[micheal_can]

There might be different degrees of railfan daydreaming, but projects which only depend on federal and/or provincial funding to become reality are orders of magnitude more realistic than fantasies which also depend on bilateral agreements with the US and a rupture with its post-9/11 policies…

What I don't get is why running anything that would most likely not be run by Via wasn't shut down before I could comment on it.

If someone mentions something and I comment about it, why attack only me?

 

[nfitz]

I meant for Drummondville service. Mind you, for Sherbrooke, extending the service along the CP line would make sense,

Oh absolutely! As it's much shorter than Sherbrooke. Drummondville is 100 km from Central Station. Slightly shorter than the GO service from Union to Kitchener (which is a whopping 101 km )

On second thought, maybe for Sherbrooke, Via brings back the Atlantic service. Then it could help those that want service from Saint John to Halifax. It couldeven rin with no stops in the USA for customs purposes.

That wasn't very reliable - at least coming back from Sherbrooke; and the time of day was poor.

- as if there was even the slightest chance of the US opening not one but two new border crossing points, let alone: allowing passengers transit without any border checks as of it was still the middle of the 20th century!

I'm not sure why you'd need to do a border check on a train that doesn't stop while transiting the USA. Especially now you can't simply jump out the window - unlike last century.

On the other hand, good luck getting CPKC to sell off their mainline to the east.

I'm not sure why they'd sell it. EXO owns very little of the track they still run commuter service on. Mostly the new spur from "Repentigny" to Mascouche, and a small section from Blainville to St. Jerome.

 

[reaperexpress]

I'm not sure why they'd sell it. EXO owns very little of the track they still run commuter service on. Mostly the new spur from "Repentigny" to Mascouche, and a small section from Blainville to St. Jerome.

Well based on what we've seen with GO and VIA's experience, not owning tracks leads to poor service reliability. So if we're planning to invest in railway upgrades, it would make sense that the railway be publicly owned so the resultant service is actually reliable and dependable, and the upgrades don't get swept under the rug like we often see with CN. And if your host railway is not friendly, you need to add a lot of extra schedule padding to accommodate the delays they create, which defeats the whole argument for using the CP line, which was faster service.

CP was able to run fast passenger service to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu because they owned the railway and did the dispatching. Exo would not realistically be able to replicate the service quality which existed half a century ago if they're using a third party railway.

My question to you is: what do you propose to do to improve travel times for Amtrak services to Montréal?

 

[micheal_can]

Well based on what we've seen with GO and VIA's experience, not owning tracks leads to poor service reliability. So if we're planning to invest in a railway, it would make sense that the railway be publicly owned, so the resultant service is actually reliable and dependable. And if your host railway is not friendly, you need to add a lot of extra schedule padding to accommodate the delays they create, which defeats the whole argument for using the CP line, which was faster service.

CP was able to run fast passenger service to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu because they owned the railway and did the dispatching. Exo would not realistically be able to replicate the service quality which existed half a century ago if they're using a third party railway.

CP is in an age of growth, not shrinking of their network. They would need a very good reason to give this line up.

 

[Urban Sky]

What I don't get is why running anything that would most likely not be run by Via wasn't shut down before I could comment on it.

If someone mentions something and I comment about it, why attack only me?

Because it was once again you who tries to explode the scope of an idea which was discussed to include as many of the VIA routes lost during the 1990 cuts as possible! The right place to discuss how these services could be restored is the discussion we already have in the other thread…

I'm not sure why you'd need to do a border check on a train that doesn't stop while transiting the USA. Especially now you can't simply jump out the window - unlike last century.

Neither do I, but I never claimed I understand the border paranoia of the United States…

 

[micheal_can]

Because it was once again you who tries to explode the scope of an idea which was discussed to include as many of the VIA routes lost during the 1990 cuts as possible! The right place to discuss how these services could be restored is the discussion we already have in the other thread…

Why even discuss it here though?

 

[Urban Sky]

Why even discuss it here though?

Because we‘re still discussing whether that would be an exo or VIA service. The Post-1990 precedent for operating such short Corridor services certainly exists with the TRTO-NIAG and TRTO-STRF commuter-centered trains which run until 2012, even though I agree that this should fall on provincial turf…

 

[micheal_can]

Because we‘re still discussing whether that would be an exo or VIA service. The Post-1990 precedent for operating such short Corridor services certainly exists with the TRTO-NIAG and TRTO-STRF commuter-centered trains which run until 2012, even though I agree that this should fall on provincial turf…

Unless I am wrong, Via has not released any information on any expansions of any service except for the HFR/HSR Havelock Subdivision.

 

[reaperexpress]

Unless I am wrong, Via has not released any information on any expansions of any service except for the HFR/HSR Havelock Subdivision.

They proposed expanding commuter services to places such as Stratford and Niagara Falls in their 2016-2020 corporate plan.

Marked up by me to indicate which of the targets were achieved.

 

[micheal_can]

They proposed expanding commuter services to places such as Stratford and Niagara Falls in their 2016-2020 corporate plan.

Anything on Sherbrooke? I couldn't find anything.

 

[TerryJohnson]

With Parliament back in session, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities is resuming its study of “Projects of High Frequency Rail Between Quebec City and Toronto, Between Calgary and Banff, and Between Calgary and Edmonton”

Tomorrow, I will be joining a representative of VIA-HFR in Ottawa to take questions and ask a few of my own, like “How did we go from a class 3 estimate in 2016, to asking private partners for a class 5 estimate in 2023?” and “Why, eight years into this, are there no track, signalling, or equipment standards for higher speed operation?”

The hearings will be televised: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/TRAN/meeting-77/notice

Terry Johnson
President, Transport Action Canada

 

[reaperexpress]

With Parliament back in session, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities is resuming its study of “Projects of High Frequency Rail Between Quebec City and Toronto, Between Calgary and Banff, and Between Calgary and Edmonton”

Tomorrow, I will be joining a representative of VIA-HFR in Ottawa to take questions and ask a few of my own, like “How did we go from a class 3 estimate in 2016, to asking private partners for a class 5 estimate in 2023?” and “Why, eight years into this, are there no track, signalling, or equipment standards for higher speed operation?”

The hearings will be televised: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/TRAN/meeting-77/notice

Terry Johnson
President, Transport Action Canada

Can we also figure out what happened to the $491 Million that the Feds budgeted for HFR during the 2021-2026 period? That's a heck of a lot of money to spend on studies. That money really should have gotten shovels in the ground for non-controversial components like upgrading the Via-owned lines around Ottawa.

 

[cplchanb]

Can we also figure out what happened to the $491 Million that the Feds budgeted for HFR during the 2021-2026 period? That's a heck of a lot of money to spend on studies. That money really should have gotten shovels in the ground for non-controversial components like upgrading the Via-owned lines around Ottawa.

easy answer it starts with a C and ends with an N... 3 syllables..

 

[TerryJohnson]

Can we also figure out what happened to the $491 Million that the Feds budgeted for HFR during the 2021-2026 period? That's a heck of a lot of money to spend on studies. That money really should have gotten shovels in the ground for non-controversial components like upgrading the Via-owned lines around Ottawa.

This: https://www.systra.com/canada/proje...l-on-dorval-intermodal-station-project-22025/
Transport Action has asked VIA Rail (this isn't a VIA-HFR project) for a briefing on project progress.

However, the original mandate of the JPO was:

This funding will be used to establish a Joint Project Office (JPO) between the CIB and VIA Rail to explore the possibility of HFR in Quebec City-Toronto Corridor, focusing on the following de-risking activities throughout 2019 to fall 2020:

• finalizing legal and regulatory work related to safety and environmental assessments;
• consulting with all stakeholders, including municipalities and Indigenous communities;
• examining required land and track acquisition; and
• completing the technical, financial and commercial analysis required for a final investment decision on HFR.

The JPO will also undertake preliminary design work for multi-modal hub passenger hub in Dorval to facilitate the movement of urban and intercity passengers to the Trudeau Airport.

So what part of that mandate did the JPO accomplish? I suspect rather less than $71M worth.

 

[TerryJohnson]

They proposed expanding commuter services to places such as Stratford and Niagara Falls in their 2016-2020 corporate plan.

Marked up by me to indicate which of the targets were achieved.
View attachment 507659

That corporate plan also proposed the acquisition of the line between Kitchener and London, which hasn't happened.
However, in the presentation given in SW Ontario, we see even more ambition to meet regional demand...

Not getting the CN crossings to work with the RDCs put paid to these plans.