unimaginative2
Senior Member
Haha...for what I just wrote? Would you like to make one?
Sounds like a good plan, though I have a couple of nitpicks. I don't think swinging up to Peterborough would work. You'd be adding a huge distance and cost to serve a relatively small destination. Remember the effect that it would have on the key Toronto-Montreal travel time. Serving Peterborough would only be feasible if you abandoned all of the lakefront cities, including Kingston, and I don't think that's a worthwhile tradeoff. Peterborough could be served by a branch along the 35/115 corridor.
I would serve Dorval over Mirabel. For one thing, it avoids putting both the Montreal-Québec and Ottawa-Montreal routes (along with the Deux-Montagnes commuter line) through the Mount Royal choke point and avoids a reverse move for continuing trains at Montreal. It also serves Dorval which, for better or worse, will be Montreal's airport in the future.
Haha...for what I just wrote? Would you like to make one?
In keeping with what others have done, I'll post my own ideas. I've thought about this a lot, but I still don't quite have it all decided definitely in my mind.
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Any thoughts or suggestions?
The line would continue east along the Guelph Sub before swinging north to bypass Guelph. Trains serving Guelph would divert to the existing, upgraded route. The high-speed line would then roughly follow the existing rail corridor east to Brampton, with a bypass of Georgetown. CN's main freight line would be shifted into the 407 corridor. A station in Brampton is optional, since the Pearson station would serve as a hub for that part of the GTA.
At Cobourg, the line would shift to an alignment around 10km north of the 401. That does cause some issues at Kingston, where the station would be a bit distant from the city. Then again, the current station is hardly right downtown. Express buses should cover the distance quite quickly.
East of Kingston, the line would follow a roughly straight line north-east to Smith's Falls. From there, it would follow the existing VIA-owned corridor to Ottawa. The Ottawa station is a tough one. I'd love nothing more than to revive the wonderful old station that's now the Government Convention Centre. It would be quite an ambitious project, though, and would have to be done almost entirely with a tunnelled loop. The existing VIA station is also a beautiful building and it will be connected to downtown by the new rapid transit line. That's probably a reasonable compromise.
East of Ottawa, it would follow the old M&O line that's now owned by VIA. A by-pass of Hudson would apparently be needed and I'd want to try to build a dedicated high-speed corridor as far into Montreal as possible. Trains stopping at Trudeau airport would divert into the existing station cavern at the terminal building. The Montreal terminal would be Central Station. Its approach tracks would have to be rebuilt a bit to get speeds up. VIA trains really crawl through Griffintown.
The line would be built to 300+ km/h standards and would aim to replace air services as much as possible in the corridor. Air Canada and other airlines would be asked to participate and code-share on routes within the corridor. That's why the good and direct connections at Trudeau and Pearson are very important.
Yes please.Haha...for what I just wrote? Would you like to make one?
I think the idea of a Pearson stop as the main - or only - Toronto stop is a good one.
Agreed. It would frankly be stupid to skip either Pearson or Union.
Agreed. I am slowly being swayed to the idea of a high speed rail station at Terminal 1, although I have trouble visualizing how anything more than a spur could be built off the Georgetown Line effectively. Could anyone else quickly mock up what this sort of thing would look like?
Just remember that this is escarpment country, and that deviating from the existing corridor may cost a lot more than you think when the existing corridor is already very straight. I honestly wish i had more detailed topographic data for this route so I could make sure the one I have is feasible, but anything is possible.
In my map (click for detail), I've included a bypass of both Acton and Rockwood because it would be impossible to straighten these curves effectively and not destroy the towns in the process. However, the route through Georgetown is pretty much dead straight, so I don't see why 3 or 4 rail overpasses can't be built through the town.
If we are looking at ultimate speeds of 300km/h+, then my ultimate solution would look like this. It would basically necessitate the construction of a tunnel between the Junction and College Ave underneath the Grand River, the Golf Club and a bunch of century homes. I'm not sure this kind of tunnel would be feasible in the sandy soil that the Grand River Valley has, but it it is, it would be awesome, as it is also the most direct usable corridor between Pearson and Kitchener.
But in the meantime, I see no issues with electrifying and adding passing track for the existing rail corridor and to run the occasional express train to build up demand for a high speed line, and for future local service.
While it would be almost impossible to get a station into downtown Kingston, I see few real problems with the location of the existing station if the track were realigned to follow to 401 as soon as it left Kingston.
I'm not as familiar with this part of the country, so if a more direct route is feasible, then by all means it should be built, but if not, a rail connection between the CN Alexandria Sub and the CP Dorion Sub as illlustrated in the VIAfast proposal and here would be doable.
I pretty much agree with the entirety of the Quebec Route, but am not sure how a Trois-Rivieres bypass could be built.
Also add Ottawa MacDonald-Cartier Airport to that codesharing list.