High Speed Train Coming?-split from boosting Canada’s military spending"

[ytz]

Having been to Germany and having ridden DB extensively, it was fun listening to the Germans bitch about DB service.

Germans: "The 4th train this hour was 5 mins late. Somebody needs to be fired."

Canadians: "You guys get more than one train a day?"

 

[FSTO]

It has literally never reached the design level. A study of a few pages is not design. An engineer should know that. They'll be doing actual design and actual costing now. When they are done we can actually decide if it's worthwhile. But it'll be the first time an actual design is presented. And not just some overview and ROME based on looking at Google Maps, which is literally what the the last two studies were.

To be clear, I’m not an engineer at all. I’m a MARS officer, I break things and then yell at engineers.

But thanks for the clarification between design and proposal.
Cheers!

 

[daftandbarmy]

You nailed it there. Transportation projects cost a fortune no matter where they are built. And they cost more in high density areas.

At the same time you need high density populations to justify the ridership necessary to pay off that investment.

The Windsor to Quebec City corridor is 1160 km long. It has the population of the Netherlands. The Netherlands is 300 km by 250 km.
To my mind that puts a lot more people within reach of any hubs.

In addition the Netherlands GDP per capita in 2024 was 65 000 USD. Ours was 54,000 USD. They are 20% richer than we are, which is ridiculous considering they not only lack resources of any kind but have to make the land they stand on and keep pumping to keep their feet dry.

400 years of pragmatism there.

Population density is never the only reason that governments invest in huge, expensive infrastructure projects... there's always politics too:

British Columbia Highway 5​

In the 1960s, the Merritt Board of Trade began lobbying the B.C. government for a new highway route to Hope, including a vehicle caravan that was staged eight times starting in 1963, over the abandoned Kettle Valley Railway grade, in order draw attention to the potential of this route. Surveying commenced in 1973, and in 1979 the first construction contract was issued for a 4.5 km (2.8 mi) section of highway between Nicolum Creek and Peers Creek near Hope; however, work progressed slowly until 1984, when Premier Bill Bennett announced that the project would be fast-tracked so it could be completed to coincide with Expo 86. To ensure the project was completed on time, more than 10,000 workers were needed, and more than 1,000 pieces of heavy equipment worked non-stop every day during the summer of 1985.

British Columbia Highway 5 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Kirkhill]

Population density is never the only reason that governments invest in huge, expensive infrastructure projects... there's always politics too:

British Columbia Highway 5​

In the 1960s, the Merritt Board of Trade began lobbying the B.C. government for a new highway route to Hope, including a vehicle caravan that was staged eight times starting in 1963, over the abandoned Kettle Valley Railway grade, in order draw attention to the potential of this route. Surveying commenced in 1973, and in 1979 the first construction contract was issued for a 4.5 km (2.8 mi) section of highway between Nicolum Creek and Peers Creek near Hope; however, work progressed slowly until 1984, when Premier Bill Bennett announced that the project would be fast-tracked so it could be completed to coincide with Expo 86. To ensure the project was completed on time, more than 10,000 workers were needed, and more than 1,000 pieces of heavy equipment worked non-stop every day during the summer of 1985.

British Columbia Highway 5 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Coq is a freight connector though. Not just a passenger line. And it transports the cars and trucks that distribute the "freight" at the destination.

Someone pointed out that in some Euro cities rail lines delivered rail cars directly to warehouses. They do in many prairie towns as well. Lethbridge is one of them. Our industrial area was laid out around a grid of sidings. Those sidings like their Euro counterparts are largely idle right now unless they feed the elevators or canola plant.

The problem was scheduling of individual cars is difficult. Even if you only have a single car and a shunter you tie up traffic and the entire exercise is slow. And no carbon emissions are saved. In fact a 40 ft ISO on trailer dragged by an efficient short haul tractor is faster, more efficient, more flexible, cheaper and less polluting. And it doesn't block traffic that sits idling as the rail car manoeuvers.

Containers have changed a lot.

Another difference between Europe and here is their rivers don't freeze up. A good chunk of their freight is shipped by river. Rotterdam to Galati by the Rhine-Danube system is a well travelled route.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Or.... Hear me out. The Feds overtax everyone and this is one way to give back. They also bought and home built a $30+B pipeline to support an economy of 4.5M people. $80B for the HSR catchment combined population of 14M is on par. And just like the pipeline costs will be be recouped over decades.

Pipelines support revenues that end up supporting all of Canada because the capacity of some oil-producing provinces to generate revenues pushes them to the "have" side of the equalization ledger. It remains to be seen whether the expansion project will ever break even because it was executed so poorly.

If HSR requires perpetual subsidy, costs will never be recouped. It is merely a way to give money to a particular group of people, or - as often happens to be the case - to give high-end commuters a more pleasant experience. Transportation infrastructure supports economic activity, but when one kind replaces another and what mostly happens is a shift in ridership, it's difficult to prove economic spin-offs are increased rather than simply shifted as well.

HSR in Canada doesn't have to be as bad as California's to still be bad.

 

[JLB50]

North of Toronto, the passenger trains that would go up to Collingwood, Meaford and Owen Sound have long since disappeared, and the tracks have been turned into pedestrian trails. The bus service that would take people from those areas into Toronto or even Barrie ended about four or five years ago. There’s essentially no way to go elsewhere by car, that is, unless you’re rich and can afford a limousine. And, yet, the road/highway system getting there is bloody awful. Travel is basically worse today for millions of Canadians than it was 70 or 80 years ago, except for flying from one city to another.

Rail travel was what brought Canadians together, not the automobile. Britain, France, Germany and most of Europe, Japan, China and numerous other countries have developed new technologies for a better passenger rail experience…but not Canada.
Too bad that CN/CP controls pretty much all of the existing railway network and relegates Via Rail to an inferior status. When they basically abandoned passenger service along with countless railway spurs, they ended up playing a significant role in helping to dis-unite this huge country.

I say we need more passenger trains than before…faster trains than ever before and more tracks than we’ve seen in ages. Expensive? Hell, yes. But necessary.

 

[Brad Sallows]

British Columbia Highway 5​

Hwy 5 is an absolute necessity. The timing of construction was political, but there is no way the prior networks - mainly Hwy 1, with some feeds into Hwy 3 - could have supported the growth of traffic from some point in the past three decades or so. I can guess that upgrading Hwy 1 to four lanes, with extra passing lanes on hills, would have been much more expensive and time-consuming.

The history of upgrades in BC is mostly projects started a decade or two late behind need. Hwy 5/97C is an exception.

 

[Kirkhill]

And I am still not convinced the TMX line had to cost what it did. I suspect a lot of the additional costs had as much to do with a new regulatory environment imposed by the government. Ultimately the government had to bear the cost of its own regulations to get the job done because the price and uncertainty made the project unattractive to its original private investors.

Any private investors clamouring to build this HSR line financed purely with fares from potential riders?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Too bad that CN/CP controls pretty much all of the existing railway network and relegates Via Rail to an inferior status. When they basically abandoned passenger service along with countless railway spurs, they ended up playing a significant role in helping to dis-unite this huge country.

We should be thankful that North America evolved to move freight by rail. One of the advantages of Europe is that most points in the land mass are not far from a sea port because of the way the Baltic and Mediterranean/Black Seas enter into the continent, which lessens the quantity of trucks they have to use to move goods.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Hwy 5 is an absolute necessity. The timing of construction was political, but there is no way the prior networks - mainly Hwy 1, with some feeds into Hwy 3 - could have supported the growth of traffic from some point in the past three decades or so. I can guess that upgrading Hwy 1 to four lanes, with extra passing lanes on hills, would have been much more expensive and time-consuming.

The history of upgrades in BC is mostly projects started a decade or two late behind need. Hwy 5/97C is an exception.

I appreciate your cockeyed optimism.

There's seldom an infrastructure project that is not politically motivated in some way.

Another BC highway that had almost a a billion or so dumped on it because 'politics'...

Upgraded Sea-to-Sky Highway improved safety but brought 'big city problems' says mayor​

Stakeholders reflect on the $600-million upgrade that was a lightning rod for protest ahead of 2010 Games​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/upgraded-sea-to-sky-highway-improved-safety-but-brought-big-city-problems-says-mayor-1.5470819

 

[Brad Sallows]

There's seldom an infrastructure project that is not politically motivated in some way.

Of course. Infrastructure incapacity generates complaints (political heat), so the solutions look politically-motivated.

 

[JLB50]

We should be thankful that North America evolved to move freight by rail. One of the advantages of Europe is that most points in the land mass are not far from a sea port because of the way the Baltic and Mediterranean/Black Seas enter into the continent, which lessens the quantity of trucks they have to use to move goods.

You’re right. However I’m not bemoaning the shipping of freight by rail…just the lack of passenger trains, whether on shared track or preferably dedicated track.

 

[Kirkhill]

North of Toronto, the passenger trains that would go up to Collingwood, Meaford and Owen Sound have long since disappeared, and the tracks have been turned into pedestrian trails. The bus service that would take people from those areas into Toronto or even Barrie ended about four or five years ago. There’s essentially no way to go elsewhere by car, that is, unless you’re rich and can afford a limousine. And, yet, the road/highway system getting there is bloody awful. Travel is basically worse today for millions of Canadians than it was 70 or 80 years ago, except for flying from one city to another.

Rail travel was what brought Canadians together, not the automobile. Britain, France, Germany and most of Europe, Japan, China and numerous other countries have developed new technologies for a better passenger rail experience…but not Canada.
Too bad that CN/CP controls pretty much all of the existing railway network and relegates Via Rail to an inferior status. When they basically abandoned passenger service along with countless railway spurs, they ended up playing a significant role in helping to dis-unite this huge country.

I say we need more passenger trains than before…faster trains than ever before and more tracks than we’ve seen in ages. Expensive? Hell, yes. But necessary.

Inter cities or Urbans that took people to places like Regina Beach or Winnipeg Beach or Yale or Wasaga Beach were all a product of a time, before cars, when Canada was actively investing to attract immigrants to a new life in a new world. Trams and trolleys were the high tech means of their day that permitted poor people to travel long distances for work and pleasure. But they travelled on someone else's schedule.

Cars were made affordable and people could travel on their own time. Originally on wagon tracks. Then macadam roads. Then tarmac roads. Then carriageways. Them highways. And rails became less valued and abandoned.

And curiously road quality decreased - a combination of car technology giving better rides on wagon trails and complaints from individual drivers having less weight with government than communities disrupted by a break in the rails.

Canada is not Europe. And there are good reasons why Canada has different solutions than Europe. They start with Geography and Climate and number of people.

I can also tell you, as one who is originally from Europe (UK) and has been back on occasion, the trams and trolleys as well as the commuter trains either aren't what they were or are non-existent. They have been largely replaced by buses, taxis, Uber, rentals and personally owned vehicles. By choice. One of the biggest issues in Britain is finding a place to park and even then people are reluctant to give up their cars.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

North of Toronto, the passenger trains that would go up to Collingwood, Meaford and Owen Sound have long since disappeared, and the tracks have been turned into pedestrian trails. The bus service that would take people from those areas into Toronto or even Barrie ended about four or five years ago. There’s essentially no way to go elsewhere by car, that is, unless you’re rich and can afford a limousine. And, yet, the road/highway system getting there is bloody awful. Travel is basically worse today for millions of Canadians than it was 70 or 80 years ago, except for flying from one city to another.

Rail travel was what brought Canadians together, not the automobile. Britain, France, Germany and most of Europe, Japan, China and numerous other countries have developed new technologies for a better passenger rail experience…but not Canada.
Too bad that CN/CP controls pretty much all of the existing railway network and relegates Via Rail to an inferior status. When they basically abandoned passenger service along with countless railway spurs, they ended up playing a significant role in helping to dis-unite this huge country.

I say we need more passenger trains than before…faster trains than ever before and more tracks than we’ve seen in ages. Expensive? Hell, yes. But necessary.

Bus lines can't even justify daily bus service to those communities, how in the world is a train line going to do it without the rest of the country paying for it? What we need is not to leave our kids drowning in even more debt then we are now......

 

[Good2Golf]

We can dream. But just look at this thread. A country full of people who only know how to make excuses. Not to actually build shit.

I’m all for investing instead in a high-capacity EV/e-moped corridor from Windsor to Quebec City, with high-speed DC chargers every few kilometers.

What's with Canadians bringing in European 'expertise' to have them dictate guidance to us?

It worked well when Père Trudeau had Canada Post copy France’s system.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

That's because all the talent is in freight rail where the real $$$ is. If there was $$$ in passenger rail, the freight companies would offer the service.

Bus lines can't even justify daily bus service to those communities, how in the world is a train line going to do it without the rest of the country paying for it? What we need is not to leave our kids drowning in even more debt then we are now......

I always tell people, if there were money to be made providing passenger service, CPKC and CN would be knocking down doors to deliver said service.

There is no money to be made though which is why both companies divested that portion of their business.

 

[Kirkhill]

To be clear, I’m not an engineer at all. I’m a MARS officer, I break things and then yell at engineers.

But thanks for the clarification between design and proposal.
Cheers!

Would that it were that simple

Pugh....



And AACE ....



And Continuous Improvement.



Advancing in circles -

Engineering, and design, never really stops. It is a neverending iterative process.

 

[Kirkhill]

I’m all for investing instead in a high-capacity EV/e-moped corridor from Windsor to Quebec City, with high-speed DC chargers every few kilometers.


It worked well when Père Trudeau had Canada Post copy France’s system.

This guy was a European....

Davidson, Joe​

Joe Davidson, labour leader (b at Shotts, Scot 1915; d at Motherwell, Scot 23 Sept 1985). Always political, he described himself as an evolutionary socialist "with the proviso that evolution needed a shove at every opportunity." He came to Canada in 1957 and worked in iron foundries in Hamilton and Dundas, Ontario, before he became a mail sorter in Toronto and a shop steward in the Canadian Postal Employees Association transformed into the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) in 1965. During the 1965 strike, he was active on the Toronto strike committee. He was elected president of the Toronto local 1967, became vice-president of CUPW in 1968 and was president 1974-77. His presidency encompassed 2 national postal strikes and dozens of smaller skirmishes over automation. He became the media's choice as the most hated man in Canada and in 1983 he retired.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joe-davidson

 

[ytz]

If HSR requires perpetual subsidy, costs will never be recouped.

How do you know it will require perpetual subsidy before the the design is even complete? That's some talent. Can you give me tomorrow's lottery numbers?

 

[dapaterson]

If HSR requires perpetual subsidy, costs will never be recouped.

Highways require perpetual subsidy. Therefore they provide no economic benefit.