Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[WB62]

I like an elevated train to the Union Station “surrounding area” just east at Church St.
Two elevated red - rail lines?
Blue - Station?
Green P for “airport/train” parking or a terminal building. Lots of spare capacity.
Bring the UP to Yonge St. or walk down track #3 and bypass Union traffic. Unless a GO train arrives.
250m to GO bus. Path on south side to CIBC Phase 1
350 m to GO train. Path at The Backstage to CIBC phase 2
500m to Union Station train.
Finish the Path to Sugar Wharf and One Yonge.
Complete Church St underpass.
View attachment 708929

ALTO needs to be able to pass through Downtown Toronto to get to the yard, which happens to be where the GO/VIA yards are.

This is the most defined, clearest rail right of way on the map, so to me this makes me assume the decision to have a yard here is final, and the ALTO route has to work around it.

 

[McGillicuddy]

If we're going to entertain connecting the station to Union by way of an extension to the UP Express, you may as well have the station a couple of kilometres outside of downtown and save a fortune on expropriation and construction.

 

[CapitalSeven]

This map, happily included above by Northern Light, shows the tempting possibilities of the hydro corridors for high speeds. The branch through Almonte and Merivale passes through mid-Ottawa in an almost straight line.

Despite the almost carte-blanche swath indicated in the maps, the corridor also intersects easily at both ends with the current VIA line at both ends. Yesterday I was pouring water in the idea of an Ottawa bypass, but it sort of makes sense if they approach the city through Stittsville. Montreal Express trains could whiz through at 200 and Ottawa trains detour to Tremblay. But the map also permits a route along the Queensway and Wellington and even Vanier if we like. It's kind of baffling.

What does concern me is the nonchalance about a station location in Ottawa. It can be anywhere, who cares where, and should connect to transit if possible. Huh?

 

[reinventingthewheel]

Alto's surface stations require about 42,000 m2

That’s on a similar scale to the entire Union train shed. Yikes! I can’t imagine what facilities would entail, maybe just future proofing for many platforms.

Anyway, I guess that would have to rule out any Union integration that isn’t underground.

 

[urbanclient]

That’s on a similar scale to the entire Union train shed. Yikes! I can’t imagine what facilities would entail, maybe just future proofing for many platforms.

Anyway, I guess that would have to rule out any Union integration that isn’t underground.

At first glance I thought 42,000 m2 was big. In retrospect, it's not actually that big. Here's a random HSR station Gemini spit out. 40,000 m2 effective footprint and it only has 2 side platforms. The French AREP helped design it too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badaling_Great_Wall_railway_station

 

[reinventingthewheel]

At first glance I thought 42,000 m2 was big. In retrospect, it's not actually that big. Here's a random HSR station Gemini spit out. 40,000 m2 effective footprint and it only has 2 side platforms. The French AREP helped design it too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badaling_Great_Wall_railway_station

Yes but the language suggests a different figure than what is described here. To say a building “requires total floor space of 42,000 m2” is different from saying it “requires 42,000 m2.”

Let me extend the quote a bit.

Alto's surface stations require about 42,000 m2—about the size of six football fields.

That to me suggests a site area of 42,000m2. I could be wrong, in which case I’d say it’s been poorly worded.

 

[urbanclient]

Yes but the language suggests a different figure than what is described here. To say a building “requires total floor space of 42,000 m2” is different from saying it “requires 42,000 m2.”

Let me extend the quote a bit.

That to me suggests a site area of 42,000m2. I could be wrong, in which case I’d say it’s been poorly worded.

For the Great Wall station: "The total floorage of the station is 49,000 square metres (530,000 sq ft), including 9,000 square metres (97,000 sq ft) overground station building and 40,000 square metres (430,000 sq ft) underground track area and platform area."

I assume the 9,000 overground overlaps with the 40,000 footprint of the tracks and platforms (and waiting areas?). Chinese platforms are standardized at 450 metres to fit up to 17 car trains. Divide 40,000 by 450 and you get 88.8̅ metres. 8 happens to be a lucky number in China. The size checks out.

I think it unlikely for Alto stations to be constructed with a lot of verticality, where the entire concourse is built several storeys above or below the platforms. Sprawl = upfront cost savings.

 

[smallspy]

350 km/h operational top speeds on ballasted track would be a world record. Also I am pretty sure ballast flies and hits the undercarriage too much above 320 km/h.

The vast, vast majority of the French network is ballasted track, and they've tested it up to almost 575km/h.

The LGV Est is operated at 320km/h every single day with no issues.

Dan

 

[lenaitch]

The southerly option begins by following an old rail corridor/current trail south-east. Its easy to see:

View attachment 708887


The trail continues to the south-east I haven't marked it all, just provided a starting point, I am not suggesting the southern option, if pursued would literally use that trail, but the corridor is centred on it.

You can follow it to Madoc Junction. (roughly). Now after that, I'd use the map below to suss out your next move:


View attachment 708884

Perhaps. It's fun to speculate. A lot of those 'mid-eastern' Ontario rail ROWs (I think most ending up being under Midland Railway umbrella) are quite old and, regardless, I suspect their alignments would be limited to the needs of high-speed rail. Hydro corridors have the advantage of being pretty straight, but I suspect would come with their own issues of infrastructure and safety requirements as well as ownership.

 

[urbanclient]

The vast, vast majority of the French network is ballasted track, and they've tested it up to almost 575km/h.

The LGV Est is operated at 320km/h every single day with no issues.

Dan

Read this again: "350 km/h operational top speeds on ballasted track would be a world record. Also I am pretty sure ballast flies and hits the undercarriage too much above 320 km/h." Nothing you said is mutually exclusive with what I said. I didn't say anything about test runs. The original suggestion was 350 km/h based on minimum curve radii alone. Even they hinted at the issue of ballasted track. There is a reason no one runs faster than 320 km/h except the Chinese. Cost being one of them. E.g. cost to mitigate flying ballast and higher marginal electricity use>higher total electricity costs.

https://en.consultation.altotrain.c...-designed-for-performance-with-safety-in-mind

They mention a minimum curve radius of 7km. In China that is good enough for 350 km/h.

They're using ballast but maybe that was expected for the lower capital cost.

We're talking about saving a few minutes at most, for ~20% higher energy per km. This makes no sense, especially for the comparatively shorter routes in continental Europe vs China. The French, Spanish, Italians and others are not dumb. They tried running 310 km/h in Spain for 5 years and walked it back to 300 in 2016 due to flying ballast issues. I am fairly certain it's not feasible to run ballasted track HSR at 350 km/h. Even if you lower the ballast level to mitigate damage to the undercarriage, you'll still be left with more trackbed maintenance / ballast regulating. Again, scope creep for very little gain. @kEiThZ https://www.geotren.es/blog/velocidades-maximas-de-los-trenes-y-de-las-lineas/

 

[Milaisacat]

Re-use of Via maintenance facility?
View attachment 708882

That was my interpretation of this western part of the graphic. It would be genuinely crazy to not utilize that existing VIA yard and trackage to Union Station of Alto operations, maintenance, and storage at the western terminus of the line.

 

[Milaisacat]

SNCF operates on ballasted tracks, with the LGV Est providing a good example of the right of way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est

Notwithstanding the speed record of 574.8 kph having been achieved on this corridor, it was designed for 350 kph in regular operational service.

 

[urbanclient]

SNCP operates on ballasted tracks, with the LGV Est providing a good example of the right of way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est

Notwithstanding the speed record of 574.8 kph having been achieved on this corridor, it was designed for 350 kph in regular operational service.

You guys are misconstruing theoretical 'designed' speeds with actual operational speeds. Nowhere but in China and Indonesia (both Chinese built) do you see HSR that was ever operated at 350 km/h top speeds for regular passenger service. In both those cases, all the high speed track is ballastless slab track.

More to the point, the 350 km/h top speed lines in China have a 'design speed' of 380 to 400 km/h. They always leave extra margin. Y'all are being pedantic for no good reason. LGV Est never ran above 320 km/h in regular service. A souped up, lightened test train specifically designed to break their previous world record hitting 574 km/h two decades ago is not remotely relevant to discussions of operational top speeds.

If someone wants to bring up counter examples to the Italian and Spanish cases of top speeds being limited by ballast flight, I am all ears. I am not saying it's physically impossible. I'm predicting that it is infeasible to run faster than 320 km/h on ballasted track. More importantly, running it 20 to 50 km/h faster than 300 does little to improve travel times while significantly increasing operating and maintenance costs.

 

[kEiThZ]

It's railfan nonsense that ignores real world constratints. Like cost. Or the basic mathematics of time saved. There's more to be gained from going to 120 kph from 80 kph than from 300 kph to 400 kph.

 

[urbanclient]

It's railfan nonsense that ignores real world constratints. Like cost. Or the basic mathematics of time saved. There's more to be gained from going to 120 kph from 80 kph than from 300 kph to 400 kph.

As an aside, I'm a big fan of China's HSR, but them potentially going for 400 km/h actual operating speeds on new lines in the near future is largely a vanity thing, along with the political motivation to push trains over airlines to redirect emissions from near the wealthy urban elite to the unfortunates in the countryside. 350->400 is 25-30% more energy per km for less than 6 minutes gained over the new 292 km Chengdu-Chongqing line. 6 minutes is assuming 400 km/h top speeds for the entire 292 km route length. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chengdu–Chongqing_high-speed_railway

Alto needs to stick to the tried-and-true, not needlessly innovate to set ballasted operational speed records. If you have the money to go for 320+, you shell out the upfront cost for ballastless track. Torontonians are sick of incompetent bureaucrats trying to re-invent the wheel already in Metrolinx and the TTC.