Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[urbanclient]

The trains that operate the actual tests where they are aiming for the highest speed possible - yes. That is correct.

But part of those programs also involves operating regular trains at higher speeds than will be operated in revenue service. As part of the 1990 high-speed tests, for instance, a regular "Réseau" set - 2 locos and 8 intermediate cars, 200 metres long and which was already in revenue service - operated at speeds approaching 400km/h multiple times in advance of the modified trainset. They did the same thing again with the program run in 2007.

But sure, continue to ignore what other countries already do or are capable of....

Dan

Dan, respectfully, look at my posts over the last few days. Lots of what I've said does not necessarily contradict what you've said and vice versa. Yes, the French are capable of hitting very high speeds, much higher than their current operational speeds. But there are good reasons why those are on the occasional test run and not in regular service. I have not ignored what other countries do or are capable of. Quite the opposite. Instead of fixating on an exception to the general rule, as reason to disprove the rule, you should think about why so many countries switch to slab track at ≥300 km/h. General rule being that maintenance costs are prohibitive for speeds above 300 on ballasted track barring some special French sauce that comes with its own upfront costs. At >320, slab track more or less becomes a necessity for safety.

Tangent, but this applies to metros as well. Lots of old metros ran on ballasted track, but newly built metros have all switched to modern slab track. Maintenance costs, maintenance costs, maintenance costs. If the TTC could afford the upfront cost of an upgrade, I am sure they'd do so, to avoid the never-ending slow zone wack-a-mole. Does it make more sense to save up for slab track or a specialized French tamping machine for the subway? Annotated my previous post:

TGV test runs are done with lighter trains, often smaller consists and sometimes specially tuned power cars for top speed runs. <----- there are only operators and technical people monitoring systems on the trains during these runs, there are no passengers and luggage, hence the trains are lighter even if some are the same length.

If it were that easy to hit 320, even 500 km/h on conventional ballasted track, and not deal with unsustainable maintenance costs you'd think the Spanish, which arguably have a better HSR network would get in on this need for speed. And what about Germany, Italy, the UK? The French are the foremost experts on this; they use a variety of techniques, more costly special ballast, more cleaning, lowered ballast between sleepers, and aerodynamic train bodies and bogies. <------ I know how the French are able to achieve such high speeds on ballasted track. $$$ and expertise.

Why would the Chinese bother wasting money on slab track if they could've achieved 350 km/h speeds with lower long-term costs on ballasted track? Why would the Japanese switch to slab track for nearly all their 300-320 km/h lines? <-------You've glossed over the issue of maintenance twice now. And what about slab track being favoured in Germany, Japan, South Korea, China etc. for ≥300 top speeds? The Germans (300) and the Japanese (320) pioneered slab track in large part because it lowers maintenance costs even if it does not necessarily lead to higher speeds than France (320).

320 is possible for Alto. But: [you're talking about ≤5 minutes gained over 650 km, for easily 10% more energy consumption if 450/650 km is at top speed Feel free to check my math on this.]

Since Alto is not going for slab track AFAIK, is it reasonable to fixate on the one country that does 320 km/h on ballasted track, and ignore all the others that do ≥300 on slab track? All the others that can only manage ≤300 on ballasted track?

On ballasted track, harsh weather, temperature and humidity swings can cause track geometry changes that require constant, expensive tamping. Case in point, South Korea, which switched to slab track partly to prevent rail buckling in the summer and frost heave in the winter. Rail buckling caused several passenger derailments in Korea. And Eastern Canada is known to have a South Korean-like climate with greater temperature swings than Western Europe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D9OBWlWRxk

Less related to ballast vs. slab, but France reduces top speeds during the winter due to ice and snow (like any other HSR country) https://www.groupe-sncf.com/en/group/behind-the-scenes/traffic-flows/flying-ice. Slab tracks still reduce flying ice and snow from the trackbed.

I highly doubt the easy copy+paste of 320 ballasted tech from France to Eastern Canada based on climatic differences alone.

"But sure, continue to ignore what other countries already do or are capable of...." What other countries? Dan, there are 3 countries that hit 320 and no higher: Japan, France and Morocco. Japan runs all 320 and lots of 300 on slab track. HSR in France and Morocco are French designed and built, which I hinted towards previously. For all intents and purposes, that's exactly one country that does what you are touting, 320 on ballasted track. While ignoring the cases against your narrative in China (250 to 350 all on slab), Indonesia (350 but Chinese), Japan, South Korea (305 on slab track), Spain (310 down to 300 due to ballast flight), Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Turkey etc.

The preponderance of evidence does not favour your narrative Dan. @crs1026 It's only pedantry if one is fixated on the sole French case in a sea of non-outliers.

 

[just east of the creek]

A friend forwarded this link to me - a local MP Mark Gerretsen speaking of a rerouting of the proposed ALTO route to include a stop just north of Kingston (which makes far more sense then Sharbot Lake to the dismay of some other friends).

See the link here: https://www.kingstonist.com/news/mp...ned-to-bypass-kingston-may-be-changing-track/

 

[generalcanada]

A friend forwarded this link to me - a local MP Mark Gerretsen speaking of a rerouting of the proposed ALTO route to include a stop just north of Kingston (which makes far more sense then Sharbot Lake to the dismay of some other friends).

See the link here: https://www.kingstonist.com/news/mp...ned-to-bypass-kingston-may-be-changing-track/

Contrary to what he thinks, there never was a plan for a stop in kingston. that routing is out of convienience not to have a station in kingston.

 

[just east of the creek]

Contrary to what he thinks, there never was a plan for a stop in kingston. that routing is out of convienience not to have a station in kingston.

I think they reference a stop North of Kingston. Not sure what that means. Perhaps just north of the 401 near where the current VIA line, HWY 15 and the Rideau canal converge (as an example) or something north of that, say Rideau Lakes Area. Route wise, its a mess, unless you come closer to the 401.

The hand of the politician.

 

[bpbpbpbp]

Am I the only one who’s a bit excited and relieved with what I’ve heard about the Toronto and Montréal station locations? To think a while ago we were talking about Summerhill, Junction or Pearson stops in Toronto and a REM connection stop in MTL. I can really live with Alto being in the vicinity of Union, up to the CN Tower, knowing it needs to go to the VIA yard. Would be great if Union proper is somehow worked out. And the tunnel into MTL hypothesis means it’s probably going near Gare Centrale. Which is not too shabby. Puts a lot of speculation to rest.

 

[crs1026]

A friend forwarded this link to me - a local MP Mark Gerretsen speaking of a rerouting of the proposed ALTO route to include a stop just north of Kingston (which makes far more sense then Sharbot Lake to the dismay of some other friends).

See the link here: https://www.kingstonist.com/news/mp...ned-to-bypass-kingston-may-be-changing-track/

Not the first local booster to come out of the woodwork looking for a way to bring Alto to their community, and won't be the last.

It will be interesting to see how much latitude the governing party gives its MP's to take a local advocacy role once the preferred routing etc is worked out and they have to toe a party line that may not favour their own community..

I wonder if he has ever showed any interest for the current VIA route, or done any boosting to deal with its issues. .

- Paul

 

[Voltz]

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.

View attachment 708932

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.

This might even get Metrolinx to not drag their feet as much with electrification.

 

[micheal_can]

A friend forwarded this link to me - a local MP Mark Gerretsen speaking of a rerouting of the proposed ALTO route to include a stop just north of Kingston (which makes far more sense then Sharbot Lake to the dismay of some other friends).

See the link here: https://www.kingstonist.com/news/mp...ned-to-bypass-kingston-may-be-changing-track/

As far back as when it was announced to go ahead with HSR there has been the continued push for a stop for Kingston as close as possible. I don't doubt that as this progresses we will see more of this.

 

[Mihairokov]

I think they reference a stop North of Kingston. Not sure what that means.

Maybe they mean "OTTAWA". I hope they do, anyway.

 

[McGillicuddy]

It is the MP for Kingston's job to think that having high-speed railway stopping in Kingston is a nice idea, and to do little zero-cost harmless things to that effect. If he doesn't at least pantomime a little boosterism, he'll go into the next election surrounded by questions about why he didn't do more to prevent the great calamity of VIA Rail abandoning Kingston forever. (Which is how quite a few people in Kingston genuinely seem to view this situation: that, once Alto is up and running, VIA's going to abandon their remaining services, and that this snub is therefore tantamount to cutting the city off the rail network entirely.)

It's in his own interests to put out a few open letters, pose for a few photographs, be seen to advocate for it, but to keep these exercises contained to the local press. The story needs to be "local MP thinks local thing would be cool", rather than "Liberal whip breaks with party over marquee policy".

 

[just east of the creek]

It is the MP for Kingston's job to think that having high-speed railway stopping in Kingston is a nice idea, and to do little zero-cost harmless things to that effect. If he doesn't at least pantomime a little boosterism, he'll go into the next election surrounded by questions about why he didn't do more to prevent the great calamity of VIA Rail abandoning Kingston forever. (Which is how quite a few people in Kingston genuinely seem to view this situation: that, once Alto is up and running, VIA's going to abandon their remaining services, and that this snub is therefore tantamount to cutting the city off the rail network entirely.)

It's in his own interests to put out a few open letters, pose for a few photographs, be seen to advocate for it, but to keep these exercises contained to the local press. The story needs to be "local MP thinks local thing would be cool", rather than "Liberal whip breaks with party over marquee policy".

I think it is a very fair question to ponder the fate of the lakeshore VIA services if ALTO is built. Funding will be starved further then it is now. (VIA is facing a 15% ‘self imposed’ budget cut come). The numbers of trains will dwindle. Politicians will point fingers at declining ridership as a means to cut funding further. The endless Canadian spiral to something approaching the Northlander in service, but with dated, tired, worn out equipment.

 

[nfitz]

Not the first local booster to come out of the woodwork looking for a way to bring Alto to their community, and won't be the last.

It will be interesting to see how much latitude the governing party gives its MP's to take a local advocacy role once the preferred routing etc is worked out and they have to toe a party line that may not favour their own community..

I wonder if he has ever showed any interest for the current VIA route, or done any boosting to deal with its issues.

With the one of the studied alignments going so close to Kingston, I don't see why anyone would even question putting a stop in. Obviously not happening at Highway 7, but if it's coming south of Sydneham - only 5 km from the northern city limit of Kingston?

 

[McGillicuddy]

I think it is a very fair question to ponder the fate of the lakeshore VIA services if ALTO is built. Funding will be starved further then it is now. (VIA is facing a 15% ‘self imposed’ budget cut come). The numbers of trains will dwindle. Politicians will point fingers at declining ridership as a means to cut funding further. The endless Canadian spiral to something approaching the Northlander in service, but with dated, tired, worn out equipment.

I tend to think that VIA's legacy services are an unkillable cockroach.

It costs an absolute fortune to run The Canadian: per-passenger subsidies along this specific route often run into four figures. You could literally stop running the train, buy every passenger an airfare between the relevant city pair, and thereby achieve a net savings. The math on this train is rotten.

And despite what a lot of people assume, The Canadian is pretty terrible regional transport. Having a train that serves a stop 2 kilometres outside your town at 3 AM once a week is simply not a good service. If our goal was to provide good regional service, we'd spend a quarter as much on subsidizing bus routes instead.

So. Why does VIA do it? Well. Because Parliament makes them do it. VIA has a mandate to run the service, so they do.

But that's not a complete answer. This parliamentary mandate is not a fact of nature. Where does it come from?

Lots of weirdo railfans think it comes from them, and they're completely wrong.

It comes from the fact that The Canadian passes through about 70 electoral districts spanning multiple regions of the country, meaning that cancellation would attract nasty letters and protests outside the constituency offices of dozens of MPs, including representatives of every major party except the Bloc Quebecois. (Who you'd better believe would scream bloody murder if anyone tried to cancel The Ocean or the regional trains in Quebec.) This makes it surprisingly robust as a political undertaking, and therefore surprisingly robust as a line in the budget. Successive governments have sometimes tried to squeeze The Canadian, but nobody has yet seriously entertaining ending transcontinental service in Canada, mostly because it would piss off a lot of old-timers who actually show up and vote.

And the same basic protection extends to Kingston. Cutting Kingston off of the rail network is the sort of thing that would end an MP's career, even if their party gained seats in the next election. The same is generally true up and down the corridor in general: the Liberals came within 3% of winning Northumberland--Clarke last time, which means Port Hope and Cobourg definitely get to keep their rail service. Belleville's a red-hot marginal, so they keep their trains, too. The Conservative MP whose riding covers Smith's Falls is just ~3200 votes away from oblivion, so he certainly can't piss off that particular population centre...

Will VIA withdraw some services as ALTO comes online? Yes, most likely: there will be less demand for slow regional passenger services between these major cities, and VIA's existing semi-express services between these cities are about as close as the railway comes to profitability, so they'll be left with services that require greater subsidy, worsening the network's overall financial position.

But is Kingston about to fall off the rail network? No. Actually, in a post-ALTO world, Kingston becomes more vital to VIA's plans than ever before. Forget about being flyover country: in a world where VIA won't be able to compete on the major city pairs, they'll need to persuade the people of Ottawa that they want a weekend away in Kingston.

And unless something about our politics gets very weird over the next 50 years, they'll have parliamentary backing behind that pivot.

 

[CapitalSeven]

I remain skeptical about the southerly route. From Smith's Falls down there is an abandoned line, now a trail, which wasn't too bad and parts of which might serve with straightening. Running east from Peterborough, the previous railway looked like this:

If you want to lay out a HSR route in a straight line, you are running perpendicular to the prevailing topography, which is not as rough as the shield but isn't flat, and has a marked SW to NE shape you can see from space. And then you are cutting up hundreds of properties at a diagonal, which became a huge political problem in California, as well as for the abandoned HSR scheme between Kitchener and London. There are really no benefits to the blue ridings it runs through. Conservatives will smell blood and beat it to death.

 

[crs1026]

I tend to think that VIA's legacy services are an unkillable cockroach.

That may be true for long distance routes, but in relation to the current corridor - You underestimate several things

a) CN's determination to evict VIA
b) The obtuse and indirect accountabilities of the federal system when it comes to rail passenger.generally, which diffuses any public reaction or opposition and ensures no forward initiative is ever taken towards building rail passenger business..
c) The proven ability of Ottawa to force VIA to make a thousand successive paper cuts to its service plan, such that things gradually atrophy
d) The inertia of public opinion, which only notices after the service has gone.
e) The clear commitment of Ottawa to foist regional services on the provinces

How would this happen?

The first leg of the stool would be to take every current local stop between Toronto, Kingston, and Montreal and condense into stopping trains that do not compete with Alto for the end-point business. That would probably look like at most four or five trains each way.... same frequency of stops as today, Kingston in particular would suffer from this service model, the other stops might not notice the difference.
The second leg would be to attrit some of those stops and schedules.
The third leg would be to relieve CN of any requirement to offer speed over 80 mph, and then possibly 75 mph. Small incremental increases in travel times that cumulatively erode the market..
The fourth leg of the stool would be to revise fares, on the premise that the local service requires far greater subsidy per ticket than before, in light of all the through riders and revenue shifting to Alto, and implement rigid reserved seating leading to a demand management model of fewer seats at higher price points
The cushion on the stool would be simply looking the other way as CN gives priority to freights and erodes timekeeping. Quite possibly, once Alto takes away the high priority "express" VIA trains, CN would even eliminate some segments of double track.

How do I know this is doable? It's exactly how service was trimmed west of Toronto on three routes between 1985 and about 1995.

What the Lakeshore service needs, irrespective of Alto, is growth in the service plan and more frequent schedule options at all the intermediate points. Arguably, this would require somebody to invest in either additional trackage on the CN route, or build new dedicated trackage along a parallel line, as GO is doing in Halton Region. There is enough population along those communities to support this service - heck, there are more people along the Lakeshore than in Peterborough.

Today, folks can go to the centrally located station in Kingston and catch a train that takes about two hours to reach Toronto or Ottawa, with a very attractive choice of departure times. Even with the southern routing, replacing that with a half hour drive to a peripheral Alto station, so that they can have a one hour train ride on Alto, is not an improvement imho. And, there are already more cars making trips from those Lakeshore towns to Toronto than cars making the trip from Toronto all the way to Ottawa. The regional trains are essential to reduce highway congestion in the GTA.

Kingston, Belleville, Cobourg, Port Hope should be very worried..

- Paul