[crs1026]

This has nothing to do with consultants. (even if there were some in the mix).

It's simply a matter of what the engineering consensus indicates the track is capable of, considering that there are many curves which constrain the usable track speed.

We don't have the precise engineering curve data that VIA has access to, although we do have some historical data - and as the cited article notes, people have done crude estimates for each curve on the line, using Google Maps and other sources. If one knows the rough curvature value, and can estimate the length of each segment, it's pretty easy to guesstimate the permissible speed through each curve segment using the Transport Canada standard (page 14), and accumulate the time taken. These estimates may not all agree to the third decimal point, but they all confirm that the curves on the Havelock Sub as built constrain trip time considerably.

Whether VIA was overly optimistic in its stated trip times depends on several factors, including how aggressively one intends to bank the tracks. As a dedicated passenger line, banking is certainly more practical than for a mixed-use line.

Even so, the amount of less-than-optimal running attributable to the curvy sections is possibly not the end of the story. Slow orders through several urban areas, and through the segments where HFR will remain a tenant, also may create delay. As will the need to hold meets on single track territory.

VIA's original premise was that if the trip time can be kept to some value, with much greater reliability than is possible as a tenant on a freight line, then it will attract some increased level of ridership.- maybe not everyone, and maybe not the most time-sensitive travellers, but enough to generate a favourable ROI.

Once one adds bells and whistles that add capital cost, as Ottawa appears to have done, all of that goes out the window.

This was debated here in some detail. I won't recycle further.... it's all deja moo at this point. Now that it's a political decision rather than an investment prospectus, the likelihood of a data-driven decision is even less than before. Ottawa's reticence to divulge its data speaks volumes.

- Paul

 

[Bordercollie]

This has nothing to do with consultants. (even if there were some in the mix).

It's simply a matter of what the engineering consensus indicates the track is capable of, considering that there are many curves which constrain the usable track speed.

We don't have the precise engineering curve data that VIA has access to, although we do have some historical data - and as the cited article notes, people have done crude estimates for each curve on the line, using Google Maps and other sources. If one knows the rough curvature value, and can estimate the length of each segment, it's pretty easy to guesstimate the permissible speed through each curve segment using the Transport Canada standard (page 14), and accumulate the time taken. These estimates may not all agree to the third decimal point, but they all confirm that the curves on the Havelock Sub as built constrain trip time considerably.

Whether VIA was overly optimistic in its stated trip times depends on several factors, including how aggressively one intends to bank the tracks. As a dedicated passenger line, banking is certainly more practical than for a mixed-use line.

Even so, the amount of less-than-optimal running attributable to the curvy sections is possibly not the end of the story. Slow orders through several urban areas, and through the segments where HFR will remain a tenant, also may create delay. As will the need to hold meets on single track territory.

VIA's original premise was that if the trip time can be kept to some value, with much greater reliability than is possible as a tenant on a freight line, then it will attract some increased level of ridership.- maybe not everyone, and maybe not the most time-sensitive travellers, but enough to generate a favourable ROI.

Once one adds bells and whistles that add capital cost, as Ottawa appears to have done, all of that goes out the window.

This was debated here in some detail. I won't recycle further.... it's all deja moo at this point. Now that it's a political decision rather than an investment prospectus, the likelihood of a data-driven decision is even less than before. Ottawa's reticence to divulge its data speaks volumes.

- Paul

In the climate that we live in, both in summer and winter flying can often have delays. If taking the train is more consistent I would choose that over being stuck at the airport.

 

[kEiThZ]

I hadn't seen that. I suggested year ago that someone had sold VIA a dud plan.

I believe that is work done by @reaperexpress. Has been posted here years ago.

But the numbers in there make it very clear that it's just not possible with 100+ km of new alignment.

You should note that his analysis benchmark's against an old claim of 3:15 hrs from Union to Havelock. To achieve the benchmark requires the 102 km high speed line (new alignment) from Kaladar to Smiths Falls. This brings the travel time to 2:47 hrs. But upgrading most of the corridor and excluding a new alignment achieves 3:28 hrs. That is not very far outside the target 3:15 hrs.

A cab ride from Tremblay station to Parliament Hill is 11 mins. Transit takes 16 min. So we can ballpark 3:50 hrs from downtown-to-downtown without the 102 km HSL for Toronto to Ottawa. 3:10 hrs with the HSL.

It's about 2.5 hrs from downtown-to-downtown using Porter and cabs on both ends (using Parliament Hill in Ottawa and Union Station in Toronto) in an ideal situation with no traffic and minimal pre-boarding and deboarding times. I'm going to guess 3 hrs is closer to what people actually budget.

With the above in mind, HFR is still competitive with flying from Toronto to Ottawa, even without the HSL. However, there's no practical way to even get close to 4.5 hrs from Toronto to Montreal without the HSL or a bypass of Ottawa.

Built purely as a low cost minimal engineering effort (no HSL), I don't think it would be that bad. It would be competitive with flying for Toronto-Ottawa. It would be on par with driving from Toronto to Montreal. Higher frequencies. Much higher reliability. And low capital cost means lower fares. It would basically provide the kind of inter-metro service that we should actually have today. And this probably carries a lot less risk than the HSR lite that HFR has morphed into.

Achieving 4.5 hrs from Toronto to Montreal, means that HSL and probably some other upgrades too. This is substantially added schedule and cost, which in turn drives substantial political risk. Personally I wish they built HFR as first envisioned to get into service. And then worked on the high speed segments they need to boost average speeds.

 

[Frank_Lee]

Have you ever bid on a multi billion dollar project? A project of this scale is almost impossible to accurately price out.

Unless you do what Metrolinx did and price it with no cost overruns. At that point you have established a ceiling of some sort but at the same time the approval is going to be almost impossible.

How do you account for covid and the highest inflation in history not to mention supply chain issues all at the same time?

I'm not disagreeing with you that this can be a difficult job. Consultancies =/= construction companies; sometimes they're under the same roof, sometimes not. There are well recognised principal-agent problems with consultancy in many industries, but public transportation can be particularly bad because the long lead times make it especially hard to tie compensation structures to project outcomes.

 

[Frank_Lee]

I also don't mean to say consultants don't provide any value. Expertise always has value. It's just that contracting issues (from an economic perspective) make it extremely difficult to achieve the most efficient outcomes from a social point of view. These are general issues, not specific criticisms of HFR, btw.

 

[SashaLemon]

I also don't mean to say consultants don't provide any value. Expertise always has value. It's just that contracting issues (from an economic perspective) make it extremely difficult to achieve the most efficient outcomes from a social point of view. These are general issues, not specific criticisms of HFR, btw.

The problem is that we don't have our own experts. SNCF in France has an army of in-house highspeed rail experts. Now Via Rail...

And thus we need to hire a bunch of fancy international consultants...

 

[Urban Sky]

The problem is that we don't have our own experts. SNCF in France has an army of in-house highspeed rail experts. Now Via Rail...

And thus we need to hire a bunch of fancy international consultants...

Hadn’t rail companies like SNCF, Trenitalia (then: FS) or Deutsche Bahn (then: Deutsche Bundesbahn) pioneered the kind of frequent semi-express intercity rail corridor HFR aims to establish, they would have never succeeded in building the kind of experience which formed the foundation of the “in-house highspeed rail experts” for which you admire them today, i.e. some 50 years later.

We are trying to build nothing more and nothing less than the foundation for a future HSR network on Canadian soil and we certainly won’t succeed in any attempt in becoming the first major country which skips that step and jumps directly to HSR, because HSR’s primary concern is to create extra capacity by separating fast passenger intercity traffic from all other kinds of rail traffic, while cuting travel times (the main obsession of most HSR fans, especially in those countries without any HSR so far) is just a *secondary* concern.

As my Philosophy teacher kept saying, “those people who are the most enthusiastic about new ideas are always the same people who already didn’t grasp the old ideas”: Just like no Maglev or Hyperloop fans have the slightest awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of HSR (because if they had they couldn’t escape the fact that neither technology replicates the strengths of HSR or addresses any of its core weaknesses to an even remotely meaningful degree), many HSR fans never grasped conventional intercity rail…

 

[Northern Light]

Hadn’t rail companies like SNCF, Trenitalia (then: FS) or Deutsche Bahn (then: Deutsche Bundesbahn) pioneered the kind of frequent semi-express intercity rail corridor HFR aims to establish, they would have never succeeded in building the kind of experience which formed the foundation of the “in-house highspeed rail experts” for which you admire them.

We are trying to build nothing more and nothing less than the foundation for a future HSR network on Canadian soil and we certainly won’t succeed in any attempt in becoming the first major country which skips that step and jumps directly to HSR, because HSR’s primary concern is to create extra capacity by separating fast passenger intercity traffic from all other kinds of rail traffic, while cuting travel times (the main obsession of most HSR fans, especially in those countries without any HSR so far) is just a *secondary* concern.

As my Philosophy teacher kept saying, “those people who are the most enthusiastic about new ideas are always the same people who already didn’t grasp the old ideas”: Just like no Maglev and Hyperloop fans has slightest awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of HSR (because if they had they would notice that neither technology replicates the strengths of HSR or addresses any of its core weaknesses), many HSR fans never grasped conventional intercity rail…

I agree with the everything substantive you had to say above concerning rail (one should always be wary of arguing with experts, LOL) .......but I do have to poke at your Philosophy Teacher's statement just a bit.

One of my favourite quotes by George Bernard Shaw is what I offer in reply:

In this case, you are entirely correct; however, your philosophy teacher sounds like a 'kids these days old curmudgeon yelling 'get off my lawn'.........LOL

 

[Urban Sky]

I agree with the everything substantive you had to say above concerning rail (one should always be wary of arguing with experts, LOL) .......but I do have to poke at your Philosophy Teacher's statement just a bit.

One of my favourite quotes by George Bernard Shaw is what I offer in reply:

View attachment 417392

In this case, you are entirely correct; however, your philosophy teacher sounds like a 'kids these days old curmudgeon yelling 'get off my lawn'.........LOL

Thinking outside the box does not mean that the constraints and limitations which plague the old ideas will magically disappear. Maglev and Hyperloop fanboys are so extatic about their preferred technology because they genuinely believe that whichever strengths these technologies have will revolutionize medium-distance travel in the same way as the airplane revolutionized long-distance travel.

In contrast, people proposing workable improvements over existing technologies will naturally be much more subdued in their euphoria for their solution, as they are actually aware of the painful trade-offs under which any technology will have to operate - and that is the kind of idea which I believe the philosoph which my Ethics teacher kept quoting had in mind…

 

[Northern Light]

Thinking outside the box does not mean that the constraints and limitations which plague the old ideas will magically disappear. Maglev and Hyperloop fanboys are so extatic about their preferred technology because they genuinely believe that whichever strengths these technologies have will revolutionize medium-distance travel in the same way as the airplane revolutionized long-distance travel.

We agree completely here.

In contrast, people proposing workable improvements over existing technologies will naturally be much more subdued in their euphoria for their solution, as they are actually aware of the painful trade-offs under which any technology will have to operate - and that is the kind of idea which I believe the philosoph which my Ethics teacher kept quoting had in mind…

You know/knew your philosophy teacher; I did not; so I shall not make assumptions on what they intended.

 

[reaperexpress]

We can't build elevated HSR like a real country!

It is possible to make the route VIA has selected work, it's just going to take a huge amount of work to make it world class. (i.e., it's not happening)

Mythbusting VIA’s HFR travel time claims

ERRATUM: Some of the assumptions made in the below article have been subsequently proven to be poor. The speed of trains through curves can actually be somewhat faster than I assumed. This results …

ontariotrafficman.wordpress.com

Wow - I hadn't seen that. I suggested year ago that someone had sold VIA a dud plan. But the numbers in there make it very clear that it's just not possible with 100+ km of new alignment.

So who is pushing HFR (F must stand for Farce)? Follow the money is the normal way to figure these things out. Which consultant is making the $ off this? Though consultants will make money off any route, and could just as well be pushing VIA Fast. Still - something seems very amiss. It seems like the fiscally disastrous planning for the Metro extension to Laval all over again.

A couple notes on that article I wrote a year ago:

Some of the assumptions I made regarding the speed of trains through given radii of turns were subsequently disproven by @Urban Sky. For reference, you can start at page 504 in this thread. I've just added a note at the top of the article to alert readers of this.
Based on his much more detailed estimates based on individual curves, the theoretical minimum travel time was around 3h15, rather than 3h40. My conclusion still stands, given that it is impossible to schedule 3h15 in real life on a single-tracked line when theoretical minimum travel time is 3h15, but the discrepancy was less than I estimated. Based on this change, 60 km of new ROW (around Tweed, and from Kaladar to just past Sharbot Lake) should be sufficient to achieve a 3h00 scheduled time, rather than the 102 km of new ROW I proposed in that article.

Value-engineered concept for a new high speed line:
Blue = 125-140 mph (201-225 km/h)
Green = 90-110 mph (145-177 km/h)
Yellow = 70-80 mph (112-129 km/h)
Orange = 50 mph (80 km/h)
Black: Existing alignment

Since the article was published, the messaging around HFR has changed. The maximum speed is now described as 200 km/h instead of 177 km/h, and the budget has increased drastically. Both of these indicators suggest that the conceptual plan has been beefed up to include building some new higher-speed ROWs through the Shield rather than solely installing tracks along the meandering ROW which currently exists. This change would address the issues I described with the original plan.

 

[SashaLemon]

A couple notes on that article I wrote a year ago:

Some of the assumptions I made regarding the speed of trains through given radii of turns were subsequently disproven by @Urban Sky. For reference, you can start at page 504 in this thread. Based on his much more detailed estimates based on individual curves, the theoretical minimum travel time was around 3h15, rather than 3h40. My conclusion still stands, given that it is impossible to schedule 3h15 in real life on a single-tracked line when theoretical minimum travel time is 3h15, but the discrepancy was less than I estimated.

Since the article was published, the messaging around HFR has changed. The maximum speed is now described as 200 km/h instead of 177 km/h, and the budget has increased drastically. Both of these indicators suggest that the conceptual plan has been beefed up to include building some new higher-speed ROWs through the Shield rather than solely installing tracks along the meandering ROW which currently exists. This change would address the issues I described with the original plan.

I hope your right!!
I am optimistic that whatever they build will be good or have the ability to be good with upgrades.

However, 250 km/h is generally considered the start of proper HSR. The operating speed of the Paris-Lyon line is 300! Is that blue section only 200 because of a lack of electrification or is the geometry not straight enough?

 

[crs1026]

Since the article was published, the messaging around HFR has changed. The maximum speed is now described as 200 km/h instead of 177 km/h, and the budget has increased drastically. Both of these indicators suggest that the conceptual plan has been beefed up to include building some new higher-speed ROWs through the Shield rather than solely installing tracks along the meandering ROW which currently exists. This change would address the issues I described with the original plan.

What makes the 200 km/h figure achievable for that one stretch is that there are only 21 road crossings of any size (some pretty small) on the existing row between Sharbot Lake and Tweed.

That compares with 30 between Havelock and Peterboro, and roughly 60 between Peterboro and Tapscott Road in Scarborough.

It's the perfect place for a higher speed stretch because grade separation is affordable.

I suspect that there won't be any track above 177 km/h west of Havelock, even though the line is straighter there - because the cost of that many grade separations is just too great.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

With the above in mind, HFR is still competitive with flying from Toronto to Ottawa, even without the HSL. However, there's no practical way to even get close to 4.5 hrs from Toronto to Montreal without the HSL or a bypass of Ottawa.

I'm not that concerned that HFR is going to negative for either Toronto to Ottawa or Ottawa to Montréal. It's the Toronto-Montreal service that concerns me - at least in terms of travel times and modal selection.

Since the article was published, the messaging around HFR has changed. The maximum speed is now described as 200 km/h instead of 177 km/h, and the budget has increased drastically. Both of these indicators suggest that the conceptual plan has been beefed up to include building some new higher-speed ROWs through the Shield rather than solely installing tracks along the meandering ROW which currently exists. This change would address the issues I described with the original plan.

High-speed through the shield! My gosh, I'd missed that speculation!

That could be a game-changer. At the same time - what's that kind of alignment going to look like - especially vertically. And how much more will that cost? It's not going to be cheap.

Another big question is how much the design and environmental assessment going to cost?

The EA for the existing alignment shouldn't be too complex. Most of the impacts are very old, and still there; doing the project might even improve things in spots.

But a Greenfield will require a much higher level of design to even start the assessment. And the EA process could result in fundamental changes that would significantly change the alignment. Which means the tender wouldn't be going out for years, perhaps many years.

I'd have though this could, if it's really using 100 km of new alignment, take near an extra decade.

 

[crs1026]

But a Greenfield will require a much higher level of design to even start the assessment. And the EA process could result in fundamental changes that would significantly change the alignment. Which means the tender wouldn't be going out for years, perhaps many years.

I'd have though this could, if it's really using 100 km of new alignment, take near an extra decade.

The reality seems to be that this thing will not be high speed in any execution sense, if it ever gets launched beyond the paperwork stage.

The cost escalation is worth watching in that the price of 100kms of new build in the shield may be equal to the cost of 200 kms of line in the easier terrain to the south, even considering land costs. If we have the time for a route selection and EA exercise, other route options might need to be reviewed as alternatives. I don’t have any particular route in mind, the studies offer many. But if we got VIA off the CN line even just Oshawa - Napanee, the improvement in time and reliability would be substantial, and regional needs would be met as well. Just saying.

If Ottawa is actually intent on something better than 177km/h, then the Shield probably wins, due to the lower grade separation costs.

- Paul