VIA High Frequency Rail
 

Not sure if there is a thread for this or not, I couldn't find one.

The federal government announced yesterday that they intend to build a new, high frequency rail line between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City.

The $6-12 billion project (Quite the range!) project would allow trains to run on dedicated tracks with speeds of up to 200km/h (125mph), with high frequencies. It would involve the construction of a new, electrified rail line between Toronto and Ottawa on an existing (long abandoned) railbed running through Peterborough, as well as a shift of service between Montreal and Quebec to the north side of the St. Lawrence in order to service Trois Rivieres.

https://corpo.viarail.ca/index.php/e...frequency-rail

https://images.dailyhive.com/2021070...0.03.02-AM.png

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/n...et-toronto.php

Travel time reductions include a planned 3 hour trip from Toronto to Ottawa, 4 hours from Toronto to Montreal, and 3 hours from Montreal to Quebec.

https://mobile-img.lpcdn.ca/lpca/924...31a999b003.png

Trains would run at a minimum of 15 trips per day, with frequencies increasing beyond that over time.

The Liberal government hopes to construct the project in phases between now and 2030, starting with Ottawa-Montreal, which is already primarily on dedicated tracks.

more details are expected in the next few months as public consultation on the exact route alignment begins.

RMTransit has a good youtube video on this.

If they're building entirely new, dedicated tracks, what's stopping them from going more like 200 MPH? At grade crossings?

^The video that I posted above explains the program.

most of the corridor is going to use existing rail alignments. The rail line from Toronto to Peterborough is already existing, VIA just plans to purchase it and upgrade it. At grade crossings and curves prevent higher speeds. Between Peterborough and Ottawa there is also an existing, abandoned rail right of way which VIA has previously mentioned using, though the curves are restrictive even for mid-speed trains so we'll have to see if they opt for an entirely new alignment for that stretch or not.

The tracks will be dedicated in the sense that VIA will own them and will be able to prioritize passenger trains, but they won't be dedicated in the sense that it will be a 100% new alignment.

The time savings aren't really that great. I guess this kills the HSR plans for good.

How is it Toronto-Ottawa takes three hours, and Toronto-Montreal four hours, but Ottawa-Montreal still takes 1:40?

Yes. When liberal spending politicians are not willing to ante up the cash to build true HSR trains, and we all know conservative leaning penny pinchers will never, HSR in Canada is far far away.

It's 336 miles between Toronto and Montreal by highway directly, 402 miles by highway indirectly via Ottawa. That's on the long side for an ideal HSR corridor, maybe too long.
The world wide sweet spot for trains competing with planes is 3 hours. To travel 336 miles within 3 hours the HSR train would have to average 112 mph. I would suggest that is very possible. To travel 402 miles within 3 hours the HSR train would have to average 134 mph. Short of non-stop trains, not remotely possible.
Considering most Canadian HSR trains in this corridor will have to make at least one stop at Ottawa, achieving average speeds of 134 mph would be difficult. Let's assume VIA could shrink the layover time in Ottawa to just 6 minutes, the train would now have to average 138 mph over the same 402 miles within 3 hours.

to be explained but apparently there will be a bypass of Ottawa for Montreal bound trains to cut km's travelled.

Also important to note that the table showing current and future travel times does not include delays - only 60% of trains today arrive on time. Many are unreliable and delayed by heavy freight traffic on the existing corridor. I can speak to it from the few times I've taken the train to Montreal - it's always been late by 15-30 minutes.

The new corridor will improve trip trimes, but it's main focus is on frequency and reliability.

At the end of the day true HSR is too expensive to be politically palatable. We are looking at $50+ billion CAD most likely.. This project can get off the ground for 1/10th the cost and deliver service that is very similar. Frankly I'm not sure the few extra minutes of travel time savings from 350km/h HSR is worth the crazy amount of additional cost.

updated map from the feds showing the Ottawa bypass to improve Montreal-Toronto trip times:

https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/attach...38-png.333631/

Ah, thanks for explaining that. Makes sense.


They'll still be able to upgrade this track to bring it up to HSR. That's how most countries do it.

^ I'm not here to slam VIA's plans or paint it as something not worth doing unless it's true HSR, but...

..."upgrading track" is not going to deliver high speed rail anymore than putting a better roof on and running electricity to a dog house will make it a human house. There are a multitude of other factors that prevent true HSR operations like curve radii, grade separations or lack thereof, and more than anything else, inter-operation with slower freight trains.

The route won't be shared with freight as having dedicated passenger tracks is the whole purpose of the HFR corridor to begin with. And grade separations and curve straightening can both be done to improve existing corridors.

125 mph isn't really that bad, it works fine in the UK. It's much faster than you can drive and competitive with station stations to driving at that point.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the former corridor long term. The between Toronto and Brockville has enough bigger towns that it might be worth it, but would they want to run trains on the rest of what's colored orange above? And the bit of orange line from Alexandria to Montreal is totally redundant.

Service will be maintained on the existing 'Lakeshore' route and the Ottawa-Brockville-Kingston route. Kingston is a major destination as a university town. As trains are expected to be better scheduled through a Kingston hub, it is expected to better serve shorter distance travelers and commuters than the existing service which focuses on longer distance travelers.

Ottawa-Montreal HFR trains are expected to be re-routed via the CPR right of way into Montreal, making a short distance of track through Coteau, Quebec redundant.

I'll agree, 125 mph maximum speeds would be an upgrade to the existing 90 or 100 mph speeds. The key to making it as fast as even faster trains is to minimize slower speeds sections of tracks in the corridor as much as possible. Double tracking the entire new corridor is one way to do that. Having proceed fast signals up vs medium or slow approach signals maximizes train speeds to the existing rails allowed speeds. Having on board signaling vs trackside signaling is also important. Not only building the second track, but possibly rebuilding or at least resetting the alignment of the first track should also be done. Skip on any of that above, you will not be able to achieve the maximum train speeds allowed on the new alignment in its condition as it is presently built.

Spending this much money on the new corridor probably means spending less on the older corridor, which will probably mean slower trains speeds on it in the near future. It was hard enough maintaining the existing corridor for passenger train speeds, it will be harder maintaining two different corridors for even faster speeds.

If you are going through the process to reuse an abandoned corridor, it is wise to rebuild it now in as good as possible condition. The Florida Brightline refurbishment process is probably a good example to follow; new signals, double track, repairing structures, etc.

Too many folks will steer the work onto relatively expensive highway and pedestrian crossings grade separations. Do that later after getting the corridor up for allowing the maximum speeds possible with the existing alignment. I rather the initial money be spent on signal systems and track upgrades.

It also depends what percentage of the trip will actually be at 125 mph.

I hope they revive the Rapido name for the new service. VIA Rapido has a real nice ring to it.

While I am not against the idea for an special name for express trains, I would prefer they actually have fast trains entering service before considering a name change for them. That's at least 5, 10, possibly 15 years away from now.
:yuck:

200kph intercity operation in the UK was tolerated because most of the UK’s population is heavily concentrated and (relative to other intercity railway networks) the network operates frequently to mitigate the slower train speeds. With the WCML, MML and ECML at capacity, that has necessitated the requirement to build a new line (HS2), and because it will be on a new alignment it is being built up to 360/400kph standards.

If Canada is going to propose a new intercity route/heavily upgrade existing lines, then building it to 200kph is an odd decision, and would make a future upgrade unlikely due to the higher cost and disruption. To understand how problematic it is to upgrade an existing intercity corridor, the WCML upgrade makes good reading.

The smart decision would be to retain and modify the service; increase frequencies, with more stops and running shorter distances. It would act as a longer distance commuter service and a feeder into the HFR line.