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If VIA HFR hypothetically falls through with political upheaval next year, do you folks think that the current momentum could be captured by a scaled down VIA upgrade in the existing corridor or will we be locked out of decent rail for another generation? Is there any room in our Quebec-Ontario politics to just make Ottawa-Montreal great, with straightening and grade separation, for example?

I’ve been rewatching that classic Paige Saunders YouTube video about a good Ottawa-Montreal link, I’m sure you’ve all seen it, and I really hope something like that could be a fallback position.
 
If VIA HFR hypothetically falls through with political upheaval next year, do you folks think that the current momentum could be captured by a scaled down VIA upgrade in the existing corridor or will we be locked out of decent rail for another generation? Is there any room in our Quebec-Ontario politics to just make Ottawa-Montreal great, with straightening and grade separation, for example?
Montreal-Ottawa would have been the first Segment anyways and will always be the easiest first step.
I’ve been rewatching that classic Paige Saunders YouTube video about a good Ottawa-Montreal link, I’m sure you’ve all seen it, and I really hope something like that could be a fallback position.
I wrote my Bechelor Thesis about such an improved link and the need to scale down our ambitions to get anything built:
 
That dumb Ottawa bypass idea again....
Excuse my ignorance but what is being bypassed? Is that VIA-owned track not a large part of the current existing VIA route between Ottawa and Montreal (with the exception of the CN section as the train enters the metro area)? Isn't the HFR plan itself a massive bypass of the entire Ontario corridor?
 
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Isn't the HFR plan itself a massive bypass of the entire Ontario corridor?
No, it’s not: it’s the consolidation of all primary (“end-to-end”) markets into a single Corridor (by merging Montreal-Ottawa, Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto trains into a single Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto Corridor), so that the Lakeshore communities can be served by trains focusing on their local needs, i.e., frequent stops in their communities rather than having most trains pass through them. The needs of these secondary (i.e., Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto to any city which isn’t Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto) or tertiary markets (i.e., between any two cities which are neither Montreal nor Ottawa nor Toronto) are inherently incompatible with those of the primary markets and that’s why they are best served by different services and routes…
 
Excuse my ignorance but what is being bypassed? Is that VIA-owned track not a large part of the current existing VIA route between Ottawa and Montreal (with the exception of the CN section as the train enters the metro area)?
At one point, VIA printed a proposed map that in addition to using the existing VIA Rail-owned corridors from Smith Falls and Coteau to Ottawa, that the (presumably Toronto to Montreal) service could also skip Ottawa and use on more southerly CP Winchester Sub through Chesterville, Monkland, and Apple Hill.

A map like that hasn't appeared since, and those here who say they are in the loop keep denying that this is happening (though how they'd know what the presumably six alignments in the three bids contained I don't know).

(I think a better option would be to reacquire the portions of the very straight M&O Sub that they unfortunately VIA recently sold, from Ottawa to Rigaud via Vankleek Hill and Plantagenet. This should be faster than VIA's existing Alexandria sub - especially east of Casselman)
 
At one point, VIA printed a proposed map that in addition to using the existing VIA Rail-owned corridors from Smith Falls and Coteau to Ottawa, that the (presumably Toronto to Montreal) service could also skip Ottawa and use on more southerly CP Winchester Sub through Chesterville, Monkland, and Apple Hill.
It’s important to not conflate “VIA Rail Canada Inc.” (“VIA Rail”) with “VIA HFR-TGF Inc.” (“VIA HFR-TGF”), as I’m very confident that VIA Rail has never publicly considered using the Winchester Subdivision as Ottawa Bypass…
 

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