[micheal_can]

Wow.. Just wow!
Skill testing question: where is it cheaper per km to build roads and highways; Northern ON on the Canadian Shield, or Southern ON on sedimentary rock......
To argue that building a HSR line on granite is cheaper is, well, confusing. Everything I have ever seen shows that the Shield is one of the toughest place to build anything on due to how hard the rock is.

 

[crs1026]

Very interesting analysis. Sure wish we had the benefit of this data back when the original HFR proposal was being studied.

Given that this proposal is clearly partisan for the northern route, I wonder what a southern route proponent would offer in rebuttal.

I would also like to see an apples to apples comparison of what the grade separation costs of each route would be. You can blast a lot of granite for the cost of one highway overpass. Encroaching on Highway 7 may have a down side.

My own preference is for the northern route for somewhat different reasons: it puts the premise of stations serving places such as Kingston further away from those cities and therefore less viable. The point being, don't include those stops at all, and make it harder for local interests to lobby for them. Alto is not meant to serve those local towns.

- Paul

 

[Ward8]

My own preference is for the northern route for somewhat different reasons: it puts the premise of stations serving places such as Kingston further away from those cities and therefore less viable. The point being, don't include those stops at all, and make it harder for local interests to lobby for them. Alto is not meant to serve those local towns.

While I'm at risk of rehashing earlier comments, I confess I don't entirely understand this line of thinking. Lots of effective HSR lines serve local communities, they just run express and local trains. The Shinkansen hits a ton of small towns. The express trains are certainly the backbone of the proposed line, but serving a few more spots does have potentially beneficial externalities.

 

[lenaitch]

Wow.. Just wow!
Skill testing question: where is it cheaper per km to build roads and highways; Northern ON on the Canadian Shield, or Southern ON on sedimentary rock......
To argue that building a HSR line on granite is cheaper is, well, confusing. Everything I have ever seen shows that the Shield is one of the toughest place to build anything on due to how hard the rock is.

If I understand the posted slides correctly, the proponents are arguing to follow a corridor of relatively softer sedimentary rock - sandstone and limestone - as much as possible.

Not a civil engineer but the northern vs southern comparison is not a direct 'A vs B' comparison. There is a lot more overburden (soil, gravel, etc.) in much of southern Ontario, but land acquisition costs are higher, and there are typically a lot more roads that need to be somehow intersected. In most southern Ontario areas, not a lot of blasting is involved; although there are exceptions, like the Niagara Escarpment and the Frontenac Arch area being discussed.

Even in northern Ontario; although there is a lot more hard rock requiring blasting, it's not completely homogenous. Carving Hwy 17 around Lake Superior would be a lot more difficult than Hwy. 11, which for a lot of its route goes through the Clay Belt and follows an east-west series of moraines and eskers west of Hearst. As you are no doubt aware, where there isn't rock, there is wetland, so a lot of the blast rubble is used to fill the wetlands, reducing the need for quarrying. Land costs are a lot cheaper.

 

[crs1026]

While I'm at risk of rehashing earlier comments, I confess I don't entirely understand this line of thinking. Lots of effective HSR lines serve local communities, they just run express and local trains. The Shinkansen hits a ton of small towns. The express trains are certainly the backbone of the proposed line, but serving a few more spots does have potentially beneficial externalities.

It is operationally possible to have such stations, sure, assuming only a couple trains stopping each day at any one station… but even with the southern route they have a lengthy first/last mile leg that is disfunctional - not really that beneficial to the community and far less effective than what lical expectations might want..

I question the assumption that the amenities at these stations can be modest. The need to keep people away from the tracks at other times likely requires gantlet tracks or secondary tracks, and/or physical security barriers that may require human attendants…. Manning a station for a couple of trains a day is not economical. Such stations cannot consist only of a modest platform with basic shelter as we see on the Northlander, Ingersoll, etc. So these stops would be fairly elaborate investments that are not best use of dollars fir those communities.

I would prefer to see the legacy Lakeshore line improved and money invested in that route alongside Alto so that the major communities have good transportation with stations more central to their town centers. I will gladly bet money that Ottawa intends to walk away from serving these communities…..the premise that Alto can serve their needs best is wrongheaded.

I understand that local interests have the right and perhaps obligation to lobby and advocate on behalf of their community… but loval interests can’t drive Alto. Some of the lampooning of such local barnstorming is on point. #thesimpsons

- Paul

 

[jcam]

???

The parking garage is over 300 metres long - why the lol?

View attachment 715837

Reminder that the path with go all the way to the X. Not sure whether there was any preservation in 1 The Esplanade through the building to the east (orange), after the stairwell to the bridge.

 

[Ward8]

It is operationally possible to have such stations, sure, assuming only a couple trains stopping each day at any one station… but even with the southern route they have a lengthy first/last mile leg that is disfunctional - not really that beneficial to the community and far less effective than what lical expectations might want.

Do we know the first/last mile will be dysfunctional? I'm unaware of any formal decisions, but that would be a factor if it affects the ability to run different service patterns. And how many extra stations are we thinking? The southern route probably allows for, at most, 3 infill stations at fairly large towns. They wouldn't necessarily need to start serving these places day one either. The ability to add ridership after the core service has been established should be weighed as an option. Kingston sees more than a couple of trains per day now despite long travel times and terrible service.

I'm not suggesting it's absolutely the correct thing to do, but the potential justifications are obvious and shouldn't be dismissed.

 

[micheal_can]

If I understand the posted slides correctly, the proponents are arguing to follow a corridor of relatively softer sedimentary rock - sandstone and limestone - as much as possible.

Not a civil engineer but the northern vs southern comparison is not a direct 'A vs B' comparison. There is a lot more overburden (soil, gravel, etc.) in much of southern Ontario, but land acquisition costs are higher, and there are typically a lot more roads that need to be somehow intersected. In most southern Ontario areas, not a lot of blasting is involved; although there are exceptions, like the Niagara Escarpment and the Frontenac Arch area being discussed.

Even in northern Ontario; although there is a lot more hard rock requiring blasting, it's not completely homogenous. Carving Hwy 17 around Lake Superior would be a lot more difficult than Hwy. 11, which for a lot of its route goes through the Clay Belt and follows an east-west series of moraines and eskers west of Hearst. As you are no doubt aware, where there isn't rock, there is wetland, so a lot of the blast rubble is used to fill the wetlands, reducing the need for quarrying. Land costs are a lot cheaper.

I know there is nuance to it. I have driven Highway 7 It looks more like a northern ON highway than something like Highway 2. The further south the line can go, the easier it would be to build it. The further north it is built, the harder it will be to build it.

 

[lenaitch]

It is operationally possible to have such stations, sure, assuming only a couple trains stopping each day at any one station… but even with the southern route they have a lengthy first/last mile leg that is disfunctional - not really that beneficial to the community and far less effective than what lical expectations might want..

I question the assumption that the amenities at these stations can be modest. The need to keep people away from the tracks at other times likely requires gantlet tracks or secondary tracks, and/or physical security barriers that may require human attendants…. Manning a station for a couple of trains a day is not economical. Such stations cannot consist only of a modest platform with basic shelter as we see on the Northlander, Ingersoll, etc. So these stops would be fairly elaborate investments that are not best use of dollars fir those communities.

I would prefer to see the legacy Lakeshore line improved and money invested in that route alongside Alto so that the major communities have good transportation with stations more central to their town centers. I will gladly bet money that Ottawa intends to walk away from serving these communities…..the premise that Alto can serve their needs best is wrongheaded.

I understand that local interests have the right and perhaps obligation to lobby and advocate on behalf of their community… but loval interests can’t drive Alto. Some of the lampooning of such local barnstorming is on point. #thesimpsons

- Paul

I'm also wondering about comparing "small town", into which I would not lump Kingston, in Japanese terms vs Canadian.

 

[generalcanada]

Reminder that the path with go all the way to the X. Not sure whether there was any preservation in 1 The Esplanade through the building to the east (orange), after the stairwell to the bridge.
View attachment 716139

When we talk about risk, this is what they mean. Same with the idea of going underground at union

 

[lenaitch]

I know there is nuance to it. I have driven Highway 7 It looks more like a northern ON highway than something like Highway 2. The further south the line can go, the easier it would be to build it. The further north it is built, the harder it will be to build it.

I'm not sure I agree. West of roughly Norwood it's mostly farmland. From there to around Medoc to around Perth it starts getting into the rock, but that is where they propose following the 'corridor'. Actually, former Hwy 2 in the Kingston area would face a lot of similar issues because the 'Arch crosses down into the US; albeit I think it narrows closer to the lake. There's a lot of softer sedimentary rock (limestone, etc.) closer to the lake. That's why so many of the towns in that area have such neat old architecture.

Harder is a relative term. The southern route will deal with a lot more private property, road crossings, possibly wider river valleys, towns, etc.

 

[ericmacm]

Very detailed website here by some folks advocating for the Northern route.

ALTO High speed rail citizen research

Citizen led research

altohsrcitizenresearch.ca

View attachment 716055
If you scroll down you can see a deck they put together.

View attachment 716054

Some of the key slides:

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I don't really get why the Schabas quote is included because I thought he supported the southern route:
View attachment 716066

They seem to think this is the Candence alignment for the northern route:

View attachment 716067

I have a lot of experience working with drilling in soils for environmental purposes. Bedrock in this region is sort of beyond the scope of my familiarity due to much of my work being in SW Ontario, and therefore rarely having to interact with bedrock, but from my understanding it seems that their logic here is generally sound - according to the Ontario Geological Survey, there are indeed long stretches of softer sedimentary rock within the part of the Shield that HWY 7 follows. Limestone, as an example, has a Moh’s hardness of around 4, whereas granite has a hardness of around 7. Limestone and similar materials are the type of bedrock encountered in the GTA, which is very close to the surface in many areas, and this can indeed be worked on without blasting (you can see it being removed with other methods during the excavations for many tower projects) which makes construction easier. The northern route would have to go through a larger portion of the Shield, but these sedimentary corridors allow for less interaction with hard igneous bedrock.

The southern route, while going through less of the Shield, would indeed have to pass through a region with lots of hard igneous granite that stretches from Maberly down toward the St. Lawrence. This material is comparable to the gneisses and granites found in the Shield between Orillia and Sudbury, which is also quite hard (generally a Moh’s of 7-8) and has required blasting for the various highway projects that have been underway in the area. There are also areas of softer sedimentary rock along the southern route as well, but upon review of the OGS MRD126 Bedrock Geology map (this is available as a KML that can be opened in Google Earth for those interested), many of these sedimentary corridors have bodies of water present, which would mean larger portions of the HSR corridor would potentially have to be diverted through the granite to get around the lakes/rivers, and therefore require more blasting.

It is quite obvious that this study is framed more in favour of the northern route, but I think they are generally correct in terms of the geology and potential challenges. That being said, the granite along the southern route has not stopped highway or rail corridors from going through it in the past. It is very possible that a geotechnical assessment could identify a feasible route through this area. It is worth noting that despite the OGS mapping being very detailed, the conditions out in the field can vary significantly.

 

[crs1026]

I'm also wondering about comparing "small town", into which I would not lump Kingston, in Japanese terms vs Canadian.

Agree, Kingston is the obvious biggest community to use for a mid-route stop argument.... certainly a different level of comparison than Tweed or Perth. So, even there.....

Do we know the first/last mile will be dysfunctional? I'm unaware of any formal decisions, but that would be a factor if it affects the ability to run different service patterns. And how many extra stations are we thinking? The southern route probably allows for, at most, 3 infill stations at fairly large towns. They wouldn't necessarily need to start serving these places day one either. The ability to add ridership after the core service has been established should be weighed as an option. Kingston sees more than a couple of trains per day now despite long travel times and terrible service.

I'm not suggesting it's absolutely the correct thing to do, but the potential justifications are obvious and shouldn't be dismissed.

The southern route is awfully reminiscent of the old Napanee-Ottawa line, although I wonder if a route on the south side of Sydenham Lake would disrupt fewer cottagers and thus have lower land costs. (My recollection of that old line is that it suffered more from swamp than granite, but in any event....)

The absolutely best -case scenario I can imagine is an alignment with a station at Moon's Corners, which is at the upper end of Sydenham Road. That's an "optimistic" 20 minute drive from the 401, which I would use as the benchmark starting point from urban Kingston. Add another 5 minutes to reach VIA, or 10 minutes to reach Queens University. All under favourable conditions. Under bad weather, or even at night, I would consider that less than a fair trade for the current VIA station. If one assumes that the trip time by Alto from Moons to Toronto would be at least an hour, likely 1:15 or more....the comparison to current trip times on VIA to Toronto says there is little time saved and more effort/aggravation by making that drive, or catching a connecting bus (who offers that connecting bus, also?). And, if one adds the assumptions that there will be only so many trains making the stop, the timing options are less favourble than the very favourable VIA departure options available today.

We could consider Belleville, Napanee, and Cobourg as other "deserving" en route stops. Again, legacy VIA with current station locations offers a pretty direct and car competitive option without having to make a shuttle to the Alto station.

Assuming of course, less than a long walk from the new Alto station to Union Station for transit or GO connections, or UPE. Add in that walk and there is a further time and effort element to the trip compared to VIA

I would like to see the legacy service improved post- Alto to offer a consistent two hour headway on existing speeds and trip times. Let CN argue that's unreasonable considering it's half of the VIA trains currently operated, hence much less obstruction to their operation. Kingston especially needs to appreciate just how much of a reduction in service over today alto will bring them.

- Paul.

 

[micheal_can]

I'm not sure I agree. West of roughly Norwood it's mostly farmland. From there to around Medoc to around Perth it starts getting into the rock, but that is where they propose following the 'corridor'. Actually, former Hwy 2 in the Kingston area would face a lot of similar issues because the 'Arch crosses down into the US; albeit I think it narrows closer to the lake. There's a lot of softer sedimentary rock (limestone, etc.) closer to the lake. That's why so many of the towns in that area have such neat old architecture.

Harder is a relative term. The southern route will deal with a lot more private property, road crossings, possibly wider river valleys, towns, etc.

I have heard the southern route 'only' has 41 properties to contend with.

 

[CapitalSeven]

I don't agree that geological study project is anti-south propaganda. I have no training in geology past grade 10, but I spent hours this winter staring at satellite maps, wetlands maps, etc. and I came to similar conclusions just looking at the geography in a naive sense, and posted here about it on 13 January. There appear to be at least 3 potential alignments that follow the general route from the Madoc/Tweed area to the Carleton Place area.

I for the life of me can't see a route across the southern corridor that isn't a mess for agriculture and settlements. The closer a northern route is to Hwy 7, the more it impacts people, but also the easier it is to build I suppose, and there may be away to leverage the works to improve the roads in the region: make 7 one of the 3-lane roads they've been talking about as part of the bargain.