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Slowly, the industry along the midtown is moving out of the city. The stockyards (Keele & St. Clair & Dundas) used to be busy with rail delivering cattle for example, no more. Hazardous substances are already avoiding the midtown corridor, as their destinations are also moving out.
It's not just the local customers -that is CP's only E-W mainline. All goods originating anywhere on one side of the city heading for the other side has no other alternative.
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RAC Canadian Rail Atlas
I never realized it either, but it is. So, if this corridor is to be a viable GO corridor, or an RER corridor, there needs to be a lot of new rail infrastructure.
Doesn't solve the movement E-W through the city.
Only need E-W for freight, if there is industry along that route. If not, they should bypass it using other lines, include other company raillines.
Fair point, but that wasn't the claim I was responding to.
Then you get into the 'missing link' discussion and whether the CN York corridor or 407 property are suitable and viable.
To use one line for all freight traffic through Toronto is absurd. Freight traffic is going up. There would come a time were CN would need the space for their freight.
Or shared route.
4 track shared route? ....ok
Even one set used by all the railways, but likely two to four plus sidings.
This could easily happen parallel to CN's corridor. If we're already building track and setting land aside, we may as well make it as redundant as possible so we don't have to do it again. If the bypass, along with room for CP throughout all of greater Toronto is considered, that will require minimum 2 tracks per carrier mostly paralleling the 407 or perhaps built alongside 413 while it's still greenfield. What we should be discussing is how many tracks in addition to add; freeing up the midtown corridor is convenient, but constructing an additional two tracks for GO, alongside the CN/CP mainline, may be worth the investment. I can't imagine the land acquisitions necessary for four additional tracks instead of two (6 total vs. 4) would be all that big a deal, considering we're already talking about potentially tens of billions of dollars. Give it a catchy name, the "Rail super way" of the Golden Horseshoe. You would be able to guarantee the freight companies that transit would never impede on their operations because we'd be putting in our own track right alongside CN & CP's. There would be no need to acquire theirs in the future, and we'd have not one, but TWO heavy rail east-west lines (excluding the Lakeshore, lines 2/5/4 etc). Again, a ridiculously costly venture, but if the bypass is being considered we need to think big and guarantee freight a permanent E/W route while also extracting as much value for transit as we can. The midtown corridor would be just a part of the bypass' benefits.
I'm not sure what you are suggesting. On problem with rail along a highway corridor, particularly in the terrain proposed for 413, is that the curves and grades are different. It may be more feasible with 407 but I don't really know. Any proposal to move CN further north takes them further from their yards. Same with CP but there seems to be some talk about moving away from Agincourt anyway. In addition, running freight including dangerous goods through the moraine would face stiff opposition.
