back to the 90 billion. It is 383 miles from LA to San Francisco. It is 424 miles from Toronto to Montreal via Peterborough and the route is quite a bit more challenging. The estimated cost of their HS train has risen to $126 billion U.S. which is approximately $175 billion CDN. Do you honestly believe that Pierre is wrong? Perhaps there are more essential tasks that need our borrowed dollars first? I would love to see those trains run but I'll vote conservative on this one now.
High Speed Train Coming?-split from boosting Canada’s military spending"
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Halifax Tar
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The portion on this podcast ref HSR may be interesting to some.
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How much extra of their costs are eaten up by the need to 'earthquake' proof their HSR and the potentially higher cost of land acquisition in their area?
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Probably a tiny fraction compared to the amount set aside for the need to feed all the grifters attached to the project.
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I am on a high speed train from Frankfurt to Hannover right now. The original plan to take a 1 hour flight has turned into a 2 hr train ride after Lufthansa went on strike.....at a top speed of 250-300 kph. Very smooth and efficient
For the bonus, unlike airports, train stations are right downtown
For the bonus, unlike airports, train stations are right downtown
FSTO
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That one hour in the air doesn't include the pain and suffering of getting on and off the plane that will add at least two hours to your travel time. I'm assuming that getting on the train was pretty painless (how was the security checks of your luggage?)
Maxman1
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And there's also a motion for a Maritime rail line.
tj.news
Hopefully that can expanded to a full revival of Nova Scotia rail:
Federal Liberals vote in favour of new ‘Maritime Rail Corridor’
Pitch would create passenger rail service from Saint John to Halifax, eventually expanding to Fredericton, Sydney, N.S., and PEI
tj.news
Hopefully that can expanded to a full revival of Nova Scotia rail:
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I actually took the train directly from the airport. One short hop, then onto the HSR. No security check to get on a local train, but lugging 9 days of luggage around ain't fun
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And your bags are right next to you, no security x-ray line up, no standing around waiting for you 'section' in the airplane to be called.
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Services like this can handle luggage,
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www.kuronekoyamato.co.jp
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Not always true. Recently took the TGV from Barcelona to Nimes. There was a bag x-ray but a lot simpler than the airport.
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That’s interesting! I’ve not had that occur in the past. Wonder if it’s becoming the norm or if it’s random.
I did Toulouse-Montpellier-Toulouse last month and nothing. Did Bordeaux-San Sebastian-Bordeaux 2024 and didn’t have it either.
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Motions are risk-free.And there's also a motion for a Maritime rail line.
Federal Liberals vote in favour of new ‘Maritime Rail Corridor’
Pitch would create passenger rail service from Saint John to Halifax, eventually expanding to Fredericton, Sydney, N.S., and PEI
Hopefully that can expanded to a full revival of Nova Scotia rail:
Adding passenger service to existing rail lines is one thing. Laying rail exclusively for passenger service, particularly to low population areas, is quite another.
Depends on security situation. A decade ago went to Spain. One station had bag scanning and metal detectors to enter the rural HSR station. The urban HSR stations were designed more like shopping malls. Platform level had the same. No taking shoes and belt off. And there's no bag check in. So getting through literally took minutes. Didn't even walk down to the platform until 10 mins before departure.
This is something North Americans just aren't used to. In a lot of the world, you're getting wanded and bag scanners to enter a shopping mall or a museum. As we build major new infrastructure, the ability to increase security has to be built in.
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But one of those red lines is my bike trail into town…And there's also a motion for a Maritime rail line.
Federal Liberals vote in favour of new ‘Maritime Rail Corridor’
Pitch would create passenger rail service from Saint John to Halifax, eventually expanding to Fredericton, Sydney, N.S., and PEI
Hopefully that can expanded to a full revival of Nova Scotia rail:
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Another bonus was carrying a light wait bag for my bag and train hopping / biking across Europe. Went all the way home (SHAPE) from Ramstein once that way. One of my few good memories from my Europe posting.
still not sure why everyone is so keen on HS. Toronto to Ottawa will save you maybe 30 minutes between regular and HS at the price of limiting stops to only Peterborough. The key imho is the dedicated line. So put in a 100 mph capable system, include Perth and Smith Falls in the system and put in a system that normal people can access. Plus it is a beautiful run
The current fastest scheduled train between Union and Ottawa is 4:20 h with 6 en route stops. It almost never makes that time in reality. Usually running is well past 4:30. Sometimes 5 hrs. Alto is pledging 2:09 from Toronto to Ottawa. And internationally HSR trends to > 95% on time performance within 15 mins. So worst case here is 2.5 hrs which would still be a 2 hr savings over the fastest scheduled train today. Of which there is only one. The average Toronto-Ottawa train is scheduled for closer to 5 hrs.
And if you're flying? 0.5 hr pre-flight if you don't have luggage. 1 hr pre-flight with bags. 1 hr in the air. At least 0.5 hr on each end for airport access. 3 hrs downtown to downtown is probably optimistic by air. A 2:09h train ride starts looking awfully attractive and convenient even with station access on both sides.
Good. There's no point slowing down a train of 300 people to pick up 5 riders. And slowing a service with more stops costs a ton of riders in the metros for negligible gains from small towns. Traffic between the major metros and along the Lakeshore needs to separated so that both can benefit. Move the inter-metro traffic to HSR and then make VIA an all-stop Lakeshore service that is hubbed out of Kingston with schedules optimized for everybody who lives along the shore.
Internationally, high speed rail stops tend to be spaced 50-100 km apart. What Alto is proposing is fairly close. The speeds are high enough that it becomes worthwhile to drive (or bus) 25-50 km to a station.
Stations can be added along the line later. That's not a big deal. Getting a dedicated corridor built is key. And the reason it's moving to HSR is that there's no point going through all that effort and all those fights to build a dedicated corridor which would still come to tens of billions and ten end up with trains that take 4 hrs from Toronto to Ottawa instead of 5 hrs. It's only worth doing if transformative results are guaranteed.
Oh and the soft approach was tried before. The Harper government famously ballooned à $20M triple tracking from Kingston to Belleville to $318M and delivered half the track planned. They paid the CN to build this. CN said, "Thanks for the capacity," and then increased freight traffic and VIA actually saw on time performance get worse. This was called out by the Auditor General.
Auditor General’s Special Examination Report on VIA Rail
The article below was originally prepared for the March/April version of “Ontario Report”. To make it more readily available to website readers, it is reproduced here. – &…
ontario.transportaction.ca
After that experience any investment using the current corridor is out. The freight rail operators can't be trusted.
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of course they can't be trusted. They were given all the acres they had in the first place on the condition they ran passengers as well as freight. You are too practical. If you built a dedicated line, Toronto through Peterborough as proposed but constructed it to 100 or 120 mph standards you would only lengthen the HS time by maybe 30 minutes. The price for that is the 4 people you pick up in Havelock and Perth. The plus is you end up with a beautiful service for everyone and not just the people in Toronto. You also end up with a worthwhile Tourist venue and with the addition of VIA1 service meals and drinks you WILL get the business class to switch. You can start with diesel and electrify as the systems become available. I see more plus in service than speed. The place for the HS is Montreal through Quebec.The current fastest scheduled train between Union and Ottawa is 4:20 h with 6 en route stops. It almost never makes that time in reality. Usually running is well past 4:30. Sometimes 5 hrs. Alto is pledging 2:09 from Toronto to Ottawa. And internationally HSR trends to > 95% on time performance within 15 mins. So worst case here is 2.5 hrs which would still be a 2 hr savings over the fastest scheduled train today. Of which there is only one. The average Toronto-Ottawa train is scheduled for closer to 5 hrs.
And if you're flying? 0.5 hr pre-flight if you don't have luggage. 1 hr pre-flight with bags. 1 hr in the air. At least 0.5 hr on each end for airport access. 3 hrs downtown to downtown is probably optimistic by air. A 2:09h train ride starts looking awfully attractive and convenient even with station access on both sides.
Good. There's no point slowing down a train of 300 people to pick up 5 riders. And slowing a service with more stops costs a ton of riders in the metros for negligible gains from small towns. Traffic between the major metros and along the Lakeshore needs to separated so that both can benefit. Move the inter-metro traffic to HSR and then make VIA an all-stop Lakeshore service that is hubbed out of Kingston with schedules optimized for everybody who lives along the shore.
Internationally, high speed rail stops tend to be spaced 50-100 km apart. What Alto is proposing is fairly close. The speeds are high enough that it becomes worthwhile to drive (or bus) 25-50 km to a station.
Stations can be added along the line later. That's not a big deal. Getting a dedicated corridor built is key. And the reason it's moving to HSR is that there's no point going through all that effort and all those fights to build a dedicated corridor which would still come to tens of billions and ten end up with trains that take 4 hrs from Toronto to Ottawa instead of 5 hrs. It's only worth doing if transformative results are guaranteed.
Oh and the soft approach was tried before. The Harper government famously ballooned à $20M triple tracking from Kingston to Belleville to $318M and delivered half the track planned. They paid the CN to build this. CN said, "Thanks for the capacity," and then increased freight traffic and VIA actually saw on time performance get worse. This was called out by the Auditor General.
Auditor General’s Special Examination Report on VIA Rail
The article below was originally prepared for the March/April version of “Ontario Report”. To make it more readily available to website readers, it is reproduced here. – &…
After that experience any investment using the current corridor is out. The freight rail operators can't be trusted.
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