I don’t disagree with the premise that there had to be a starting point, and we can’t “boil the ocean” all in one step.
But I would quibble about the premise that Quebec City is easy and economical while Toronto-Pearson-Kitchener-London is hard and expensive.
For one thing, Quebec-Montreal is 180 miles where Toronto-London is 119. Second, the Toronto-Pearson leg is roughed in while the approach to Montreal is messy and needs re construction along CP and CN trackage. A true hub at Pearson is still a decade or more away, true, but I’m not convinced that a free bus shuttle from Malton to Pearson is not viable as a stopgap - Logan in Boston has such a shuttle, for example.
Population wise, Toronto-Pearson-Kitchener-London is way ahead of Montreal-Trois Rivieres- Quebec. One can assume that ridership potential is greater.
We have not seen a comparative business case showing the relative merits of Quebec-Montreal vs Toronto-London as an element of HFR. It has been reported that the Quebec leg of HFR is not a money maker. Perhaps a head to head analysis would have favoured London.
Perhaps political considerations, and not network or economic considerations, is why things ended up this way. Plus a federal-provincial disconnect that makes it tempting for Ottawa to pass the tab for the west of Toronto leg to the province, especially with GO needing to invest in that line anyways. (I do think there is a political agenda, not a network agenda, behind GO stretching to London…. mark my words…)
Because of the politics, I think it’s inevitable that HFR 1.0 had to stop at Toronto. But let’s not misportray that as a sound economic decision.
- Paul
Not sure it's been covered that much. And I'm not sure why it's dismissed at all, given that there's plans for the longer Montreal-Quebec corridor, that has lower population. And as crs1026 points out, the approaches into Montreal from the east (heck, from anywhere other than south shore) are horrific.
UrbanSky............You state that the reason why the line is going to QC was in, in part, due to politicians, business, and media demanding be so which just confirms what I have been saying all along, that this is very much a plan based primarily based upon political considerations and not transportation needs. This is to say nothing of the fact that TR/QC is one of the slowest growing areas of the country and SWO one of the fastest.
Even if the passengers alight in the north end, there is a need to get the trains to and from the maintenance base with reliability. I can’t see doing that with the status quo trackage. And the last ten miles into the north end station will need improvements to clear EXO trains.
So we are left with 80 miles of single track restoration from Georgetown to London, plus 10 miles of intensive construction Georgetown to Bramalea…. versus 160 miles of single track restoration, plus 10 miles of intensive construction into northern Montreal, plus an “escape” solution to bring the trains downtown at night.
On a pure cost to build and revenue potential comparison, I’d still vote for London.
You make a good point that we have to look over VIA’s shoulder as they saw things in 2014-2015, as that’s when the HFR concept was conceived. Given that date’s landscape, and the initial focus on a profit generating HFR, I can’t fault VIA for not looking to London. Neither London nor Quebec would have looked particularly profitable given the investment required.
The entire point of HFR was to conceive a project which was large enough to make intercity passenger rail relevant again, while keeping it small enough so that the price-tag wouldn't make it dead-on-arrival as had happened with every single HSR proposal. That's why inevitably neither MTRL-QBEC nor SWO were part of the initial scope, because the head can work without hands, but the hands can't work without the head.
That's also why the later inclusion of MTRL-QBEC only means that this leg was included in the planning process as an add-on to a project which works just as well as a stand-alone. Therefore, whatever problems MTRL-QBEC encounters have very little impact on the HFR core corridor, as MTRL-QBEC will only be built if anyone wants to pay for its construction costs.
The same applies of course for SWO, but this year's announcement only means that the planning for HFR West have only just begun, which means that the hostile attitude towards HFR when HSR was still an election promise on steroids has lost SWO three or so years compared to MTRL-QBEC...
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There's currently three rail corridors from Toronto to London. Adding some extra track from Aldershot to London would be quite doable. Heck, if you want to go for speed, restore the Brantford bypass track, and switch to new track along the CP corridor from Woodstock to London. And with that alignment the Pearson "problem" vanishes (not that it is a problem really).
When I talk about London service I am not talking about the route via Kitchener but rather Aldershot which is far more direct. This route is as direct as it could be and is only 180km. As noted above, restoring the Brantford Bypass would do wonders.
Ah, the "pay-and-pray" approach is back! Not that it gave much bang-for-the-buck on the Kingston Sub, but, hey, who says we can't try the same on the Dundas Sub and hope for different results...!?!
In all seriousness, if any public funds are to be wasted on upgrading the Dundas Sub, then I sincerely hope as a Quebec taxpayer that only your Ontarian tax dollars are burnt for such a "Hail Mary" project, which does only one thing effectively and that is avoiding all the relevant population centers between London and the GTHA (plus this country's busiest Airport) - especially if the stupid Brantford Bypass is (re)built...
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As far as people in SWO opposing Wynne's plan, that is crap. It got news coverage due to a couple of outspoken farmers but that was enough for QP to quickly rescind the plan that Wynne had created on the back of a napkin 20 minutes before the election call.
I don't normally use words like "crap", but if I had to use it to describe anything, I might use it for your reading-comprehension skills (to the extent that they are discernible from your contributions in this forum): Nobody has talked about local opposition against Wynne's HSR vanity project (which was mostly led by farmers anyway) for at least the last few dozens of pages, but about the hostility with which HFR was met in SWO - not for HFR ignoring SWO, but for VIA having the audacity of proposing an intercity rail proposal
anywhere in the country at the same time as the shovels were allegedly already prepared to get HSR started!
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As I said before, business is a good deal if you're eating, drinking, and working. But if you're just going to be sleeping, go for economy.
Business Class is a fantastic deal if you have to get work done and your employer pays your ticket while you can rack up Preference points...
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HSR has been dead for years. VIA has significantly modified HFR since then, and has also announced.
Some have an opinion that there won't be VIA frequency increases - but this isn't supported by any evidence. And is even is somewhat contrary to the recent announcement of VIA studying service improvements in Southwestern Ontario -
https://globalnews.ca/news/8048108/...don-region-but-details-remain-down-the-track/
I don't think trying to moderate the forum based on an opinion that some (or more?) disagree with.
Personally I wouldn't be surprised if there were increased VIA frequencies eventually between London and Toronto - either on the line through Hamilton/Brantford (or less likely on the CP line through Galt). I don't see that the many-hour milk run through Kitchener stops that.
There may be a few more frequencies on the Dundas Sub which VIA might be able to somehow extract from CN, but there is absolutely zero chance that you'll see VIA operating over the Galt Sub, as it has all the issues of the Halton and Dundas Sub (e.g. transcontinental freight traffic), an inferior alignment and much less population served (avoiding KITC, GUEL and BRTF) and without much of its (partial) remedy (i.e. double-tracking)...
