[kEiThZ]

Of course it will yield higher ridership. And could do very well on the Ottawa-Toronto run. But you won't see the same level of increases on the Toronto-Montreal service.

Cool. So you can stop acting like HFR doesn't improve Toronto-Montreal at all?

The project isn't predicated on improving just Toronto-Montreal ridership or providing equal improvements on every segment. It's predicated on achieving a total improvement on ridership. To that end, an uneven distribution of benefits is irrelevant.

Why are you still claiming that 3.5 hours can only be achieved with HSR? The post above yours does put that to bed.

Because the Ecotrain study was literally a High Speed Rail study?

Expecting the same department to drop Mirabel Airport after all the studies, and money spent on design would also have been delusional. Do you suggest we rebuild Mirabel too?

What does this ridiculous Mirabel red herring have to do with anything? You're just resorting to random moved goalposts now.

So a similar spend, for slower travel times to Montreal (or lack of through Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal if the bypass is for real) - and about double the track in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle that they need to keep maintained.

A similar level of spend to get from Toronto to Quebec City. The figure that @Urban Sky cited was just for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal and with 200 kph diesel trains. The $6-12B for HFR is for an electrified rail service from Toronto to Quebec City. I fail to see how these are similar, other than the nominal dollars allocated.

We can sit and argue here forever ... perhaps just drop it or another couple of years

So we're at the point now where you will actually oppose investment, if it doesn't fit your narrow definition of preferred routing or form. You're no friend of public transport.

 

[kEiThZ]

OK, true, but you're ignoring the fact that HFR will increase T-M speeds and frequencies. Not exactly a demand reducer, really.

Speed, frequency and most importantly reliability. The Toronto-Montreal route, is so dependent on freight corridors, that it has ridiculous delays all the time. The average published time of 5:10 hrs is closer to real world travel time of 5:30 hrs. 90% reliability on say 4:50 hrs with HFR, would literally be better than every train VIA offered to Montreal today. The idea that faster, more frequent and more reliable service won't generate increases in ridership is patently ridiculous.

Did you read what I wrote? The money used for the bypass could be plowed into speed improvements for all 3 services, instead of one.

Yep. Arguably the best investment that could be made is upgrading the Ottawa-Montreal segment to full HSR standard. Get that trip down to 1-1:15 hrs would 15-30 mins for Toronto-Montreal riders and Ottawa-Montreal riders. It make the latter, much more commutable, expanding a whole market beyond just intercity travel.

Close second to that would be investments on the Havelock sub. Delivers time savings to both Toronto-Ottawa (making this competitive with air) and Toronto-Montreal markets.

 

[crs1026]

I wouldn't discount the bypass. The Minister's office and Transport Canada are tweeting it out. They probably gave it to journalists in their press brief. And it seems clear to me that at some point, they decided it needs to be considered to get T-M travel times down. That said, it seems like a poor economic investment and I am really curious to see their analysis of alternatives here. Splitting the traffic has massive implications for asset utilization across the entire project. Split the traffic and they end up needing more trains, with a higher ratio of locomotives to coaches, more crews, more trackage to maintain, possibly more tracks/berths at each terminus, etc. All while total frequencies offered to Ottawa and Montreal drop, offering fewer options to passengers. I am genuinely interested in knowing how much they'll save in capital over this, and what will be the impact on operational costs and ridership over a 20 year lifecycle.

I have to confess that I have been in denial about the bypass as a serious idea, because it’s just so dumb - for the reasons posters have raised here. It diverts investment away from VIA’s own line, where the money can be used better. It perpetuates the conflict with freight. And, while it might improve end to end timings a little, it does so at the margin rather than organically. I would rather see VIA add capacity and speed to its own route. If the choice is even a single mile of new track along the Winchester, or the same amount along the HFr line, there’s more benefit to HFR getting the investment.

However, if it is a serious proposal, one has to suppose that it’s there for a reason.

I can’t discount the possibility that VIA’s modelling does show that shaving a few minutes off the default routing will add revenue either by raising a price point or by adding more riders. We are getting distracted by the 3.5 hour debate when the Winchester idea may well be about getting to 4.5ish instead of 5+.. Perhaps anything that matches or improves on today’s timings is politically sellable/necessary even if it’s trivial and not prudent. Perhaps there’s a time threshold that is material, especially for higher-fare business class travel. We don’t have data, but that premise at least fits common knowledge and general assumptions.

If somebody has made the numbers work that we don’t know about (which may not imply using VIA’s standard BCA parameters… it’s not beyond government to have hired some new consultant at the 11th hour to patch a perceived flaw in the talking points),……

I discount that anyone is thinking of putting huge amounts of money into the CP line, but with lesser investment (eg in tweaking crossing protection and perhaps superelevating the few curves) it might be all that’s required. The Winchester is underutilised and I can’t say that it is unusable as a passenger line. A deal with CP would definitely be a lot cheaper than, say, bringing part of the VIA line up to 125mph standard to squeeze out the same number of minutes more constructively

A service pattern of six express trains a day (morning, midday, and afternoon in each direction) works out to a single ViA train on the Winchester at any point in time, and no 2-passenger train meets - all meets would happen west of Smiths Falls. I suppose I can see CP looking at its operating pattern and agreeing to clear its line on that formula. CP would likely want cash…., not for capital investment, but as retained earnings.

But, no upsizing potential. Huge risk that CP fails to deliver and the expresses are delayed by freight. Maybe somebody thinks that this is all we need for a decade or so? Maybe CN has said, absolutely no commitment to even current timings going forward on the Kingston, so even investment there is off the table?

All speculation…. all I’n saying (regretfully) is, it may actually have a serious rationale, even without a serious business case.

- Paul

 

[kEiThZ]

I don't doubt there's some rationale behind the Ottawa bypass. I am deeply suspicious of the ROI on the idea though. That said, they are probably balancing between capital demands, scope creep, etc. Maybe it's easier to toss a few hundred million at CP for a decade or two than squeeze in the extra $1-2 billion to make the Ottawa routing get them their desired trip time to Montreal. That's good for avoiding growth in the capital envelope. It's terrible for ROI in the long run though.

There's also some major issues here. It's not going to be a scalable solution that allows for substantial increases in frequency. It also adds complexity to the service programme, making it more challenging to make VIA's Corridor service more of a walk-up service like we see in Europe and Asia. But politics is what it is. And maybe they can't swing the extra capital to get through Ottawa fast enough. Who knows. We'll see when the RFP hits the street.

 

[Ratazana]

With Via getting brand new train sets, I am wondering why their business class seats are still stuck in the past. The seats are almost exactly the same as economy except for the extra space between seats. And the extra spaces aren’t making the seats more comfortable nor adding function. Look at the space between the doubles seats. If you put a cup of coffee there, it’s gonna be easily knocked over when you move you legs.

Why not revamping them completely by borrowing a page from the herringbone seats on plane’s business class?

 

[Urban Sky]

View attachment 363820With Via getting brand new train sets, I am wondering why their business class seats are still stuck in the past. The seats are almost exactly the same as economy except for the extra space between seats. And the extra spaces aren’t making the seats more comfortable nor adding function. Look at the space between the doubles seats. If you put a cup of coffee there, it’s gonna be easily knocked over when you move you legs.

Why not revamping them completely by borrowing a page from the herringbone seats on plane’s business class?

I agree that the Business Class design could look more vibrant and inspiring than on that photo, but would you mind sharing some pictures to visualize what you have in mind?

 

[nfitz]

OK, true, but you're ignoring the fact that HFR will increase T-M speeds and frequencies. Not exactly a demand reducer, really.

It will increase speeds? I must have missed something there - aren't they still constrained to 160 km/hr because of the level crossing issue? Or are there points through the Canadian Shield where there are so few crossings, that it's viable to go faster, and/or do some grade separations.

Yes, it will increase Montreal-Toronto demand - if delivered as promised. I'm deeply suspicious though that they'll be able to maintain fast frequent services from places like Kingston to the other 3 cities - and wonder if the increased demand would exceed the losses there. And I'm deeply suspicious that they can even get to Agincourt in any decent time. If they really planning to go up the Don Valley to the CP line - then why are Metrolinx building a (very controversial) storage yard on the very track VIA would be running on?

In other words, it's not happening.

Except Mirabel was a bad idea, which split services like you're proposing to do.

I've proposed that there be a single route from Toronto, to Kingston, along the alignment VIA proposed to Smith Falls, then into Ottawa and onto Montreal - with no bypass - for about 3.5 hours as VIA proposed. Or 3.6 hours if Urban Sky's Ecotrain numbers are more correct.

HFR greatly splits services, with plans for Kingston-Ottawa, Kingston-Montreal, and Kingston-Toronto services in addition to the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal HFR service. And now apparently with a potential bypass of Ottawa.

Cool. So you can stop acting like HFR doesn't improve Toronto-Montreal at all?

Sure, if people can stop pretending that there won't be a loss of the potential for express services between Toronto to Montreal.

The project isn't predicated on improving just Toronto-Montreal ridership or providing equal improvements on every segment. It's predicated on achieving a total improvement on ridership.

It's also predicated on a certain ridership, and revenue, which I'm concerned isn't achievable with the relatively slow travel times for Toronto to Montreal.

The addition of the Ottawa bypass to the HFR map makes me fear that my concerns are correct, and the bypass is the lipstick for the pig. I hope I'm wrong!

Because the Ecotrain study was literally a High Speed Rail study?

The 3:38 time was, according to Urban Sky, for the 200 km/hr option - not HSR. (BTW, @Urban Sky, your Dropbox link in your post doesn't seem to work). Are you suggesting they are over-estimating the 3:38 time, because they were biased to the faster HSR times?

What does this ridiculous Mirabel red herring have to do with anything? You're just resorting to random moved goalposts now.

Same department. Same city. Similar issue. The biggest problem there was that they got in their mind, that this was the answer to everything, and couldn't let it go, despite being told time and time again by others that the concept was systemically flawed. The end result was that Montreal lost the position of having the primary hub in Eastern Canada - which certainly didn't help the economic decline of the late 1970s and 1980s.

So we're at the point now where you will actually oppose investment, if it doesn't fit your narrow definition of preferred routing or form. You're no friend of public transport.

Sorry? Where did I say I'd oppose investment. I've even advocated for additional investment for HFR west of Toronto. It's a brilliant scheme - poorly executed. In another thread I've vocally opposed the Ontario line, but also said the worst thing that the Liberals can do is cancel it if they are elected.

Criticizing potential flaws in a plan isn't opposing public transport. It's that kind of "my way or the highway" approach that we see more and more in the workplace, that removes the essential critical thinking to come up with the best possible plan.

I'd be thrilled to see them go ahead with this - even as planned. But I have concerns, and a belief it could be a lot better.

 

[Ratazana]

I agree that the Business Class design could look more vibrant and inspiring than on that photo, but would you mind sharing some pictures to visualize what you have in mind?

Here’s an example.

https://cdn.onemileatatime.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/American-A321-First-Class-3.jpg

 

[Urban Sky]

(BTW, @Urban Sky, your Dropbox link in your post doesn't seem to work)

Please quote whichever text has an incorrect link. I checked all links in my previous two posts while logged out of Dropbox and they seem to work...

Here’s an example.

https://cdn.onemileatatime.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/American-A321-First-Class-3.jpg

Do you know of any rail services in any country, which have such a type of seats in a two-class configuration? I ask because I can only think of JR West's Gran Class, but there it is as a First Class and thus even above Business ("green") Class...

 

[kEiThZ]

The 3:38 time was, according to Urban Sky, for the 200 km/hr option - not HSR.

It was HSR. As in they required a fully segregated and grade separated corridor. The only difference between the two options was speed and electrification. This is different from HFR, which proposes not to require grade separation across the entire corridor.

Same department.

VIA built Mirabel? Learn something new everyday....

Also, do you know who was running the Canada Infrastructure Bank back then?

 

[kEiThZ]

Sure, if people can stop pretending that there won't be a loss of the potential for express services between Toronto to Montreal.

Who cares? Serious question. If every train is better than today's express trains, why should anybody not see this as an improvement?

Also, separate express trains to Montreal, isn't exactly inconsequential. As I (and others) have pointed out, this kind of operation has consequences for frequency, operating cost, etc.

 

[kEiThZ]

Do you know of any rail services in any country, which have such a type of seats in a two-class configuration? I ask because I can only think of JR West's Gran Class, but there it is as a First Class and thus even above Business ("green") Class...

I am curious. How do passenger rail operators normally decide on LOPA? I sort of find it odd that the higher speed services (such as the Shinkansen) can offer something like Gran Class, but that the market can't support something like that on a service with longer trip times. That seems counter-intuitive.

 

[Allandale25]

Heartwarming.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/evacuation-train-departs-hope-b-c-bound-for-vancouver-with-200-passengers-1.6253392

 

[Ratazana]

Please quote whichever text has an incorrect link. I checked all links in my previous two posts while logged out of Dropbox and they seem to work...


Do you know of any rail services in any country, which have such a type of seats in a two-class configuration? I ask because I can only think of JR West's Gran Class, but there it is as a First Class and thus even above Business ("green") Class...

I have only seen one on Google search. https://i2.wp.com/railtravelstation...abaya-Pasar-Turi-078.jpg?resize=768,512&ssl=1

 

[Ratazana]

I am curious. How do passenger rail operators normally decide on LOPA? I sort of find it odd that the higher speed services (such as the Shinkansen) can offer something like Gran Class, but that the market can't support something like that on a service with longer trip times. That seems counter-intuitive.

I would agree to stand the whole way if you can get me from Toronto to Montreal in less than 2 hours. Lol.