The thing I hate about all of these new proposals, is that immediately want to jump from what's there now, which is either nothing or a service averaging maybe 100 km/h, to full high speed at 300 km/h. A train that could average 150-200 km/h over this route (or Alberta, or Montreal-Toronto...

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-seattle-high-speed-rail-washington-state-funding-proposed

It seems to me more like a new lobby/activist group. It's unclear if the government has much involvement with this.

Not much new, but something perhaps of interest to the people following this thread: https://edmontonsun.com/news/local-news/resurrecting-the-dayliner-a-new-push-for-calgary-edmonton-rail-line/wcm/f3d165a6-53a2-4265-97c7-b896546b1e02

My understanding is that Via crews actually operate the trains for Translink. The actual contract is confidential, unfortunately.

I think it's not so clear that North American freight railways are superior to Russian ones as this pile on suggests. Yes, private sector management is generally far more efficient than state stewardship. However, it's reasonable to argue that the short term mindset of managers (whose tenure is...

I don't know why you think hydrogen is so unlikely to play a significant role? There are already commercially viable hydrogen locomotives running commuter routes in multiple countries. While things are further back for freight, I think you overestimate the obstacles and underestimate private...

Moreover, neither electric nor driverless cars are going to change the basic advantages of rail relative to cars on longer distance travel: lower rolling resistance and far higher numbers of passengers per hour per unit cost.

You folks very much seem to be talking at cross purposes here. Nothing of what you say seems to be inconsistent. The travelling public and the railfans read about trips taking under 4 hours and lament current standards or even even any proposed upgrades as being totally inadequate and likely to...

It also likely prohibits the running of overnight trains. Although they might not have a huge market, are definitely something that some people would be interested in.

It seems like they have a serious LRT expansion plan. https://www.edmonton.ca/projects_plans/transit/lrt-network-plan.aspx Alongside the proposed Gondola, they could at least manage some kind of Suburban station I would think. It wouldn't be a one seat ride, but even then, most of the track is...

The obvious candidate for new service (as I'm sure everyone is aware here), is Edmonton-Calgary. If HFR gets built, I'd love to see that come first, especially as it might have a strong impact on the political constituencies that don't already support passenger rail in this country. Are there...

An interesting podcast for those here: https://podcasts.google.com/search/chartered%20cities. The last episode is focused on cost differences of rail transit infrastructure around the world. The commentator, Alon Levy, is a bit of a know-it-all, but overall it's very informative on many of the...

That's an empirical question. It's unambiguously clear that HFR would steal market share from Megabus and regional air, but whether people currently travelling by bus services that end up being cancelled or having reduced service would fully substitute to car vs. substituting to car+train is not...

With transportation infrastructure though in particular, one thing that's become increasingly well established academically is the massive directly economic externality capitalized in the land values near the infrastructure. This has been obvious at a pragmatic level since the days of the CPR...

Here in BC, both political parties made it a major election promise last election to remove tolls on new bridges built into Vancouver.

There are many reasons why the bank may both help to encourage private investment but also find that very mission challenging in Canada. From my perspective: 1. Scale. A lot of infrastructure projects are simply too large for many private sector entities to undertake. 2. Political Economy of...

In the US there are several large nuclear generating stations that might be closed soon (in large part because of the absence of a carbon tax). An individual unit at one of those stations could run over 100* freight locomotives at peak power output. Obviously there are transmission losses and so...

Even with electric cars there are still substantial externalities in terms of air pollution (from tire and break wear) and the public health costs. Whether or not the technology embedded in new cars substantially improves pedestrian and other road user safety is something that remains to be...

It could also buy more rolling stock if the JPO found they would need to run a lot of trains for the business case to work.