[Epi]

I wonder how much more fuel efficient HSR really is compared to short-haul flight. It would take many a joule to clear and grade a 500-600km ROW between Toronto & Montreal. Dash 8s are fairly fuel efficient and require relatively little supporting infrastructure (vs. HSR...), so the difference might not be so high. I would imagine it would fall down to ridership. Air travel is pretty scalable (not many passengers, reduce flights...) whereas HSR's environmental impacts are almost entirely fixed (build tracks, buy rolling stock, replace every decade).



Clearly you have missed the point of HSR. If Ontario/Quebec actually built the thing, then how would they complain about the Feds? HSR's political value rests in 'announcing' it every time someone new is elected, then complaining the feds don't support "the people of the glorious nation of Quebec" or Ontario, then repeating.

Rail is vastly more efficient than air travel as it is more efficient than car travel as well.

Here's a great article on HSR in Canada that was in June's Walrus:
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.06--off-the-rails/

 

[Hipster Duck]

Thanks for the article. I agree with Paul Langan that Alberta will probably be the testing ground for high speed rail in this country, rather than the Quebec-Windsor corridor.

Simply put, Canada is too "Balkanized" for two provincial governments to cooperate with each other on an infrastructure project of any scale. Remember Churchill Falls? I'm pretty sure that a line that links Ontario with Quebec will just involve a lot of meaningless stalling and posturing on behalf of both provincial governments with the Feds just adding fuel to the fire.

 

[Whoaccio]

Rail is vastly more efficient than air travel as it is more efficient than car travel as well.

Meh, not as fuel efficient as you think. Operationally yeah, but HSR takes vastly more energy to set up in the first place. The Cato-esque "Reason Foundation" (possibly most pretentious think tank name, ever) found that the California HSR was no more efficient in a total life cycle analysis to improved air travel. Ultimately it will depend on how many people actually ride the thing. This UC Berkley report found airtravel had far lower external costs (including measures like air & noise pollution) than HSR for the San Fran-L.A. corridor, and only marginal savings over highway. Specifically, it recommends developing HSR to not compete against air travel and instead focus on short haul trips (in their example, L.A.-San Diego) to cannibalize highway traffic. If the trains end up looking like something out of Bombay and running every 15 minutes like in Japan, then yea we probably will see total energy savings. If we get anemic ridership with trains every hour or something and the rails sit idle most of the time it probably wont.

 

[Epi]

Meh, not as fuel efficient as you think. Operationally yeah, but HSR takes vastly more energy to set up in the first place. The Cato-esque "Reason Foundation" (possibly most pretentious think tank name, ever) found that the California HSR was no more efficient in a total life cycle analysis to improved air travel. Ultimately it will depend on how many people actually ride the thing. This UC Berkley report found airtravel had far lower external costs (including measures like air & noise pollution) than HSR for the San Fran-L.A. corridor, and only marginal savings over highway. Specifically, it recommends developing HSR to not compete against air travel and instead focus on short haul trips (in their example, L.A.-San Diego) to cannibalize highway traffic. If the trains end up looking like something out of Bombay and running every 15 minutes like in Japan, then yea we probably will see total energy savings. If we get anemic ridership with trains every hour or something and the rails sit idle most of the time it probably wont.

Those lifecycle cost analysis are hard to say sometimes... I remember reading a while ago some analysis that said that the Toyota Prius was actually more polluting than a Hummer because of materials used to make hybrids, but then again reading an opposing article a month later about how the first one was wrong due to incorrect assumptions.

In the end it's hard to say exactly, but one thing I do know is this. We build a rail line and it's there for 100 years and just needs maintenance. Trains can run on renewable energy (solar/wind/biomass/hydro electricity) while airplanes cannot. Cars may one day use only renewable energy, but there's no way you'll ever convince me that the costs of building highways, upkeeping highways, highway traffic accidents, costs of cars, wear and tear and so on is less than a train.

 

[jwill]

I'd like to point out that the vast majority of the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal route lies within Ontario. If this province wants high speed rail to go ahead there's nothing stopping them. If trains only go high speed until they cross the Quebec border it will still be a vast improvement. At some point somebody needs to step up and get this thing started. Just build the HSR capable track and go from there. It doesn't have to happen all at once.

 

[Automation Gallery]

Does not make sense,The Canadian/Ontario government has billions of bucks to bail out deadbeat foreign automobile mfgs, but nothing in the pot to build a most likely profitable High Speed Rail system.

 

[sjc]

I would think that the efficiency of train vs plane would be determined by the number of potential passengers. For a few passengers, the plane would almost certainly be better since you don't have to build (and maintain!) hundreds of miles of rails.

The land used for the rails can't be used for other things (although admittedly eastern ontario land is for the most part pretty useless). With airplanes the only land you need to use is for the airports at either end of the trip.

How much does the cost of rails compare to the cost of buying airplanes? How much does the cost of maintaining trains+rails compare to the cost of maintaining planes and airports (airports can be used for planes going other places as well, so only a portion of the costs need to be counted).
How much difference is there in the operational costs (running a train vs running airplanes).

I think it would take a LOT of passengers for the train to become more efficient than airplanes.

Trains have a big advantage in that they can stop at places between the two end points. For example from Toronto to Montreal, a plane can only service the people in Toronto or Montreal. A train can service passengers going to and from places like Kingston, Brockville, Coburg, Belleville, etc. as well which includes a lot more potential passengers. Of course, every stop makes the trip take longer and makes it less attractive for the passengers that want to go all the way from Toronto to Montreal.

If you just want large centre to large centre travel, airplanes are the way to go in my opinion.

I can't see how they could implement trains from Montreal to Toronto that could compete with flights (especially from Toronto Island) on price and time.

But maybe someone has numbers to show that high speed trains can work at a reasonable price?

 

[RedRocket191]

But maybe someone has numbers to show that high speed trains can work at a reasonable price?

For what it's worth:

A trip from Toronto to Ottawa via Porter, not counting sale seats, starts at $109 CAD. A trip from London to Paris via the Eurostar starts at $131 USD. When you consider the better frequencies and convenience of downtown-to-downtown service I would say it's competitive depending on the individual situation (where in the city the person is going).

 

[Whoaccio]

For what it's worth:

A trip from Toronto to Ottawa via Porter, not counting sale seats, starts at $109 CAD. A trip from London to Paris via the Eurostar starts at $131 USD. When you consider the better frequencies and convenience of downtown-to-downtown service I would say it's competitive depending on the individual situation (where in the city the person is going).

Though, as much as us N. Americans think of Europe as HSR land, it really more the land of discount airfare. I just checked Ryanair, a one way London-Madrid (i.e. farther than Paris) starts at an obscene four quid (!!!). Now, with taxes that goes to about 35 quid. Still though, its clearly cheaper than the chunnel.

I couldn't seem to find London-Paris from Ryanair, were they kicked out of CDG or something? Anyways, easyJet is giving me about 30 quid Luton-CDG, and they were generous enough to let me take a bag for that.

 

[unimaginative2]

Ryanair has never flown out of CDG. Part of the reason their fares are so low is that they stick to small airports on the outskirts of major cities, often ex-military bases. They serve Paris from Beauvais, Frankfurt from the Hahn airport (about 100km away), Hamburg from Luebeck, Barcelona from Girona, Glasgow from Prestwick, etc.

 

[Epi]

I would think that the efficiency of train vs plane would be determined by the number of potential passengers. For a few passengers, the plane would almost certainly be better since you don't have to build (and maintain!) hundreds of miles of rails.

Well that's obvious. If there's any sort of HSR that's being considered, it shouldn't even be considered if there were no possible passengers. That said, there's already a healthy number of people who use VIA's low-speed service now, so you could easily imagine a lot more people using a high-speed service.

The land used for the rails can't be used for other things (although admittedly eastern ontario land is for the most part pretty useless). With airplanes the only land you need to use is for the airports at either end of the trip.

That is true, but if they just run the thing along the 401 or whatever, it shouldn't take that much useful space. In reality, it would take as much space as a 2-lane road with shoulders, which isn't that bad.

How much does the cost of rails compare to the cost of buying airplanes? How much does the cost of maintaining trains+rails compare to the cost of maintaining planes and airports (airports can be used for planes going other places as well, so only a portion of the costs need to be counted).
How much difference is there in the operational costs (running a train vs running airplanes).

We spend billions on airport upgrades and highway widening schemes. I think if we can afford to not expand the 401 to 3 lanes all the way (as they seem to want to do), that could probably easily pay for the rails. As for the maintenance fees and so on, these would likely be rolled into ticket costs. Pearson charges pretty high rates for aircraft landings.

Trains have a big advantage in that they can stop at places between the two end points. For example from Toronto to Montreal, a plane can only service the people in Toronto or Montreal. A train can service passengers going to and from places like Kingston, Brockville, Coburg, Belleville, etc. as well which includes a lot more potential passengers. Of course, every stop makes the trip take longer and makes it less attractive for the passengers that want to go all the way from Toronto to Montreal.

If you just want large centre to large centre travel, airplanes are the way to go in my opinion.

I think if any serious HSR proposal is to be considered, the tracks would likely be quad tracked along minor stations. You see this in Europe and Japan, where express trains will zoom by at full speed while local trains stop at smaller stations. In this way, by maximizing the amount of places served, while still giving full-speed service, the rails can be used for many more trains and many more customers.

But maybe someone has numbers to show that high speed trains can work at a reasonable price?

I think if you look at the experience of countries where HSR has worked, you can see that even when there's lots of cars and airplanes and even when HSR is quite expensive, people will still ride it if it's there. A lot of people don't like airplanes as trains have a better ride, more comfy seats, no air sickness, less security/wait times no baggage claim, and train stations are inside the middle of cities instead of on the edge. There's a lot of advantages where it isn't purely just a price thing, and as people in other countries DO pay for it, it's not purely speculative as to whether it would work.

 

[unimaginative2]

I think if any serious HSR proposal is to be considered, the tracks would likely be quad tracked along minor stations. You see this in Europe and Japan, where express trains will zoom by at full speed while local trains stop at smaller stations. In this way, by maximizing the amount of places served, while still giving full-speed service, the rails can be used for many more trains and many more customers.

Those are good points. I like the Nozomi/Hikari/Kodama model on the Tokaido Shinkansen in Japan. Nozomi trains only stop at the major cities. Our equivalent would be a non-stop from Toronto to Montreal. Hikari is an express service that would stop at a few intermediate points, like Ottawa, Trudeau Airport, and perhaps Kingston. A Kodama service would make all stops, potentially including a stop in Durham Region, Port Hope/Cobourg, Quinte, and maybe a few others. Another approach is the Spanish model, where a kind of high-speed commuter service is operated between Madrid and some smaller cities about an hour distant, such as Ciudad Real. They have turned out to be even busier and more lucrative than the long distance routes like Madrid-Seville. Thousands of people take advantage of the opportunity to quickly travel to the major city, and these towns become satellites. Port Hope, Kitchener/Waterloo/Guelph, London, and even Kingston have a lot of potential for this role.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Those are good points. I like the Nozomi/Hikari/Kodama model on the Tokaido Shinkansen in Japan. Nozomi trains only stop at the major cities. Our equivalent would be a non-stop from Toronto to Montreal. Hikari is an express service that would stop at a few intermediate points, like Ottawa, Trudeau Airport, and perhaps Kingston. A Kodama service would make all stops, potentially including a stop in Durham Region, Port Hope/Cobourg, Quinte, and maybe a few others. Another approach is the Spanish model, where a kind of high-speed commuter service is operated between Madrid and some smaller cities about an hour distant, such as Ciudad Real. They have turned out to be even busier and more lucrative than the long distance routes like Madrid-Seville. Thousands of people take advantage of the opportunity to quickly travel to the major city, and these towns become satellites. Port Hope, Kitchener/Waterloo/Guelph, London, and even Kingston have a lot of potential for this role.

But why doesn't VIA have this sort of set up already with it's routes? I would think that a Toronto to Montreal express (with maybe a stop in Kingston) would be very attractive even a slow rail speeds. Or do they have that already? Last I checked VIA stops at every minor stop along the way. A morning route leaving Toronto around 8 could probably be in Montreal by 12, leaving enough time for a few business meetings before catching another express train leaving Montreal at 6 and your back in Toronto for 10.

 

[MisterF]

But why doesn't VIA have this sort of set up already with it's routes? I would think that a Toronto to Montreal express (with maybe a stop in Kingston) would be very attractive even a slow rail speeds. Or do they have that already? Last I checked VIA stops at every minor stop along the way. A morning route leaving Toronto around 8 could probably be in Montreal by 12, leaving enough time for a few business meetings before catching another express train leaving Montreal at 6 and your back in Toronto for 10.

VIA already does this. I've taken trains from Cobourg to Ottawa that only makes two stops. There's at least one daily Toronto-Montreal nonstop, IIRC.

 

[khris]

Train 66 leaves Toronto at 17:00. Makes one stop at 17:34 in Oshawa to entrain only. From there it stops at Dorval, and then Montreal at 21:21 and 21:38 respectively.