Somehow I doubt that that goal alone would justify spending something like $25 billion in taxpayer money on HSR between Calgary and Edmonton…

Some of the carrots the federal government can hold towards CN and CPKC are that the river crossings on and off Montreal Island and in Quebec City will need to be replaced soon and will require massive capital investments, which could provide the incentive to collaborate with defined and...

This is the answer he has been given countless time and the fact that he keeps asking the same question every few days is why most of us have stopped bothering to respond to him or even put him on “Ignore”…

Maybe the construction work fitted into an 8-hour window (i.e., 10am-6pm) between trains 97 and 98…?

Given that the Maple Leaf is currently pulling into Union Station as we speak, it seems like it’s operating as usual: https://asm.transitdocs.com/train/2024/11/21/A/63

Similarly, Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montreal trains are often scheduled within a few minutes from each other to minimize their impact on freight operations, which means that even a lower number than the currently up to 16 trains per day (10 TO and 6 TM) could offer a much more useful schedule...

It’s important to not conflate “VIA Rail Canada Inc.” (“VIA Rail”) with “VIA HFR-TGF Inc.” (“VIA HFR-TGF”), as I’m very confident that VIA Rail has never publicly considered using the Winchester Subdivision as Ottawa Bypass…

No, it’s not: it’s the consolidation of all primary (“end-to-end”) markets into a single Corridor (by merging Montreal-Ottawa, Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto trains into a single Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto Corridor), so that the Lakeshore communities can be served by trains focusing on their...

Montreal-Ottawa would have been the first Segment anyways and will always be the easiest first step. I wrote my Bechelor Thesis about such an improved link and the need to scale down our ambitions to get anything built...

… for Air Canada, at least.

The modal share of rail freight begs to differ. It’s amazing what we have achieved with basically no taxpayer involvement. As I keep saying: we get what we pay for (a rail network which works great for those who actually pay for it: freight railroads and their shippers)…

Some of you might remember that I have shared pre-HSR timetables for Germany and the Northeast Corridor here: I have now discovered a timetable archive for the Italian State Railroad FS, which has allowed me to create similar tables for Milan-Rome (which happen to be 478.6 km apart "as the...

It was one of the weekends where GO’s Lakeshore East service was suspended due to trackworks and VIA‘s Lakeshore services had to be diverted over the Bala and York Subdivisions. In order to minimize the impact to CN (in terms of additional traffic on the York Sub and the number of pilots they...

The train was apparently stranded at MP 9.5 Bala Sub, so before reaching the York Sub: https://groups.io/g/Canadian-Passenger-Rail/message/99926

My assumption was that since trains 64 and 42 were supposed to be jayed all the way from Toronto to Oshawa, only a single pilot would have been on board (inside the cab of leading train 64). However, after splitting, a second pilot would have been required (inside the cab of train 42), because...

Sure, but both trains needed to pass over the CN-owned York Subdivision to get from Oriole to Pickering Junction…

Comparing a Light Metro project which is largely at-grade or even within an existing ROW (with a relatively short tunnel being modernized) with an LRT project which is dug into the ground for half its length doesn’t really appear to me as a valid and fair comparison. I would believe that the...

Which makes me curious of how they handled this requirement when they had to detach 42 from 64 (which should have required an additional pilot on the now separated Siemens Train 42): https://groups.io/g/Canadian-Passenger-Rail/message/99933

You don‘t need approval to cease operations and let a line fall into disarray. You just need to continue paying property taxes for any lands you own and tracks laid on them. Not necessarily, but the speed restriction of 15 mph while reversing (IIRC) would have added a considerable delay...

My rough estimate would be 8 hours and the need to arrange the move 8 days in advance and without any passengers on board. Not even „in theory“: