Rail Service Between Winnipeg and Brandon

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by roger1818

One easy way to improve rail travel in the parries relatively quickly and easily would be to reroute the Canadian between Winnipeg and Saskatoon. The current route does go through Portage la Prairie, but misses Brandon, Yorkton and Regina. As a result it tries to do everything, but does it poorly.

My idea is to have the Canadian be rerouted using existing tracks by switching from the CN to CP mainline in Portage la Prairie and follow it through Brandon to Regina. There it would switch to the LMR/CN Craik Subdivision to Saskatoon.

This would only be a slightly longer route (from 670 km to about 750 km between Portage la Prairie and Saskatoon, an increase of about 80 km). I realize it wouldn't be free as stations would need to be acquired, a ramp to connect the CP and CN mainlines where they cross would need to be built, and the tracks for the new route would need to be approved for passenger use, but I wouldn't expect those to be all that expensive and it would be a one time cost. The operating costs may also be a bit higher, but I don't expect them to be significantly so.

Below is a picture of a map of the region showing the route. The blue line is the existing route and the red and green lines are the new route. I have also marked the cities/towns with populations greater than 10,000.


Click to enlarge

What is the problem you are trying to fix (by rerouting an only twice-weekly and often heavily delayed train) and why would it justify any level of investment (or incremental subsidies) by federal taxpayers?