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

[ookpik]

I think people tend to overstate these factors. Modern HSR trains take about 2 minutes to reach maximum speed and about a minute and a half to come to a complete stop from maximum speed. Adding a few stops really doesn't make much of a difference.

Train acceleration is glacial compared to a sports car, which can reach similar speeds in 15-20 seconds, but not large enough to really make an impact if we were to have a stop in Guelph and Pearson.

The train does need to be stationary for a while, too, unless we have high-speed passengers (HSP), too!  

So about 2 min to accelerate, 2 min to decelerate and another 1 to 2 minutes stationary. (I'd say 2 min at places like YYZ where people will have lots of luggage to schlep on and off the train.) So each stop will probably add about 5 min to total travel time of an HSR. That argues against frequent stops. And that IMNSHO argues against HSR in the proposed London-KW-Toronto corridor. ISTM to make much more sense to run "conventional" trains at 160km/hr, have stops at all mid-sized communities along the route like Guelph and Woodstock, and thus get as much ridership as possible as quickly as possible. At 160km/hr it should be possible to do KW to Union in half the time it now takes on GO. Offer hourly trains and you've go a backbone system that satisfies regular commuters as well as casual day-trippers.

But as I said before it would be nice to see some analysis of these issues including speeds, stops, frequency, costs, etc.