Historically yes, but right now they don't. My point is about directing HFR investment to the Montreal-Ottawa-Peterborough-Toronto corridor and how by speeding up Montreal-Ottawa-Smith Falls they could immediately have trains that go Montreal to Toronto pass through Ottawa with no change in schedule thereby increasing the frequency in the corridor without negatively impacting the timetables that exist today.
I do agree that dwelling on what VIA was able to do in the past isn't always relevant (conditions change).
Serve Dorval on non-express trains, separate the VIA tracks from the CN tracks by shifting CN slightly south and diving under the St Laurent sub junction. Hopefully there are investments that could be made to allow the train to average a speed higher than 60km/h from Centrale to Dorval but the key is not stopping and improving line speed.
Any improvement made east of Coteau (or west of Brockville) would also improve travel times for trains via Cornwall, thus it cannot be used to justify detouring Toronto-Montreal trains via Ottawa. HFR works because it creates a shorter route between Ottawa and Toronto and because it is on dedicated tracks, the reliability and on time performance will be much better (even if the Montreal-Toronto travel times don't improve significantly from the status quo).
Going 187km at an average speed of 170km/h gets you to Ottawa in about 66min.
I question the feasibility of that. Don't forget that getting in and out of Central Station to/from the west is very slow because of all the curves and 63 of the 187 km will still be on shared track. The current travel time from Montreal to Coteau is 59 minutes, and decreasing that significantly won't be easy. They could potentially shorten the entire route a bit and reduce the amount of shared track by running parallel to CP's Winchester Sub (if an agreement with CP can be made), but I still don't see your travel time being easily obtained without significant expense upgrading tracks in central Montreal.
If it was via a reinstated Vankleek Hill route the distance is 175km and has less sharp curves, but it would likely be more valuable to smooth out the curves on the existing route.
I agree. Resurrecting the old M&O line has little benefit since VIA now owns the Alexandria Sub.
Stop for 20min in Ottawa. Travel to Smith Falls in 24min (66km at 170km/h),
It currently takes about 20 minutes to travel the 16 km to Fallowfield. Part of that is slowing for the station, but part of it is also the twists and turns getting out of Ottawa. Similar to the approach to Montreal, straightening the track inside city limits to fix that is going to be EXPENSIVE! Even if you could somehow magically cut that in half to 10 minutes, doing the remaining 50 km to Smiths Falls in 14 minutes would require an average speed of 214 km/h.
to Brockville in 23min (45km at 120km/h) .
The current travel time is around 35 minutes, so this might be feasible. The question is, since this leg is such a backtrack, is it worth putting any significant amount of money onto the Brockville Sub? I would rather that money put on finding a more direct route (be it the Havelock Sub, or another route).
However, the real point is that the HFR investment can be made in the Smith Falls to Montreal corridor and make an immediate impact. It is a route key to any solution being proposed, it currently sees service, and getting a train to its destination faster frees it for a return trip back.
I agree. I just don't think detouring Montreal-Toronto trains via Ottawa and Brockville is feasible.
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