High-Speed Rail (HSR) - Toronto/Pearson/Kitchener/London

[ookpik]

staunch conservatives who opposed any and all changes (this is almost unique to Britain, can't think of any other country where a significant percentage of population opposes change as a matter of principle).

How about the US, especially the Tea Party types? One significant difference, however, is that British conservatives tend to be wealthy, educated, old boys while in the US they tend to be poor, uneducated, red necks.

[MidTowner]

How about the US, especially the Tea Party types? One significant difference, however, is that British conservatives tend to be wealthy, educated, old boys while in the US they tend to be poor, uneducated, red necks.

I won't rise to the 'redneck' bait.

BuildingScout saying that the UK is rather unique with their cohort of conservatives opposed as a matter of course to all change is really correct. The Tea Party and other right-wingers in the states are not really analogous- they're not conservative so much as 'anti-government.' They don't necessarily oppose change. They could easily be swayed to support anything if it seems to be 'market-driven'(and oppose anything if not).

[MacBerry]

Hardly applicable to Canada.

Additionally, we can easily justify a Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton HSR. This, aside from being sorely needed, would also go a long way towards the Liberal party mending fences with Alberta.

Can see the weeping and gnashing of teeth from WestJet with much of their western business operations based on the flight triangle of Calgary - Edmonton - Vancouver. Can't wait for the anti-HSR lobbying to begin ... or should I say the "What does Ottawa know about Alberta needs ?" will be the mantra.

[nms]

One of the benefits that Europe had was that it had a number of companies (albeit generally state-operated or supported) responsible for smaller geographic areas.  Each of these smaller areas could develop an improve rail network, leading towards faster and ultimately high-speed, national rail network.  As the high-speed networks reached various borders, and as greater European railway co-operation developed, it was only natural that railway connections extended across borders.

I could foresee a more likely situation here that GO Transit will continue to expand and improve its railway network.  At some point, they may even begin to operate trains that do not terminate at Union Station (think London to Georgetown; or Pickering to Kingston).  This will continue to build rail demand and eventually, VIA may be able to cobble together enough resources to expand its own trains in Southern Ontario.  GO could operate various all-stop routes and VIA would operate more limited stop options.  At the same time, passenger rail would be rebooted and refurbished elsewhere in Canada with frequent departure trains operated either by a provincial agency or VIA (think Vancouver-Whistler; or Edmonton-Calgary; or Quebec City-Montreal). 

In southern Ontario, if American high speed rail ever gathers speed, anywhere between the Niagara River and the St. Clair River could become a short-cut between the North East and Chicago, just as it was a century ago.

A dark horse entry could be a private railway offering passenger service. As far as I know, there is nothing that would prevent a private railway from offering a service, particularly on a secondary line.  The Florida East Coast Railway is building a four stop passenger service, set to start hauling passengers in 2017.

[plam]

I could foresee a more likely situation here that GO Transit will continue to expand and improve its railway network.  At some point, they may even begin to operate trains that do not terminate at Union Station (think London to Georgetown; or Pickering to Kingston).  This will continue to build rail demand and eventually, VIA may be able to cobble together enough resources to expand its own trains in Southern Ontario.  GO could operate various all-stop routes and VIA would operate more limited stop options.  At the same time, passenger rail would be rebooted and refurbished elsewhere in Canada with frequent departure trains operated either by a provincial agency or VIA (think Vancouver-Whistler; or Edmonton-Calgary; or Quebec City-Montreal). 

I was surprised to see suburban rail routings in Zurich which did not go through the Hauptbahnhof. Wouldn't happen in today's Ontario.

GO has a much lower cost structure than VIA. I think they only have 1 customer service person per 10 car train? VIA has 1-2 people per car I think.

A dark horse entry could be a private railway offering passenger service. As far as I know, there is nothing that would prevent a private railway from offering a service, particularly on a secondary line.  The Florida East Coast Railway is building a four stop passenger service, set to start hauling passengers in 2017.

We do have private railways operating in Canada, for instance the Rocky Mountaineer through the mountains. I think the problem is access to financing and rails.

[ookpik]

I was surprised to see suburban rail routings in Zurich which did not go through the Hauptbahnhof. Wouldn't happen in today's Ontario.

The origin/terminus of some trains between Zurich and cities like Luzern, Basel and Geneve is actually at the airport, not the main train station. Those trains also stop at Zurich HB, of course. But the idea is that passengers arriving at ZRH have options where they only need to schlep their luggage once onto a train. They don't need to do it again a short while later at Zurich HB in order to transfer. Another option is to check their luggage through to their final destination train station. Those clever Swiss think of everything

I suspect it will be a while before something similar exists between Pearson, Union and Oshawa, Kingston, etc.

[MidTowner]

The Florida East Coast Railway is building a four stop passenger service, set to start hauling passengers in 2017.

The Texas Central is a private company planning on service with Shinkansen trains between Dallas and Houston.

There's nothing nearly as promising in our neck of the woods. Ohio Hub is dead from what little I know; something tells me that no one will be serious about Chicago-Detroit any time soon.

[plam]

Incidentally, Via Rail just announced additional service to London (but not via Kitchener) as well as on the Toronto-Kington-Ottawa route. In particular, it added Saturday service on Windsor-London-Toronto and Friday service on Toronto-London-Windsor. I got hopeful when they also announced extra capacity, but that's on the express Toronto-London route (two additional cars). So there might well be enough demand for the Toronto-London route. For our route, Guelph certainly slows our trains down a lot.

[MidTowner]

More rumblings about High-Speed Rail in southern Ontario. From the CBC: Ontario government wants high-speed rail proposal by October, MP says
[/url]
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/ontario-government-wants-high-speed-rail-proposal-by-october-mp-says-1.3440700]Supposedly, the provincial government wants a "proposal" in October of this year. Maybe we'll hear more between now and then.

[Canard]

This is agonizing.

Just BUILD ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

[timc]

Oh good. Another high speed rail study.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W32klYkTxCQ

[Canard]

Heh. I knew that was going to be the Rick Mercer clip without even clicking on it.

So on-point, though, however depressing.

[ookpik]

How Toronto got a ‘world-class,’ gold-plated, half-billion-dollar empty train 

Toronto’s high-end airport express train is a failure. A city that urgently needs better transit has been saddled with a deluxe boutique rail service that cost $456-million to build and runs nearly empty, 19½ hours a day...

Trains are running at under 10 per cent capacity and carrying about 2,200 riders a day, and falling – aggravating the frustrations of ordinary Torontonians who badly want and need transit to and from downtown, but whose tax dollars were arbitrarily redirected to this white elephant on wheels...

Metrolinx, the Ontario agency that operates UPX, is under pressure to reduce fares and broaden the line’s appeal to local commuters by integrating it more closely with Toronto’s broader transit network...

[notmyfriends]

http://www.570news.com/2016/02/11/kitche...ouncement/

Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic sat down with Toronto Mayor John Tory in Toronto on Thursday morning promoting the importance of two-way all-day GO service and/or high speed rail between the two regions.
Vrbanovic and Tory are expressing the need for an innovation corridor between the two cities – similar to San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Vrbanovic says “Transit drives innovation and innovation drives economic growth….Now is the time to lead not only the province, but the country in creating a high quality of life, and a strong and competitive economy.”

[Canard]

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=806413