dunkalunk
Senior Member
Your plan is definitely a good one. Mine is pretty much the same, though I'd build a bypass around the north side (or I suppose potentially the south side) of Guelph while serving the city with a spur line. The corridor through Guelph is very constricted and you'd pretty much have to do mass demolition or extensive tunnelling to get through it. It might not be worth the cost, but that's a judgement call and would require a lot more study. Your route by the U of G is a very interesting one! I like how it would be closer to that major trip generator and how there's a relatively small urban area it would have to cross. The issues would surround the Speed River crossing and the golf course, all of which are pretty picturesque areas. I don't think you'd be able to get away with anything other than tunnelling, and that would also require a pricey underground station. Again, a judgement call, but the vast majority of Guelph trips (i.e. to points east) could be served just as well by some dedicated trains that spurred off the HSL just east of the city. People travelling west could just ride to Kitchener and transfer there.
The idea with the tunnel alignment through Guelph is that trains running through the tunnel would be on a through routing between Kitchener and Pearson, bypassing Guelph. The way that Guelph developed around the rail line is unusual in that it is actually possible to tunnel a bypass through the middle of a city. The length of the tunnel portion would only need to 3.5 km if the line were go underground around the junction to surface just after
Even with its proximity to UofG, I don't really see the necessity of an underground station there. I basically see all trains which stop at Guelph doing so at the existing VIA station.
And I do agree some sort of guelph bypass will need to be built, as Guelph is the main bottleneck on the entire north mainline, in particular, at Kent Street where you can see what people are watching on tv from a 3km/h VIA train.
For Georgetown and other cities, generally when you look at other high speed lines--there's a lot of detail available on the California HSR website--they tend to bypass smaller cities. It just seems like it's both cheaper and less disruptive than running right through them, even if it makes the route very slightly longer.
It's all up to study, but I have a desire to keep most rail service on one expanded line in order to increase the amount of schedule flexibility.
The M&O sub is a line that was bought by VIA years ago for high speed rail. I think its main advantage is that it's relatively straight, it's currently unused (unlike the Alexandria Sub, which is also owned by VIA), and it's slightly more direct.
You're probably right here, although I just went with what I knew from the VIAfast proposal. The M&O sub is hard to deciper on Google Maps imagery, and I would have no idea what soil conditions in what areas would be appropriate for running high speed service. The ghost town of Lemieux was abandoned just 2 years before there was a landslide that destoyed the town, and there are many other Leda Clay deposits in this area of Ontario.
I definitely agree that a bypass to the south of Ottawa could be desirable, depending on how many trains are not stopping and how much time is added by passing through the Ottawa station. I'm not convinced that an Ottawa Airport station is that useful. In Europe, they've generally found that stations at secondary airports are kind of moot. Cologne and Lyon airport stations, despite the latter's architectural achievements, are quite lightly used. If somebody's going to take the train to the plane, they'll just go to Roissy airport where there's far more choice and generally lower prices. Many of the flights at Ottawa airport are to Toronto and Montreal anyway. Then again, you might be right. It's certainly a subject for further study.
The bypass through the airport would be more direct and would be able to accomodate true high speed curves. The current rail bridge over the Rideau River is only 1 track, and would be difficult to engineer an expansion. Also, the sharp bend in the track by Hurdman would also slow down through travel significantly. There is already a market that exists for direct service between Toronto and Montreal as seen in airline, train, and highway travel.
I imagine the Ottawa Airport acting as an auxilary airport for Montreal's Dorval and vice-versa. With codesharing, it would be possible for this airport pair to serve a larger number destinations collectively. But again, this will be subject to a study in response to an Ontario-Quebec HSR report that was supposed to be finished a year ago but has not yet been released.