03-04-2021, 12:54 AM
(03-04-2021, 12:23 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:(03-03-2021, 10:55 PM)nms Wrote: In related railway news, does anyone want to go splits on a used trainset to do a proof of concept of more frequent east-west train service in Waterloo Region (and possibly to Guelph and/or Stratford)? The City of Ottawa no longer needs their Bombardier Talent trains.
For years now, I've wondered about the feasibility of working with the railway companies that use the CN line through Kitchener to add a short rail service that runs between New Hamburg and Breslau and points in between. A sample route might be:
- New Hamburg
- Baden
- (Petersburg)
- West Kitchener (ie around the Boardwalk)
- King St/Victoria
- (Bingeman's/River Road)
- Breslau
- And return
To keep things simple and to avoid the need to cross Regional boundaries, the service would be limited to stops in Waterloo Region. If the service became popular, it might even stretch west to Stratford and east to Guelph.
Shame to see those transets go to waste, but I suspect the biggest capital cost would be the stations, and operationally, it's a single track, you either have to make a massive capital investment of twinning some sections, or have extremely infrequent service, and man, that's assuming GO and CN let you make exclusive use of the tracks during your service hours.
But it is a nice dream, that would be a useful service.
It's a little over 30km from New Hamburg to Breslau, so 30 minutes seems like a reasonable one-way runtime for a DMU that tops out over 100km/h. If you time it right, you could probably get away with a single passing loop near the middle of the line and have service every half hour each way.
Obviously it wouldn't fly with CN though.