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Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
I could see Halifax - Moncton - Saint John following a similar pattern to the Ontario Northlander, which operates 1 train a day. Morning train into Halifax, evening train out. If you want to be generous you could do a reverse train so people can day trip between any of the three cities.
Anything more than that is going to be overkill given the population involved, and even that will require a substantial subsidy which will really limit its true practicality.
The reality is that the Maritimes just aren’t populated enough, their freeway network is already wildly overbuilt as it is.. the Trans Canada and Highway 1 are downright vacant compared to any central Canada freeway. the region can barely support freeways between cities, yet alone frequent rail lines.
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The main difference is that the Halifax to Saint John route is less than half the distance as the Northlander, so it would need a lot less ridership and/or subsidy to operate. I think that's one of the key things people overlook. While the total population isn't huge, total population is kind of irrelevant without considering the density. It's like comparing Canada to Spain and saying since we're over 3/4 their population that we can support over 3/4 their HSR without considering density differences. Obviously the Maritime density difference isn't as extreme, but it's certainly makes too big a difference to ignore.
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