News   Nov 26, 2024
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News   Nov 26, 2024
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Quebec-Windsor Corridor


Sounds like full high-speed it is.

The Trudeau government will announce a high-speed train (TGV) project to connect Quebec and Toronto in the coming weeks, according to Radio-Canada. This would be the first TGV in Canada and is seen as an economic revolution by the government and experts. The project promoters hope the train will take passengers from Montreal to Toronto in three hours, compared to the 5.5-hour drive. The desired speed is 300 km/h, double that of current VIA Rail trains.

According to a source close to the matter, the consortiums estimated that ridership would have been too low with a high-frequency train, as customers are looking for the shortest possible travel time. Furthermore, VIA TGF, the federal state company created in November 2022 to develop a rail corridor between Quebec and Toronto, is expected to change its name to avoid referring solely to high frequency. According to a government source, the consortiums' work has shown that the high-speed train option was much cheaper than initially expected. Transport Canada had initially estimated that the cost of a TGV could be as high as 80 billion dollars.

"much cheaper than initially expected". Wasnt the original price quoted somewhere around 40 Billion?
 
We of course have to wait for PP to say so, but we really oughtn't get our hopes up. $10-20B+ investment in intercity rail is not likely to be high on his government's priority list. Trudeau can announce anything he likes. His government won't be around to deliver it.
 
Would this stop in Ottawa? 3 hours from centre to centre is great! Let’s not forget that this is a service that woold generate funds so the pricetag needs to be seen in context.
 
Would this stop in Ottawa? 3 hours from centre to centre is great! Let’s not forget that this is a service that woold generate funds so the pricetag needs to be seen in context.
Ottawa is certainly a stop; if not the terminus for some trains.

Whether all the runs will stop in Ottawa is not yet clear. Or if the 3-hours Toronto-Montreal includes an Ottawa stop. I wouldn't be surprised if they they do announce this with a 3-hour travel time, is that it's an aspirational time for the future, once further upgrades are made as a potential future phase.
 

Sounds like full high-speed it is.
As I just wrote in the VIA Rail thread, it unfortunately matters preciously little what the outgoing government wants to plan & design, but what the next government is willing to fund…

"much cheaper than initially expected". Wasnt the original price quoted somewhere around 40 Billion?
The Ecotrain study estimated capital costs of $10.8 billions in 2009 prices, which translates to $15 billion (but in my observation, capital cost estimates for HSR in this country usually rises by twice the CPI increase between two subsequent HSR studies, which would bring us above $20 billions):
IMG_7135.jpeg
Ottawa is certainly a stop; if not the terminus for some trains.

Whether all the runs will stop in Ottawa is not yet clear. Or if the 3-hours Toronto-Montreal includes an Ottawa stop. I wouldn't be surprised if they they do announce this with a 3-hour travel time, is that it's an aspirational time for the future, once further upgrades are made as a potential future phase.
As I keep arguing here, having trains skip Ottawa will loose you much more MO and OT passengers than the modest travel time saving of, say, less than 15 minutes will make you gain in MT travellers.
 
As I just wrote in the VIA Rail thread, it unfortunately matters preciously little what the outgoing government wants to plan & design, but what the next government is willing to fund…
Unless the current government goes the PPP route, and puts in a very hefty poison pill, similar to what the Liberals did the the LRT projects that the Conservatives inherited. And (though not PPP) what the City of Toronto did with the Flexity streetcar purchase before Rob Ford became mayor.

Though I'm not sure the current government has enough gumption for that.


As I keep arguing here, having trains skip Ottawa will loose you much more MO and OT passengers than the modest travel time saving of, say, less than 15 minutes will make you gain in MT travellers.
On one hand I agree. On the other hand, I don't see how you'd get 3 hours with stopping + getting out of Toronto + that infernal post-Bonaventure station 270° loop into Central Station. That would mean they could run the occasional express in 165 minutes if they just ran through Ottawa as fast as the track would allow.

If it's actual real as part of the current contract, perhaps it's for Summerhill station to a new station at Ville St. Pierre metro! :)
 
The details will matter here, but promising nonetheless. Long overdue project.
The executives in charge of the project have been signalling this was the case for the past year.

A bummer though is the timeline being proposed. If it'll take 5-6 years to design and obtain permits, then 5-6 years for the initial segment (OTT-MTL?), this HSR likely won't reach Toronto until the 2040s.

I do wonder which group they went with:
Sources told Radio-Canada the federal government has chosen a winning bidder out of three competing consortia and is expected to announce the news in the next few weeks.
Picking Cadence, which includes SNC-Lavalin and its controversal history, might doom the project. The opponets of the project would have a field day.
 
We of course have to wait for PP to say so, but we really oughtn't get our hopes up. $10-20B+ investment in intercity rail is not likely to be high on his government's priority list. Trudeau can announce anything he likes. His government won't be around to deliver it.
The contracts could be structured in such a way to make it difficult to cancel. They could invest a significant sum upfront as part of the "co-development" phase, for example. A future government would find it tough to write off billions in commited money.

I also wouldn't be quick to assume PP would rush to cancel HSR. Danielle Smith, Alberta Premiere and fellow populist, is enthusiastic about HSR in Alberta. The federal conservatives could go ahead with it and use it to knock the Trudeau Liberals for their failure to start construction on it during their 10 years in charge.
 

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