07-23-2020, 01:40 PM
(07-23-2020, 01:23 PM)Bytor Wrote:(07-23-2020, 12:06 PM)clasher Wrote: I thought the whole freight bypass thing the Ford gov't cancelled was supposed to make it easier to electrify the whole line?
Nope. Not at all. Only supposedly less expensive to implement #2WADGO. It actually makes it harder to do it as electrified rail because of continuing to share tracks with CN.
Another supposed reason was because it would let them do it sooner than what the Liberals promised, but no timelines coming out of Metrolinx have change from the Wynne government promises.
Indeed, it was never about better, it was about "cheaper" and allegedly faster.
The faster is dubious, there are zero timelines, and even if everything went right from now on, I don't believe they could do it before 2025 which was the liberals target too...of course, whether the liberals would hit their target, I don't know.
There's a reasonable argument to be made about tradeoffs, whether the bypass was worth it.
But I think it's really really hard to justify electrification when you will still need dual mode locomotives with a short section in the middle missing.
This is, frankly, the problem I have with most consevative party supporters, I certainly don't agree with the policies the liberals implement all the time, I think there are things we waste money on, things that could be done better, like not building a new highway 7, but I do not see the conservatives as doing any better in this regard, they generally just trade slightly worse short term and much worse long term for slightly cheaper. That trade off is only worth it when it can be far faster and vastly cheaper, something I never see from any government. And if they really wanted to talk about wasteful anti-conservative spending, we wouldn't be building highway 7...