Admiral Beez
Superstar
Is there any successful passenger rail system that depends on the access and goodwill of freight rail owners? HFR must have its own rails.
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- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
crs1026
Superstar
Rocky Mountaineer does OK, although their timekeeping is still at the mercy of CN/CP. But check out the fares and you will see the problem for VIA.
- Paul
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Brightline
roger1818
Senior Member
Brightline is taking advantage of an under-utilized freight corridor and they used their real estate profits to pay to double track the vast majority of the shared ROW.
Northern Light
Superstar
Interesting example.......but I think its a bit murky.
From: https://www.hsrail.org/brightline-florida/
Sounds like they locked down a deal where they have an equal say on dispatch.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I agree, HFR needs to be completely separated from any freight operations. With the plan of using the Havelock sub in ON,it sounds like it will be once they are past the Agincourt Yard.
Rocky Mountaineer is not a transportation company, but a tourist company. Because of that, they can be slow without passengers being upset. They could even be late and as long as they are on time for their arrival at the final destinations, the passengers won't care. This is the same as a bus tour vs a bus route.
roger1818
Senior Member
The “if” in that sentence is key. I don’t think that the federal government (liberal or conservative) wants to reduce the modal share of the airlines. We are a large country that is heavily reliant on a healthy airline industry to allow people to travel long distances quickly and affordably. Reducing their modal share on profitable short routes would hurt that industry.
That is where HFR showed so much promise, as it was focused on competing with the automobile far more than the airlines. Even then it’s still likely seen as a threat to the petroleum and automotive industries (though not nearly as big).
Privatizing the corridor helps, as it then becomes competing private companies, which is more palatable than the government competing against private companies.
micheal_can
Senior Member
And this is where I want to rant on how the government should not care of that. However, I also know that unless they also are going to subsidize airlines, we would have none of that either. It is a catch 22. If we had great intercity rail that allowed you to get a reasonable distance fast enough that it would mean flying across the country would be a challenge. Anyone pointing out Europe or China's solutions forget how small a population Canada is. Sadly,this is why the car will remain king in Canada.
MisterF
Senior Member
The Windsor-Quebec corridor has well over 20 million people at this point. That's more than a lot of European countries including Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Greece, Denmark, etc., all of which have highly developed rail networks. The lack of European solutions here isn't because of population.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I know. It is due to lake of desire to compete with air travel. Imagine not having to go through all the security that is needed to fly just to travel a reasonable distance within Canada?
reaperexpress
Senior Member
The Government of Canada pays CN to upgrade a lot of their lines on behalf of Via. For example, all of the triple-tracked segments on the Kingston sub were paid for in Via's name.
The fact that Brightline and FEC were able to create an agreement to balance dispatch priorities on the rails owned by FEC further undermines @Admiral Beez 's claim that passenger operations cannot operate successfully on rails owned by a freight company.
I think that HFR should have its own rails, but the fact remains that some passenger companies can operate successfully on rails owned by a freight company.
crs1026
Superstar
The population of Canada was burned into my schoolboy brain as 20-22 million - and here we are talking about the potential of the population reaching 60 million before too long. That says that we have a lot of growth ahead of us, and huge opportunity yo talk about what kind of infrastructure investments will serve us best.
There’s no question that we need healthy and effective airlines, but there is plenty of room to decide not to expand either highway or air further by building appropriate rail facilities and using that investment to alter modal share - but it’s a question of degree and balance.
- Paul
PL1
Active Member
So hypothetically if/when HFR lines are built. (Perhaps at some point I the future, ) Do we allow competition on the line? I.e., companies pay to use the line and we allow multiple operators? I'm not sure that would be viable.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Like you said, it depends on how much ridership potential and dispatching flexibility the line has. If the line is fairly slow (not attracting much demand) and it's built as a single-tracked line then there won't be much possibility for competition since the schedule would be limited to a specific service pattern they designed the passing tracks on. But if the line is very popular and is fully double tracked, it would technically be possible to have the Government of Canada own the line and just let open access operators use it, paying nominal track fees.
crs1026
Superstar
Plus, Florida quietly backstopped a good amount of the construction financing and accommodated the route along an interstate corridor. That is a fair bit of subsidy.
- Paul