General Road and Highway Discussion

[taylortbb]

It's not just been one train, they've been running test trains almost daily now apparently. It's also not out of the blue - the Ontario government announced they were looking to introduce train service to London two years ago.

The problem, as I see it, is that some of the ground work needed to make it work is still missing. If the train is to leave at a reasonable time in the morning, it would either have to deadhead there from Kitchener (plausible, but wasteful), or they would need to install wayside equipment in London for overnight power. I'm not sure there is even track space to overnight in London right now. The track condition west of Kitchener is also terrible, so service will be very slow. It would easily be the longest train journey on GO if it happens.

Interesting, I had no idea they were looking into that. Given that the track condition west of Waterloo Region is bad, I wonder if they'd instead use the CN Dundas subdivision or the CP Galt subdivision. The latter would be interesting because it could legitimize the request that Waterloo Region (specifically, the City of Cambridge), Halton Region and the Town of Milton have petitioned to Metrolinx.

Anyway, I don't want to derail (ha) this thread with GO Transit stuff too much since there is a thread for that. I wasn't sure where to put the Amtrack announcement.

The test trains have been spotted in Stratford, so via Kitchener is definitely the route they're looking at. I assume that Go would purchase the rest of the line from Kitchener to London in they did that, I doubt CN would want much money for it. If Go took ownership and started upgrading track quality it would be the first step to Amtrak running via Kitchener.

I had the same thought when I saw the Amtrak announcement, but I checked the current Via times from London to Toronto. Toronto via Brantford most trains take 2:10, the longest 2:30, but via Kitchener the train is 3:30. That's a difference of more than a hour in the typical case to go via Kitchener. A quick Google Map measurement of rail length has London to Toronto via Kitchener at 195km, and via Brantford at 185km, so the difference is almost entirely track quality.

I also think for this to make sense it really should be a joint Amtrak-Via service, so that it's possible to use the train for trips within Canada. Right now the Amtrack services are (IIRC) disembark-only after crossing the border until they reach their Canadian destination, then embark-only until they cross the border after turning around. When the section in Canada is just a tiny bit from Niagara Falls to Toronto it's not a big deal, but Windsor to Toronto could use another local train on it, and the additional revenue would make the project more viable.