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Rail: Ontario-Quebec High Speed Rail Study

In this case the equipment is irrelevant. In Canada it is VIA Rail #97/#98. South of the border it's Amtrak #63/#64. The Adirondack to Montreal and the Cascades to Vancouver keep their Amtrak crews and numbers after the cross into Canada.
 
I suspect it's because the Maple Leaf makes 5 stops in Canada before reaching the terminus while the Adirondack and Cascades make 1 and 0 respectively.
 
Amtrak, like US airlines, is not allowed to sell tickets between Canadian destinations. For this reason VIA Rail runs the service between Niagara and Toronto. If the service was non-stop or unloading only between Niagara and Toronto then Amtrak could run it but then people along the route would have less service.
 
EnviroTO said:
Amtrak, like US airlines, is not allowed to sell tickets between Canadian destinations. For this reason VIA Rail runs the service between Niagara and Toronto. If the service was non-stop or unloading only between Niagara and Toronto then Amtrak could run it but then people along the route would have less service.
Click to expand...
Then just have Go take over the stops as an express regional service, and knock it down to a stop in Hamilton and one in Toronto. In fact, both Niagara Falls-es could be served by a station across the river, which is US soil, but has an easy customs area to transfer over to the Canadian Niagara Falls, including express Go service, if such a station would even belong on a HSR routing.

In reality, Toronto-New York should be a transferless route. There will soon be demand for an Express Go service along the Lakeshore corridor, and with that there will both be little demand for a Toronto-Hamilton trip, and it could get rid of all the smaller stops that VIA uses now.
 
Thanks for clarifying, however, I still don't quite understand. The crew changes at the border?
Or, what exactly changes, other than the designation?


I'm happy to hear I wasn't seeing things!
 
For all intents and purposes, imagine that the entire trains gets painted blue and gold at the border.
 
MTown said:
Thanks for clarifying, however, I still don't quite understand. The crew changes at the border?
Or, what exactly changes, other than the designation?!
Click to expand...

The engineers change, the service crew changes, and the snack bar is closed when the train enters Canada. Anyone boarding within Canada heading to Toronto has bought tickets from Amtrak and not VIA. I would imagine VIA has some kind of agreement similar to a temporary lease of the equipment while it is in Canada.
 
Second_in_pie said:
Then just have Go take over the stops as an express regional service, and knock it down to a stop in Hamilton and one in Toronto. In fact, both Niagara Falls-es could be served by a station across the river, which is US soil, but has an easy customs area to transfer over to the Canadian Niagara Falls, including express Go service, if such a station would even belong on a HSR routing.

In reality, Toronto-New York should be a transferless route. There will soon be demand for an Express Go service along the Lakeshore corridor, and with that there will both be little demand for a Toronto-Hamilton trip, and it could get rid of all the smaller stops that VIA uses now.
Click to expand...

I agree. If you want to get on the NYC train and you live in St Catherines, you should catch the GO train to Niagara or Hamilton. Let Amtrak do the whole route.

I'd also like to have them do customs while the train is moving, instead of stopping for an hour.
 
Would there be enough time to do customs between Hamilton and Niagara? at 300km/h thats about 25 minutes. This could be particularly useful for people transferring from places like Burlington, Brantford, Guelph, or Waterloo. If it can't be done in that time span, is it worth holding up an entire train of passengers? There would still be no stop between Hamilton and the border.
 
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I think I may have just come up with a solution to my own problem: Have the customs people start working in Toronto, but leave cars empty to pick up passengers in Hamilton. Once in Hamilton, there would be no movement allowed between train cars until the border is reached, at which point people who don't clear customs would be kicked off the train before entering the US.
 
dunkalunk said:
I think I may have just come up with a solution to my own problem: Have the customs people start working in Toronto, but leave cars empty to pick up passengers in Hamilton. Once in Hamilton, there would be no movement allowed between train cars until the border is reached, at which point people who don't clear customs would be kicked off the train before entering the US.
Click to expand...

Would the train stop for the kicking off ceremony?
 
What is the image that people expect when they see the words high speed train?

Maybe it is old images from television shows from the 1950's:
[video=youtube;s1C8d2qZrbA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1C8d2qZrbA[/video]

Or have they been in other cities in North America and seen their version of high speed trains:
[video=youtube;1IZ8P_XDQJg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IZ8P_XDQJg[/video]

But have they actually been on the bullet trains in overseas countries:
[video=youtube;qzX3AdYnFPE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzX3AdYnFPE[/video]

Or is it only the trains one sees in the Toronto area, that one assumes fast to be:
[video=youtube;ojJOGUse2Rc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojJOGUse2Rc[/video]
 
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