High Speed Rail Forum!

[jammer139]

The only thing the Liberals announced was $15M to do the EA's for a HSR system. It's even doubtful that will start prior to the next provincial election which will likely be next June. A mere 13 months from now.

We are a long way away from any HSR system project getting to the next step.

[haljackey]

High speed rail plans may yet again be a election ploy

http://www.lfpress.com/2017/07/11/on...ncial-liberals

[MolsonExport]

If the PC Brown gets in, we will have Brown-Brown meetings when he comes to London.

couple of fools with the same color.

[kaiserLDN]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

If the PC Brown gets in, we will have Brown-Brown meetings when he comes to London.

couple of fools with the same color.

And you like Wynne better?

[MolsonExport]

No, but between Wynne and Hudak (Mr. Slash and Burn: These guys are a dime a dozen, without even a veneer of ability), the choice was quite easy.

[haljackey]

Where should London's station be if this gets built?
-Downtown (train station expansion)
-South (401 corridor)
-North (North of Sunningdale)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london...area-1.4209299

If they chose not to go downtown, then we could also bring up the possibility of moving the CP tracks along the high speed rail corridor potentially.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by haljackey

Where should London's station be if this gets built?
-Downtown (train station expansion)
-South (401 corridor)
-North (North of Sunningdale)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london...area-1.4209299

If they chose not to go downtown, then we could also bring up the possibility of moving the CP tracks along the high speed rail corridor potentially.

The station should either be at the current location or very central - there is no way it should be in North London or at the 401. I can't believe the thought is being brought up that it should be anywhere else, apart that it's from Harold Usher and the people that chose BRT over LRT.

[go_leafs_go02]

I'd want it to be slightly further east of the current VIA rail station to provide a direct connection to the BRT system. Either east, west or even over top of Wellington Street (with a new underpass of Wellington that can accommodate a BRT station, etc.)

This station needs to be downtown. This is like having Union Station in Toronto located somewhere out by Kipling Station.

One of the options discussion for the routing to the west is it would use the abandoned rail-line through West Lorne south of the 401.

[MolsonExport]

Downfuckingtown, or else I am leaving this place. I can't believe the powers that be would consider putting the station anywhere else. I mean, fer fux sakes.

[kaiserLDN]

What is there to even debate? It should be downtown. Nowhere else in London. Central to the whole city, Central to the rapid transit route, Central to all the taxpayers, Central to an area that can accept very large buildings with a dense population, Central to other current and future passenger rail companies like GO, VIA, and whatever else the future holds,. I think London would get very loud in voting against it if it was not downtown. Harold Usher is an idiot for even saying something so stupid.

[warpus]

Originally Posted by haljackey

Where should London's station be if this gets built?
-Downtown (train station expansion)
-South (401 corridor)
-North (North of Sunningdale)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london...area-1.4209299

If they chose not to go downtown, then we could also bring up the possibility of moving the CP tracks along the high speed rail corridor potentially.

The High speed rail station is going to be built downtown. Nothing else makes sense. The guy making the comments that we should consider building it by the 401 or north of Sunningdale is a moron

[haljackey]

I'd like it downtown, but can the CN Corridor adequately accommodate 2 additional dedicated high speed rail tracks?

If they run on standard gauge, they could share the tracks with VIA/freight traffic in urbanized London provided there is electrification overhead. That could cause efficiency issues.

It would be terribly expensive but the line could run above grade - raised or elevated, to reduce ground-level noise. This would be similar to the Shinkansen in Japan. These aren't loud diesel locomotives however.

[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.

[MolsonExport]

They are considering a Toronto-London line for starters. London is much further down the road from the big smoke. Via very rarely gets up to full speed, and usually is sidelined for many minutes at a time. 2 hours is the average journey time from dt london to dt toronto. Which is absurd.

[GreatTallNorth2]

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.

Can you provide your sources for the information? Are you saying the studies done by the MTO are wrong and you are right? I would agree that we don't need stations in Chatham or Guelph but London-KW-Pearson-Union makes sense, especially when you drive the 401 and experience the traffic. Capacity has to be added somewhere and rail makes a lot more sense moving forward than road.

[MrSlippery519]

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.

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).

[Dupcheck]

Choice #1 Downtown
#2 Downtown....
#3 Still Downtown
It is logical all main stations are downtown everywhere. That is where most of the business and events are: festivals, games, shows, restaurants, etc...

[FFX-ME]

The average speed of VIA trains in the corridor is 100 km/h. VIA claims they can increase that to 177 km/h if they had dedicated tracks. This is the speed I used for the comparison.

Any time losses from frequent stops would affect both techniques but would reduce the advantage of HSR even more since they need time to reach their speed. If considering less frequent stops on a dedicated HSR track, then the proper comparison is regular rail with less frequent stops on a dedicated track.

I think people are in general less informed and tend to associate the current systems' issues with the technology instead of the true problem which is the lack of dedicated tracks. HSR looks fancy but people forget that VIA's trains are capable of going to 180 km/h, quite competitive, and much cheaper to implement. Canada also used to have HSR, the CN TurboTrain, which failed due to a lack of dedicated tracks.

We barely have the traffic in order to cover the costs of regular passenger rail, upgrading this to electric HSR would be unviable. The only place where the density is high enough to support HSR is southern Ontario and in that case the distances are too short for HSR to actually make a difference.

I agree with VIA's current position: dedicated tracks first, HSR can wait.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

We barely have the traffic in order to cover the costs of regular passenger rail, upgrading this to electric HSR would be unviable.

Apple didn't sell any iPhones before they were invented.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Apple didn't sell any iPhones before they were invented.

But people still had cell phones.