and supports itself through tolls). It's kind of a mess.
Neither Quebec nor Alberta should wait around for VIA to initiate a frequent rail project, because that's like waiting for Godot.
I'd wait for Gadot.
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What other destinations do you think could have sufficient demand for rail service? Lethbridge is only slightly larger than Red Deer and hardly justifiable as a destination. They might be able to run trains to Banff and Lake Louise, but demand would be very seasonal and hard to justify.
Buses would be a better option, and having those integrated with a rail service could create some synergy to drive demand for both.
It's not really that I don't think Calgary - Edmonton would be a viable service, I think it would be given time and significant investment. I just think there may be smaller investments we could make that would be politically easier and would have a faster return. Starting from zero and building a good passenger rail line between the two cities would require massive investment and could end up being a political issue, guaranteeing it ends up being delayed and even more controversial.
We haven't seen many good numbers on any of this, but my guess is that a Banff - Calgary line and a Calgary - Airdrie line would require the smallest amount of investment for a good return, although it would still be a lot of money. If we can build something like that, and it's successful, incrementally adding to it will be a much easier sell, IMO.
I agree with hipster duck too that if we're to do this, it should be pushed by Alberta or it will never happen. And that makes sense anyway, it's wholly within the province.
In this country, never ever will HSR get built. Not in a trillion years.
Where did this come from? No one on this thread is proposing that VIA build HSR (at least not recently). Having said that, the only way we will see HSR is by taking baby steps. The problem in the past has been we have taken an all or nothing approach, asking for tens of billions of dollars, just because.
That's what I like about the Dedicated Tracks (or HFR) plan. It will provide significant improvement over the status quo but cost much less than HSR (1/3 the cost and 2/3 the benefits). Once VIA owns their own track, for the vast majority of the route, they can look at upgrading the sections that will provide the biggest bang for the buck.
I find it strange that most of the opponents to HFR think VIA should take the "Insanity Approach" and put forward the same HSR proposal over and over again and expect a different result.
Is southern Quebec north of the St. Laurence (along the proposed HFR corridor) significantly more populated? Looking on Google Maps, east of Repentigny looks to be mostly farm land to me. There are few bridges across the St. Laurence, so you can't count on those who live south of the river. Not saying the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is any more populated (it also has lots of farm land), though it doesn't have a massive river limiting access.
The thing is that if the HFR can do Trois-Rivières to downtown Montréal in 1h, Trois-Rivières could become another Montréal suburb, or a suburb of Quebec City, or both. Joliette would be the loser in this case.
The thing is that if the HFR can do Trois-Rivières to downtown Montréal in 1h, Trois-Rivières could become another Montréal suburb, or a suburb of Quebec City, or both. Joliette would be the loser in this case.
I agree. The same could be said about Red Deer to Edmonton and Calgary with HFR in Alberta.
The thing is that if the HFR can do Trois-Rivières to downtown Montréal in 1h, Trois-Rivières could become another Montréal suburb, or a suburb of Quebec City, or both. Joliette would be the loser in this case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by roger1818
I agree. The same could be said about Red Deer to Edmonton and Calgary with HFR in Alberta.
Depends what it would cost. HSR systems usually carry a significant price premium.
My apologies in advance for a very long post, it’s just that there have been so many posts during the last week, which deserve a response:
#1
Quote:
Originally Posted by roger1818
It is less an issue of frequency and more an issue of reliability. The Canadian frequently runs 6 - 12 hours late and can be as much as 24 hours late. That is the problem with having one, long route instead of having several shorter routes. Delays early on get propagated down the line with little opportunity to catch up.
I was 17 and 21 hours delayed when I took the Canadian with my wife back in early summer 2015 and I received about a dozen email updates from our Operations Control Center when the Canadian gets very late (The arrival of train 2 scheduled for Wednesday arrived more than 30 hours late), I’m therefore painfully aware of the degree of travel time unreliability our passengers have to put up with…
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The other issue is the time of day the train runs through the community. Having your one train run through your community in the middle of the night is not providing "adequate" service.
Agreed, but neither is having to change the train 5 times and spending as many nights in the Hotel for simply travelling from Collins to Vancouver…
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I don't see the upgrades needed for HFR service for Calgary/Red Deer/Edmonton costing any more than the Montreal/Trois-Rivières/Quebec City HFR service. The distances are similar as are the track upgrades. It is true that Montreal is a significantly larger city, but Calgary and Edmonton are significantly larger than Quebec City and Red Deer is about 2/3 the size of Trois-Rivières.
The projected cost for HFR is $4 billion for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec or $4.65 million per km for a route of which a large chunk is already operated by passenger trains and at speeds of up to 100 mph, with a considerable portion (Coteau-Ottawa-Smiths Falls) even being already owned by VIA (and with CN currently abandoning its trackage rights). Calgary to South Edmonton (Strathcona) is 307 km, which would translate to $1.43 billion.
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I am not saying that an Alberta HFR service should take priority over the proposed Quebec service, but it is worth a second look.
I’m convinced that should HFR be remotely as successful as I believe that it will be, then Calgary-Edmonton would be the logical second corridor to roll HFR out, which is why Western Canadians might want to keep their fingers crossed for HFR – it’s their best chance in restoring intercity passenger rail service which actually deserves that name…
#2
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Originally Posted by milomilo
I'm interested in this, could you expand? This sounds somewhat similar to the UK model with companies running the operations, but the government deciding most of the overall strategy.
I think I agree with you that there should be a national ticketing system, but that any buses etc would not necessarily have to be run by VIA, and indeed it may be best to have them separate. As long as someone can buy one ticket with the different legs clearly described with how long they will take (and the guarantee that if the train is late they won't get financially penalized for a late connection), that would be a huge improvement.
The decision whether a route is better served by one mode or the other should neither depend on nor fuel intra-organisational conflicts like between different unions. Also, a franchise system allows to draw in private competitors, which may provide more service and/or demand less subsidy. In Southern Germany for instance, the “Bayrische Eisenbahngesellschaft” has managed to extract much increased services while keeping the subsidy constant thanks to intelligent franchising.
#3
Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
The investment might be the same, or less even, but the benefit will be far less, so the business case will be weak.
That's not to say I don't think an extensive passenger rail network in Alberta could be viable, but it would take many years to develop given we are starting at virtually nothing. If anyone is going to build passenger rail in Alberta, I would hope they look at the whole province and find a line with the very best business case and build that first. If it's a success, we can build more, but if it's a failure then we never will, so it is critical that the business case is good.
Exactly! It’s the same as with HFR: “This is probably your only chance, so don’t blow it!”
#4
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Originally Posted by Taeolas
The solution is to maintain the Canadian as the Tourist-focused "Land Cruise" through western Canada, while setting up more regular sublines to connect the Prairie cities.
The Canadian would benefit from the improved reliability of the daughter routes with such a plan, and we would finally start seeing a bit of a train passenger network linking the Prairie and BC populations.
You call for substituting the passenger group which is the most insensitive to long travel times and low punctuality (tourists) through one which is much more sensitive, while you cannot improve either defect to a point where intercity passenger rail would become competitive against other modes in Western Canada…
#5
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Originally Posted by esquire
The pricy land cruise subsidizes the regional transportation, as limited as it might be in its usefulness. If you add a series of local trains with a bunch of short distance travellers on cheap tickets, it would start getting expensive as you require equipment and staff to run those trains.
Exactly! The back-of-the-envelop calculation I provided in one of my previous posts suggests that running a “remote” Capreol-Winnipeg service would already require a subsidy of $18.3 million (or almost half the Canadian’s entire subsidy of $41.2 million in 2017)…
[This post continues below]
Last edited by Urban_Sky; Feb 24, 2019 at 2:00 PM.
Reason: Split post to facilitate quoting
[..]
The big problem is station infrastructure. Both Montreal and Quebec still have stations that are actively being used. Calgary's no longer has an active station, and Edmonton's is in the north end of the city, and not appropriate for intercity use, so they would have to build a new, south station (possibly use Strathcona Station?). Neither Trois-Rivières nor Red Deer have active train stations, so they are equal.
Exactly, the absence of station infrastructure which would be suitably integrated into the respective cities’ light rail networks is the elephant in the room, especially if you have to terminate at Strathcona (Grandin station would be the only possible interchange station, but at the cost of building a terminus station at extremely restricted space and repurposing the High Level Bridge for Heavy Rail)…
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Buses would be a better option, and having those integrated with a rail service could create some synergy to drive demand for both.
Absolutely! This is what Amtrak does in absence of a national intercity bus agency…
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If done right you wouldn't loose the tourists. As you said, the tourists aren't in a rush, and most would love to be able to spend more time in cities along the way. The current schedule doesn't allow that. VIA could work with tour operators to allow seamless connections. For example, porters could give the luggage to the tour operator so that it arrives in the passenger's hotel room and is later put back on the train. This would then help stimulate the local economies of the transfer cities, as currently most just stay on the train. Those who do get off, don't venture very far afield and don't have many opportunities to spend money.
Some legs, like Toronto-Winnipeg would likely need to retain overnight service, but others (like Winnipeg-Saskatoon and Saskatoon-Edmonton) could run as daytime trains, which are considerably cheaper to operate. Those operational savings would easily offset the additional cost of hotels for tourists.
One option (westbound) would be:
Day 1&2 - Toronto-Winnipeg,
Overnight in Winnipeg
Day 3 - Winnipeg-Saskatoon
Overnight in Saskatoon
Day 4 Saskatoon-Edmonton
Overnight in Edmonton
Day 5&6 Edmonton-Vancouver*
*Edmonton-Vancouver could also be split, but daylight service is already offered by the Rocky Mountaineer, and they might complain about a VIA competing with them with subsidized service.
The total trip would be two days longer, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. There could also be options for longer stays in the cities by having more frequent daytime service in the prairies.
You seem to believe that the monetary budget is the only constraint tourists have. However, time is the constraint you seem to completely neglect. So why haven’t I taken the Canadian again during the last four years, despite the very generous discounts we employees enjoy? Because vacation days are not for free for people who haven’t retired yet. Giving passengers the choice to spend any increment of 24 hours at any city served along the route (as Amtrak does, thanks to its ability to offer daily service on almost all its long-distance routes) is a feature, while forcing passengers to waste increments of half-days in cities they have no intention of visiting is clearly a bug, which basically turns a “rail cruise” experience to that of a hitchhiking backpacker and deprives Canadians with an aversion against flying from the only practical alternative for traveling across the country…
#7
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Originally Posted by Ottawaresident
is that a thing? Does anyone know anyone who lives or work in downtown Ottawa?
VIA has an office less than 10 minutes walk from the parliament and most of the people I ever visited in Ottawa lived north of the 417 Highway, west of the Rideau canal and east of Tunney’s Pasture…
#8
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Originally Posted by hipster duck
Neither Quebec nor Alberta should wait around for VIA to initiate a frequent rail project, because that's like waiting for Godot.
[…]
Regardless of whether you would prefer to wait for Godot or Gadot, in the case of Quebec, HFR and VIAFast are only the two most recent VIA initiatives for frequent rail you seem to ignore…
#9
Quote:
Originally Posted by roger1818
I do agree, but the track that would be best for a Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton line is owned by the CPR, though it is a branchline (see OpenRailwayMap).
The CPR might be willing to sell the track with an appropriate deal for them to maintain access rights. That way they loose the responsibility of having to maintain the track and will benefit from any upgrades that are done to it. OTOH, they then loose control as to when they can run trains, but that might not be too big a deal, depending how much they use it.
I suggest to browse along CP’s Calgary-Edmonton line on RAC’s excellent rail map to appreciate the volume of active freight rail terminals, freight spurs and branch lines, all of which suggests that the rail freight volume along this corridor (and thus its importance within CP’s national network) is orders of magnitudes higher than in the areas around Ottawa or Peterborough…
#10
Quote:
Originally Posted by roger1818
I was thinking more about this comment and am curious why you say 50 mph? There are no standard classes of track with a limit of 50 mph for passenger trains. See Subpart A - Classes of Track
While Class 2 track has a maximum speed of 30 mph and would definitely be too slow, Class 3 track has a maximum speed of 60 mph (about 95 km/h). If it is Class 3, it would still be slower than driving, but much closer than you were saying and, given that trains are a much more comfortable way to travel, it could still draw a lot of riders.
Later upgrading key segments to Class 4 (80 mph) or better yet, Class 5 (95 mph) would close the gap and make the train very competitive to driving.
I should have indeed looked up TC’s track classes, but a rail speed limit of 95 km/h is much less competitive with a road speed limit of 100 km/h as it might appear: whereas cars may travel up to 20 km/h above that limit without any risk of getting pulled over (and many drivers exceed the speed limit by more than that) railway speed limits must be taken at face value. I took a look at the route with Google Earth Pro and measured the radius of a few dozen curves before modelling travel times. My calculations suggest that the non-stop travel time between Calgary and Edmonton South (Strathcona) would be at least 3:39:
Assumptions: track speed limit of 60 mph, acceleration value of 0.39 m/s^2, deceleration value of 0.5 m/s^2, train length of 300 meters and a travel time supplement of 5% plus 1 minute per 100 km.
Note that Google Earth quotes a travel time of 2:57 (3:00-3:40 even for a weekday 5pm departure) and that adding only 3 more stops (Calgary Airport, Red Deer, Edmonton Airport) would increase the travel time to 3:45, at which time the rail service would not be time-competitive against the bus with a scheduled downtown-to-downtown travel time of 3:30-4:05, considering the decentral location of Strathcona station in South Edmonton…
#11
Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
It's not really that I don't think Calgary - Edmonton would be a viable service, I think it would be given time and significant investment. I just think there may be smaller investments we could make that would be politically easier and would have a faster return. Starting from zero and building a good passenger rail line between the two cities would require massive investment and could end up being a political issue, guaranteeing it ends up being delayed and even more controversial.
Exactly, it will always be difficult to secure the necessary capital funding for a modern (i.e. at least semi fast and frequent) passenger rail corridor without any pre-existing rail ridership…
#12
Quote:
Originally Posted by roger1818
I find it strange that most of the opponents to HFR think VIA should take the "Insanity Approach" and put forward the same HSR proposal over and over again and expect a different result.
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