Greg Gormick has written for the general Canadian public, but this also is an opportunity for U.S. readers to compare and contrast.
wawa-news.com
“One of these days, somebody will have to sit down and figure out what transportation we need, and what we can afford,” a member of the Board of Transport Commissioners told a reporter in 1961.Greg Gormick has written for the general Canadian public, but this also is an opportunity for U.S. readers to compare and contrast.
Railroaded: A National Train Wreck – Wawa-news.com
wawa-news.com
What were the Christmas-season meltdowns referred to in the story?
Specific to the first video regarding construction of the HFR line, this is not the first critique of the proposal and it is actually kinder than some of the others while still exposing it as a potential waste of money. The balancing act for rail supporters in Canada is whether to endorse the deeply flawed project versus the fact that something (anything) is being built. He correctly notes how the Windsor-Toronto portion was dropped for reasons of practicality and need, and also how Montreal-Quebec City was added for political support. The observation that Peterborough (and intermediate stops) need GO Train service that cannot be provided by HFR (without shared infrastructure) is also correct. What he missed is that the journey time between Toronto and Montreal will actually be longer on the new route than is possible on the current corridor. This is simply due to the routing via Ottawa. VIA (and CN previously) were perfectly capable of running trains between Toronto and Montreal in 4 hours or less because the CN line is the most direct route and does not run through Ottawa. VIA either runs separate trains to Montreal and Ottawa or divides them enroute.
The involvement of the two competing companies is interesting but likely not a factor. The present government has committed to the HFR proposal with Siemens equipment, therefore even if HSR makes more sense it is unlikely to change the direction. That said, with the cabinet minister responsible for the project having recently been shown the door I suppose anything is possible. The next election (2025, but could be sooner) will dictate the future of it more than anything that will happen in the interim. The polls currently favor a party that is likely to take an axe to spending, with this project an easy target. We will have to wait and see.
That's your valid opinion which I of course respect, just like I personally would still have wished that the REM scheme had been shelved rather than building what I - and surprisingly few members of the rail professional community - see as a colossal waste of money and of a unique opportunity to integrate rather than further balkanize the already awfully incoherent transportation networks in Montreal...Specific to the first video regarding construction of the HFR line, this is not the first critique of the proposal and it is actually kinder than some of the others while still exposing it as a potential waste of money. The balancing act for rail supporters in Canada is whether to endorse the deeply flawed project versus the fact that something (anything) is being built.
Toronto-Windsor was never a part of the HFR project. The whole point of HFR was to define a project with the lowest-possible capital cost, which would still be a gamechanger for the Quebec-Windsor corridor. This naturally confined VIA to proposing a dedicated and upgraded Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor, while T-W and Q-M were only seen as the next logical stages once HFR had been successfully implemented in TOM.He correctly notes how the Windsor-Toronto portion was dropped for reasons of practicality and need, and also how Montreal-Quebec City was added for political support.
This is most probably the point where I would have clicked away the video (assuming that I would have even lasted that long), as anyone who claims that a ROW which passes through 86 km (53 mi) of virtually uninhabited farmland and forests represents a viable corridor for Commuter Rail doesn't really give me much confidence that they have a clear and dependable understanding of what they are talking about:The observation that Peterborough (and intermediate stops) need GO Train service that cannot be provided by HFR (without shared infrastructure) is also correct.
Unless you expropriate Canadian National (Canada's third-largest corporation by market capitalization, which represents some 3.7% of Canada's GDP), the current speeds and travel times is what you get along the Kingston Subdivision - and that will remain significantly more than the 3h59 which VIA achieved on one single departure per day in the late 1990s and early 2000s (CN only ever advertised a travel time of 3h59 during its first - almost instantly aborted - launch of the Turbotrain in 1968. At the second - again very short-lived - launch in 1971 it was already 4h05 and during the final roll-out, this had already increased to 4h10).What he missed is that the journey time between Toronto and Montreal will actually be longer on the new route than is possible on the current corridor. This is simply due to the routing via Ottawa. VIA (and CN previously) were perfectly capable of running trains between Toronto and Montreal in 4 hours or less because the CN line is the most direct route and does not run through Ottawa. VIA either runs separate trains to Montreal and Ottawa or divides them enroute.
The current order of 32 Siemens trainsets is only enough to ensure the continued operation of a timetable offering similar to what was offered pre-Covid. It includes an option of 16 additional trainsets as a provision for HFR, but nobody prevents the future HFR/HSR operators from choosing a different fleet instead, as there will still be enough legacy routes where the non-HSR trainsets could be deployed (and service be expanded, for instance in Southwestern Ontario). Similarly, all proponents are explicitly asked to submit a HFR proposal and a HSR proposal. The decision between HFR (Vmax=110-125 mph) or HSR (Vmax=160-200 mph) will therefore be only made when assessing the six proposals received (i.e. 3 HFR proposals and 3 HSR proposals from the 3 qualified proponents) and the choice between the two speed types will in the end almost solely depend on how much capital funding the potential investors (private or public) are willing to shell out...The involvement of the two competing companies is interesting but likely not a factor. The present government has committed to the HFR proposal with Siemens equipment, therefore even if HSR makes more sense it is unlikely to change the direction.
The mortal danger of narrowing down the options you are presenting to any decision maker to only two alternatives (Do-Nothing and Go-all-the-way) is always that you have a good chance of ending up with the option to didn't prefer. Eliminating moderate solutions which could act as a compromise between competing interests is usually the preferred strategy of those secretly wishing to preserve the Status Quo, not of those who actually crave to see progress…That said, with the cabinet minister responsible for the project having recently been shown the door I suppose anything is possible. The next election (2025, but could be sooner) will dictate the future of it more than anything that will happen in the interim. The polls currently favor a party that is likely to take an axe to spending, with this project an easy target. We will have to wait and see.
The new video is pretty well made, and makes some good points about the changes in the country over the past decade, but I disagree about GO to Peterborough and reverting to the Ecotrain alignment, and not just because throwing all the cards in the air would further delay getting anything at all built.
Unless the GO service was going to be diesel, there wouldn't be much of a capital cost saving on the Havelock sub. It is going to need a complete rebuild to run a half-decent passenger service, plus about a dozen grade crossing separations that should be constructed for the major roads, and presumably the end-state even for a GO service would include electrification. If we're going to that trouble ($1bn ballpark), making the track 110 mph class 6 for HFR isn't really going to be that much more costly than class 4, maybe another 10-20%.
The hockey-stick in cost would come with raising the speed to 125 mph+ east of Steeles because that would add at least 30 more crossings to separate and a couple of dozen minor roads to close, plus some realignments, which would probably add another $1bn. But even that would probably be cheaper than building a brand-new HSR from Toronto toward Belleville alongside the existing corridor, which is more constrained by adjoining homes and businesses, let alone the cost of doing both. On top of that, there would be the GO operating costs, all for lesser benefits.
It's also fairly clear that the HFR Team are open to adjustments to the alignment, such as the diversion alongside highway 7 proposed by Sharbot Lake residents, that would solve the worst of the curvature problems and make a much faster running time to Glen Tay possible; but a complete rethink of the route is firmly off the table. That would be a harder thing to ask than saving VIA Rail from outsourced operations.
The presenter also seems unfair to Yves D-S, who I suspect wouldn't have left before delivering the major projects he started if given any choice in the matter.
You are touching a crucial thing here: as I can confirm with my own experience of having switched employers twice in the last two years (once by choice and once by necessity), everyone with a certain level of expertise in the operational, technological, commercial, economic and/or political constraints faced by railroads can easily find a lucrative career in either operating, planning, building or overseeing railroad activities or in advising any stakeholders concerned. Virtually no such Subject Matter Experts will therefore feel tempted to rely on "creating content" for a living and catering to railfans by telling them that their fantasies and conspiracy theories have a similar (or even: superior!) merit to the knowledge which is accumulated and shared across the professional networks of the railroad industry and which shapes the way in which railway infrastructure is planned, designed, built and operated.@Urban Sky
Rather than engage in a protracted back-and-forth on points that could be debated endlessly and are influenced by regional and political biases, let me say there are several points that we essentially agree on. I respect your opinions equally and was amused by your take on the REM, which has been lavished with praise by rail and transit writers and vloggers alike. It did seem like a lot of money was spent for limited return. I lack the regional perspective to know for sure but such decisions are not limited to Montreal to be sure. (GO Transit's future reroute of the Lakeshore East line off CN onto CP at Oshawa comes to mind.) As noted previously, sometimes it is difficult to not "jump on the bandwagon" when progress of any kind is made. If it wasn't clear that is why I can neither endorse nor condemn the HFR project. Anything is better than nothing. Still, if HFR is to be choice are there better or cheaper options?