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  #21  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 5:27 PM
Jaspertf Jaspertf is offline
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
Believe me, I want rail in Alberta. But first of all the government needs to do a proper study on this - I can draw maps and pull numbers out of my ass as well, but that does not mean they have any basis in what is feasible.
There have been multiple studies conducted on the potential of high speed rail in the Calgary - Edmonton corridor, going back to 1981.

Interesting note, Virgin Trains USA is going to take over Brightline services in Florida. With Richard Bransons group also taking on the challenge of building the Las Vegas - Southern California high speed train service.
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  #22  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 6:31 PM
mintzilla mintzilla is offline
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2038 Alberta Winter Olympics with high speed rail between cowtown and Edmonton as the infrastructure centrepiece.

Believe it!
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  #23  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 7:06 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Originally Posted by Jaspertf View Post
There have been multiple studies conducted on the potential of high speed rail in the Calgary - Edmonton corridor, going back to 1981.

Interesting note, Virgin Trains USA is going to take over Brightline services in Florida. With Richard Bransons group also taking on the challenge of building the Las Vegas - Southern California high speed train service.
They go back further. It is viable now, at minimal cost to the government. Just a few key things need to happen under the provincial Railways Act http://www.qp.alberta.ca/1266.cfm?pa...1&display=html .



1) Make sure the province's designated Railway Administrator is ready to consider a railways proposal.

2) The government would then invite Railway proponents into a process which selects the most viable proponent, through an RFI as the first step. This would a formal process under the Railways Act 11(2) which the Railway Administrator would only consider proposals from the winner for a few years afterwards along the nominal route (Calgary-Edmonton). You can also put in the process that if the firm fails to proceed to the full operations, that the work to date and approvals isn't an asset which they can sit on forever, preventing others from building, that either they could be forced to sell, or forced to JV with a partner later if they stall out for a long time.

3) The railway applies to construct, which starts the more detailed processes regulatory process.

4) Verify that the corridor selected are appropriate under a process of the railway administrator much like what happens when constructing a power line or pipeline.


5) Approve the corridor and construction, and state that section 8 of the act which allows expropriation of private land to build railways applies, and that requirements for crossings between lands owned by the same owner under section 19 should be proportionate, and the section 8 powers should be used to expropriate unviable land when buying the land is better than building a crossing (AAMDC studied this and it is less than 400 acres), and that when alternatives exist, like crossings at a highway within a reasonable distance, that the requirement is waived.
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  #24  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 7:25 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Viable, meaning that the legislation exists to do it, or viable in a financial sense?

As much as I'd love to see high speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton, and elsewhere, I'd ask; what purpose does it serve? The highway is not at capacity, and if neccesary can be expanded at probably lower cost. Air travel exists between the two cities also for high speed travel. For those who don't have a car and don't want to pay to fly, buses exist and expanding that would be much cheaper if we want to improve that situation.
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  #25  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 7:34 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by Jaspertf View Post
There have been multiple studies conducted on the potential of high speed rail in the Calgary - Edmonton corridor, going back to 1981.

Interesting note, Virgin Trains USA is going to take over Brightline services in Florida. With Richard Bransons group also taking on the challenge of building the Las Vegas - Southern California high speed train service.
There have been studies, but none resulted in anything happening. So if the political will exists to look into HSR again, it will require another study as the old ones will no longer be relevant.

That is interesting about Virgin USA, though it seems it's mainly branding - Virgin still only owns a minority stake. I expect they will promise a lot of things that are not in their control and unachievable, as they did at various times in the UK.
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  #26  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 9:17 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
Viable, meaning that the legislation exists to do it, or viable in a financial sense?

As much as I'd love to see high speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton, and elsewhere, I'd ask; what purpose does it serve? The highway is not at capacity, and if neccesary can be expanded at probably lower cost. Air travel exists between the two cities also for high speed travel. For those who don't have a car and don't want to pay to fly, buses exist and expanding that would be much cheaper if we want to improve that situation.
In the financial sense. I think it could be mostly or completely funded privately.

And if it is private, those other concerns don’t really matter.
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  #27  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 9:49 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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If it is financially viable for the private sector to do it, why is no-one proposing it? And what makes Alberta so uniquely good a market that we would be only the second place in the western world to have a private operator start a new railway service in the last hundred or so years?
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  #28  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 9:54 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
If it is financially viable for the private sector to do it, why is no-one proposing it? And what makes Alberta so uniquely good a market that we would be only the second place in the western world to have a private operator start a new railway service in the last hundred or so years?
They have in private. In the past there was significant opposition in Edmonton to the HSR concept (as it was commonly thought it would kill their airport), and to using expropriation. So the government has to be on board first.



Calgary and Edmonton generate way more traffic between them than similar sized city pairs elsewhere, iirc 4 times as much as what modeling would suggest.
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  #29  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 10:09 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Do you have some links for that? Not disagreeing, I'm just interested.

If something like this were to happen, what are the rules IRT track access? If this company decides they only want to run an HST every 30 minutes from Calgary to Edmonton, but someone else wants to run another train from Medicine Hat to Red Deer (or whatever), do the existing laws stipulate they must allow that?
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  #30  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 10:11 PM
Jaspertf Jaspertf is offline
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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
In the financial sense. I think it could be mostly or completely funded privately.

And if it is private, those other concerns don’t really matter.
High speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton is not financially viable at this time, I did a lot of research and wrote up a business case for commuter rail between Airdrie and Calgary, and a commuter service between Airdrie and Calgary is just about financially viable. To put out just a couple of major reasons. There are more vehicles travelling between Airdrie and Calgary than Calgary and Edmonton, having driven the route many times I am confident to say that almost 1/3 of the vehicles between Calgary and Edmonton are commercial vehicles. Construction of high speed rail is orders of magnitude more expensive than standard rail, and that does not include the compulsory purchase of land required for high speed rail. To twin the tracks and enhance the infrastructure in the existing Right of Way I estimate to be $7million per km, the most recent high speed line constructed in Europe cost approx. $40million per km with no long viaducts or deep tunnels and not including purchase of land, construction of stations, or connections to the existing network.

In order to make high speed rail viable, Alberta needs a high concentration of population in Calgary and Edmonton, and the establishment of general passenger rail services that makes rail transportation a viable alternative to road and air.
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  #31  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 11:07 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
Do you have some links for that? Not disagreeing, I'm just interested.
Great question.

Traffic:
Quote:
Although the population of the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is around 2 and a half million – remember this is 2006, so they haven't been updated, okay? – travel in the corridor is equivalent to a population of 8 million to 10 million people.
Source: https://www.assembly.ab.ca/Documents...03beaff/8/doc/

The economics you can tease out from the public reports on the government website.

https://www.transportation.alberta.ca/3940.htm

Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
If something like this were to happen, what are the rules IRT track access? If this company decides they only want to run an HST every 30 minutes from Calgary to Edmonton, but someone else wants to run another train from Medicine Hat to Red Deer (or whatever), do the existing laws stipulate they must allow that?
Under the Alberta Railways Act not automatically, common carrier provisions don't extend to passengers.

But:
Quote:
When granting an approval, the Railway Administrator may make the approval subject to any terms, conditions or restrictions that the Railway Administrator considers appropriate in the circumstances.
So you could - this would be a good role for the government to support building larger stations earlier on, and requiring interconnection if CP or CN wanted it at some point.

Have to be careful not to add requirements that hurt the economics too much though.
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  #32  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2018, 11:20 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Originally Posted by Jaspertf View Post
High speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton is not financially viable at this time, I did a lot of research and wrote up a business case for commuter rail between Airdrie and Calgary, and a commuter service between Airdrie and Calgary is just about financially viable. To put out just a couple of major reasons. There are more vehicles travelling between Airdrie and Calgary than Calgary and Edmonton, having driven the route many times I am confident to say that almost 1/3 of the vehicles between Calgary and Edmonton are commercial vehicles. Construction of high speed rail is orders of magnitude more expensive than standard rail, and that does not include the compulsory purchase of land required for high speed rail. To twin the tracks and enhance the infrastructure in the existing Right of Way I estimate to be $7million per km, the most recent high speed line constructed in Europe cost approx. $40million per km with no long viaducts or deep tunnels and not including purchase of land, construction of stations, or connections to the existing network.

In order to make high speed rail viable, Alberta needs a high concentration of population in Calgary and Edmonton, and the establishment of general passenger rail services that makes rail transportation a viable alternative to road and air.
The government reports consistently estimate a much lower capital cost than you do. http://www.vanhorneinstitute.com/wp-...ber-report.pdf

CPR rail works is around half of the cost of greenfield. And even your CPR estimate is high.

Don't have time to go dredging for the economic case, but iirc at 2-3% modal share the route will pay for its capital and operating costs.

And the province did an expensive study with license plate readers to find out how many cars were doing the whole trip to prove the demand was there, not just spot average vehicles per day passing the ring roads.
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  #33  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2018, 6:37 PM
Jaspertf Jaspertf is offline
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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
The government reports consistently estimate a much lower capital cost than you do. http://www.vanhorneinstitute.com/wp-...ber-report.pdf

CPR rail works is around half of the cost of greenfield. And even your CPR estimate is high.

Don't have time to go dredging for the economic case, but iirc at 2-3% modal share the route will pay for its capital and operating costs.

And the province did an expensive study with license plate readers to find out how many cars were doing the whole trip to prove the demand was there, not just spot average vehicles per day passing the ring roads.
The Van Horne Institute is a private consultancy that advocates for high speed rail, I have asked them if they had studied commuter/regional rail or would be interested in conducting a study. Their response was no, their focus is on high speed rail.

I would be very interested where you got the CPR rail works estimate. In the 2014 Standing Committee discussing high speed rail, the Van Horne Institute's high end estimate was $17million per km, however the last high speed line to be built through rolling countryside similar to the Calgary - Edmonton corridor came in at $40million per km.

The Van Horne Institute used a very low estimate for costs and high projected ridership.

The number plate review actually proved the opposite, more people travelled from outside of Calgary and Edmonton into Calgary and Edmonton, than between Calgary and Edmonton. The only modes that high speed rail would take travellers from is bus and air, which is only 9% of the Calgary - Edmonton corridor market.

I'm not against high speed rail as a future transportation mode, maybe in 50 years, but not now. We need to learn to walk before we run, we need to develop commuter/regional rail before high speed rail, in order to get people used to passenger rail and wean people out of their cars.
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  #34  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2018, 3:00 AM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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If a private company thinks it can do it, then why not enable them to take the risk?

Have you seen the aamdc study? Was all about corridor works. I haven't seen a copy floating out on the internet recently, but it must be out there somewhere.


Have you read the 1975 CP study? Or the 1984 VIARail one? PM me and I can flip you PDFs via email.

Last edited by MalcolmTucker; Nov 19, 2018 at 4:00 AM.
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  #35  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2018, 2:23 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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If a private company thinks it can do it, then why not enable them to take the risk?
A few reasons:

Firstly, I find it hard to believe there actually are any serious proposals being made. If there have been any offers to build a line, I expect they were as credible as the Waterous proposal to send trains to Banff. That proposal clearly hadn't done any real research and had lowballed the costs, and I expect any proposal we've seen for HSR to Edmonton is similarly well made.

Secondly, and I think this is the most important, is that while the idea of a private company building and operating the line sounds fine on paper - the money and risk is all theirs after all (in theory at least if not in real life). But I think you downplay the opportunity cost of allowing the one chance we have to build a new passenger railway railway to be solely the property of a private company and not the people. If the existing lines between Calgary and Edmonton were in public hands we would be in a much better situation, but this plan would triple down on the problem. Sure, you could implement strict regulations to allow other operators to use the line, but as you say that will affect the economics, and if you're putting in enough meaningful regulations to make it worth it, you might as well own and maintain the line anyway.

Third, if the government is to lay down a corridor they are going to have to do all the work of deciding what the best route and technology choice is anyway, and decide what the line will look like. The route that is optimum for a 350km/h train won't be the same as a 200km/h train nor a 500km/h maglev or hyperloop etc. So the optimum route and technology the government has decided and mandated may not align with what this hypothetical private company is the the most profitable.
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  #36  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2018, 2:24 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker View Post
Great question.

Traffic:
Source: https://www.assembly.ab.ca/Documents...03beaff/8/doc/

The economics you can tease out from the public reports on the government website.

https://www.transportation.alberta.ca/3940.htm


Under the Alberta Railways Act not automatically, common carrier provisions don't extend to passengers.

But:
So you could - this would be a good role for the government to support building larger stations earlier on, and requiring interconnection if CP or CN wanted it at some point.

Have to be careful not to add requirements that hurt the economics too much though.
Thanks! I'll do my best to read through these.
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  #37  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2018, 3:09 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
A few reasons:

Firstly, I find it hard to believe there actually are any serious proposals being made. If there have been any offers to build a line, I expect they were as credible as the Waterous proposal to send trains to Banff. That proposal clearly hadn't done any real research and had lowballed the costs, and I expect any proposal we've seen for HSR to Edmonton is similarly well made.

Secondly, and I think this is the most important, is that while the idea of a private company building and operating the line sounds fine on paper - the money and risk is all theirs after all (in theory at least if not in real life). But I think you downplay the opportunity cost of allowing the one chance we have to build a new passenger railway railway to be solely the property of a private company and not the people. If the existing lines between Calgary and Edmonton were in public hands we would be in a much better situation, but this plan would triple down on the problem. Sure, you could implement strict regulations to allow other operators to use the line, but as you say that will affect the economics, and if you're putting in enough meaningful regulations to make it worth it, you might as well own and maintain the line anyway.

Third, if the government is to lay down a corridor they are going to have to do all the work of deciding what the best route and technology choice is anyway, and decide what the line will look like. The route that is optimum for a 350km/h train won't be the same as a 200km/h train nor a 500km/h maglev or hyperloop etc. So the optimum route and technology the government has decided and mandated may not align with what this hypothetical private company is the the most profitable.
So, it all comes down to capital costs vs revenue.

The last market study had a higher return on normal high speed rail (320 kph I believe was their baseline) than 200 kph and 500 kph. Depends on your capital costs though. I fully expect a private company to build the most profitable route-they might approach the government to lets say, fund a more proximate placement of the Red Deer Station, which would be more expensive.

A private route would still be subject to regulatory approvals, the government can steer them towards a route that maximizes public benefit of course. The routes are pretty easy-the major questions are placement of a Red Deer Station, how (and if) to directly service the Edmonton Airport, and whether you want a straight shot into downtown Edmonton, or to loop around and come from the NE.

As for:
"if you're putting in enough meaningful regulations to make it worth it, you might as well own and maintain the line anyway."
No, then the government has to pay for the line. And then it has to compete on the government capital list for priority, as the largest single capital spend ever.

Governments regulate big projects like this funded by private companies all the time. They set what they can charge, where it goes, what it does. This is totally normal in: pipelines, power lines, telecommunications, the existing railways - all forms of linear infrastructure that have a natural monopoly basically. The government has all the tools and experience to do this.

With a lot of market proving studies already done, the economics worked out, I would expect a lot of interest from the big infrastructure companies, and the large passenger rail companies who do this in their home markets. Maybe most of them would bid in with billions of needed government support, but maybe they won't - and I suspect a few won't. I think running a process that would cost very little compared to the capital spend would be great - the government would get a lot more studies for free and would see what companies think can be done. Talking tens of millions at most here (need to staff up a specialized office basically, do some local consultations so people don't feel railroaded and promote the process to potential bidders).
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  #38  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2018, 3:43 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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OK, but I'd again ask if the economics are so good, why are there not builders lining up to lobby the government to let them try? You mentioned that they had done so in private, can you expand on that? From the link you posted there was the following quote:

Quote:
Based on our research, there
appears to be no high-speed rail system that operates today
without having proceeded with some level of public funding. Just
quickly, for example, in Japan high-speed rail is financed and built
by the Japan Railway Construction company. In China they have a
Ministry of Railways that fully finances and constructs the highspeed
rail system. France, Germany, and Spain: those European
countries set up subsidiaries, government subsidiaries, that fully
fund and construct the high-speed rail systems and operate them
as well. And in the U.S. the Acela Express is funded by the U.S.
government to a tune of about $1.5 billion to $2 billion annually
as an operating subsidy to operate that system.
I mean, it's possible that Calgary - Edmonton is the only place in the world where an HSR could be built by a private entity with limited public investment, but it's not a bet I'd make.

That said, I agree with you that running a competition would be valuable. It would give us a much better understanding of how feasible this would be and the level of economic subsidy required. I wonder - why was there an appetite to study this in the past, but it seems to have dropped out of discussion completely today?
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  #39  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2018, 5:45 PM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Ed Stelmach was a big believer. If he hadn't been tossed before the 2012 election, having it built would have likely been a big part of the government's agenda.


And yeah, the public doesn't see the type of quiet lobbying for these types of things. Not every proponent wants to be like the hyperloop companies, who have to generate buzz to generate capital.



Calgary and Edmonton are close enough, yet far enough away, and generate way more travel between them than comparable cities. Probably because there really is no other place to go! The business connections a similar city would have in the USA would go in 4 or 6 directions out of each city. Calgary and Edmonton are the only games in town.
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  #40  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2018, 8:50 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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I don't doubt there is a lot of demand. But demand so great that it would be profitable enough for a company to take the huge risk of building a project out of its own pocket? That I find more dubious. Other countries didn't build HSRs because the fares helped the government's revenue, they built them for the good of the country, or because their existing lines were full. The fact these lines required minimal subsidy or were profitable was a prerequisite, rather than the primary aim of the venture.

While I'm not opposed to opening the door to HSR by inviting proposals, I think I agree with Jasper that we should focus our efforts initially on something more down to earth - either some commuter rail or a line to Banff. This has the added effect of making future rail more attractive - we have a huge disadvantage to implementing more rail right now by virtue of the very fact we don't have any and can't benefit from network effects. If, for example, we had a passenger railway to Banff, then a Calgary - Edmonton HSR has an improved business case, as you now have the option of rail travel between Red Deer and Edmonton to Banff also.

Anyway, I hope there is political will for something like this in the future. Kenney doesn't seem like the visionary type though so I don't have high hopes...
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