[nfitz]

Pretty much what ive been saying. HS2 is/has failed because the lack of complete super-detailed studies. You can draw a straight line on a map, but you gotta got meter by meter to get a complete picture.

That HS2 has failed (or in the words of the article "collapsed"), isn't really true, no matter what type of meters they use.

Construction is well underway for Phase 1, and will be completed - it's very far past the stage of cancellation (except perhaps for an additional phase to extend it from the Old Oak Common station in London, to Euston station - which I've argued above may be superfluous, and doesn't connect well to many other services). Yes, there's been budget issues, and more earlier design would have helped (or perhaps gotten it cancelled).

Phase 2, north of Birmingham, has certainly been delayed, but the project still includes connections to allow direct trains to the north, which will be significantly faster than before. Nothing precludes a future Phase 2; I'd think it was inevitable if it's a big success.

 

[generalcanada]

That HS2 has failed (or in the words of the article "collapsed"), isn't really true, no matter what type of meters they use.

Construction is well underway for Phase 1, and will be completed - it's very far past the stage of cancellation (except perhaps for an additional phase to extend it from the Old Oak Common station in London, to Euston station - which I've argued above may be superfluous, and doesn't connect well to many other services). Yes, there's been budget issues, and more earlier design would have helped (or perhaps gotten it cancelled).

Phase 2, north of Birmingham, has certainly been delayed, but the project still includes connections to allow direct trains to the north, which will be significantly faster than before. Nothing precludes a future Phase 2; I'd think it was inevitable if it's a big success.

in the same way, is CAHSR just delayed? or collapsed?

Yes the central valley sections are doing fine, but without the connections to either SF or LA, which requires a significant amount of money, i dont think you can even think it gets completed until the mid 2040s

If we just built Toronto to Ottawa, then said "its fine we will do the rest later" How can you not call that a collapse of a project?

"yayy we built 20% of what we originally intended! Great Sucess"

 

[nfitz]

in the same way, is CAHSR just delayed? or collapsed?

Yes the central valley sections are doing fine, but without the connections to either SF or LA, which requires a significant amount of money, i dont think you can even think it gets completed until the mid 2040s

Service will improve with even the initial California segment. Though given the unstable American political situation, who knows ...

If we just built Toronto to Ottawa, then said "its fine we will do the rest later" How can you not call that a collapse of a project?

How?

With words. There's already half-decent Ottawa to Montreal service. And only building HSR to Ottawa (or Smiths Falls) would improve both Ottawa and Toronto services.

 

[generalcanada]

Service will improve with even the initial California segment. Though given the unstable American political situation, who knows ...

How?

With words. There's already half-decent Ottawa to Montreal service. And only building HSR to Ottawa (or Smiths Falls) would improve both Ottawa and Toronto services.

But thats the thing, the sucess of the project as defined the the business plan depends on the entire line being in operation. If we exclude montreal, trois reveres, and QC, then by definition the line failed right?

 

[nfitz]

If we exclude montreal, trois reveres, and QC, then by definition the line failed right?

No.

 

[kEiThZ]

I was counting on the Conservatives to abort the procurement with the freakshow which Cadence has assembled and to remove all the scope creep and incompetence or indecision we’ve seen so far, which is the only reason I would miss a PP government if he’s really going to loose his lead in the polls…

Best case scenario is scope reduction.

Likely scenario is outright cancellation.

Worst case scenario is complete abandonment of passenger rail.

If these were real fiscal conservatives, you'd see some scope reduction. They'd tell Quebec to pound sand or pay up for Montreal-Trois Rivières-Quebec City. But, these guys are kin with the same crowd that is giving Americans DOGE right now. So....

 

[generalcanada]

No.

Thats interesting actually. kind of like "anything is better than nothing" right?

 

[kEiThZ]

It would be a great thing - if the project vision were well defined and had discipline. Clearly Ottawa has no underlying vision or underlying technical proficiency, and has allowed the proponents to offer so many alternatives - because there is insufficient depth in the bureaucracy and the parliament to know what is needed, what is affordable, what is manageable. Clearly this procurement has become window-shopping, not investmant planning or system design.

This is turning out exactly like what Wynne did. Only a much larger scale. She hired Collenette at the last minute to do basically a scoping study after being called out for not doing anything on Ontario HSR. He was hired after the Liberals had been in power for 14 years and Wynne had been in power for 4 years.

Same nonsense from the Trudeau Liberals. Almost a decade in power. They ran up $100B in cumulative deficits before COVID. And yet couldn't fund this co-development all that time. Now, just as they face the end of their time in government? A supersized HSR study if you will.

It's really hard to buy Liberal sincerity on climate change, infrastructure, national development, etc when they won't prioritize projects like this.

 

[generalcanada]

This is turning out exactly like what Wynne did. Only a much larger scale. She hired Collenette at the last minute to do basically a scoping study after being called out for not doing anything on Ontario HSR. He was hired after the Liberals had been in power for 14 years and Wynne had been in power for 4 years.

Same nonsense from the Trudeau Liberals. Almost a decade in power. They ran up $100B in cumulative deficits before COVID. And yet couldn't fund this co-development all that time. Now, just as they face the end of their time in government? A supersized HSR study if you will.

It's really hard to buy Liberal sincerity on climate change, infrastructure, national development, etc when they won't prioritize projects like this.

Again, Disagree here, as the National Observer pointed out, there is a massive difference between "would hsr work?" and "how many trees do we need to cut down?" Calling environmental assessments "supersized hsr study" is selling it a bit short.

Look at how massive the EPR report for the Ontario Line which is only 20km. Alto is 1000. No shit they need 5 years.

could the liberals have shotgunned the bidding faster? Dunno but for a project of this size 2 years from RFQ is pretty good. Go Expansion was 4 years from RFQ opening to financial close. and theres still a 2 year development process that will wrap up soon.
And they already had all the environmental studies done 10 years ago.

Like comparatively speaking, this is normal. it might seem weird but projects take time.

Like chill this is a good thing

 

[chrisw]

theres still a 2 year development process that will wrap up soon

I think the 2-year development period finished last year, though you wouldn't have noticed.

 

[kEiThZ]

Again, Disagree here, as the National Observer pointed out, there is a massive difference between "would hsr work?" and "how many trees do we need to cut down?" Calling environmental assessments "supersized hsr study" is selling it a bit short.

Look at how massive the EPR report for the Ontario Line which is only 20km. Alto is 1000. No shit they need 5 years.

could the liberals have shotgunned the bidding faster? Dunno but for a project of this size 2 years from RFQ is pretty good. Go Expansion was 4 years from RFQ opening to financial close. and theres still a 2 year development process that will wrap up soon.
And they already had all the environmental studies done 10 years ago.

Like comparatively speaking, this is normal. it might seem weird but projects take time.

Like chill this is a good thing

This is all great and all. And really, I'm happy it's being done. I'm unhappy that it took them. 9.5 years to get to this point. And they are doing it on the way out, leaving it substantially vulnerable to cancellation.

I have a simple question. What was stopping the LPC from commencing feasibility studies in 2016, or 2017 or 2018 or 2019....

You can look at their own timeline to see the embarassing gap between 2016 and 2019 where they couldn't even find a fig leaf of an excuse. And then read the filler about how between 2019 and 2021 they mostly did some scoping studies.

Key Milestones

Explore the key milestones of the Alto Train project, marking significant progress in Canada's high-speed rail development.

altotrain.ca

If an incoming CPC government scraps it all, will any of you at least be able to see partly why the Liberals were wrong to waste over a half decade doing nothing?

 

[generalcanada]

This is all great and all. And really, I'm happy it's being done. I'm unhappy that it took them. 9.5 years to get to this point. And they are doing it on the way out, leaving it substantially vulnerable to cancellation.

I have a simple question. What was stopping the LPC from commencing feasibility studies in 2016, or 2017 or 2018 or 2019....

You can look at their own timeline to see the embarassing gap between 2016 and 2019 where they couldn't even find a fig leaf of an excuse. And then read the filler about how between 2019 and 2021 they mostly did some scoping studies.

Key Milestones

Explore the key milestones of the Alto Train project, marking significant progress in Canada's high-speed rail development.

altotrain.ca

If an incoming CPC government scraps it all, will any of you at least be able to see partly why the Liberals were wrong to waste over a half decade doing nothing?

yea they "wasted a decade doing nothing sure" just dont look at any other project's timeline in Canada, and definitely dont look up the relief line.

Seems like the only thing pessimists can come up with is they should have rushed it through. Again I counter with "good things take time"

 

[kEiThZ]

yea they "wasted a decade doing nothing sure" just dont look at any other project's timeline in Canada, and definitely dont look up the relief line.

What other projects? Sure they contributed a bit more to transit than the CPC. But pre-Covid this amounted to something like $1-2B more per year. This government's biggest infrastructure project to date is buying what was supposed to be a $13B pipeline that industry didn't want to build and getting it done for $34B. Of the $100B in new debt they accumulates pre-Covid, at best maybe 20% can be attributed to infrastructure spending. Remember when the promise was 3-4 small deficits of $10B per year for mostly infrastructure? Instead, the got in and promptly ran large deficits on social programs with just a bit more than lip service on infrastructure.

Seems like the only thing pessimists can come up with is they should have rushed it through. Again I counter with "good things take time"

Sure. But good things don't happen if you don't actually prioritize and work on them. And my personal anger comes from the exact same crew (Telford, Butts, etc) who were at Queen's Park doing the exact same bait and switch with HSR at the national level that they did in Southern Ontario. This kind of politicking doesn't deliver. And if we don't criticize it, it will never go away.

In this case, why the heck do they they need 5+ years for co-development, if the last half decade was supposedly productive? They should be aiming to get shovels in the ground before 2030. It doesn't bode well that construction decisions will have to be made two governments from now (potentially). And that's a choice.

 

[Dévidapro]

Hello! Do we know what type of TGV we are planning for the new high-speed railway? Also, these trains run at 320 km/h on ballasted tracks everywhere (Morocco, France, soon the Czech Republic). Why is the target here only 300 km/h? Or will they clarify later?

 

[Urban Sky]

Hello! Do we already know what type of TGV we plan to use for the new high-speed railway? Also, these trains run at 320km/h on ballasted tracks everywhere else (Morocco, France, soon the Czech Republic). Why is the target only 300km/h here? Or will they clarify later?

Hello to Hungary (if I recognize the language of your previous post correctly!), we won’t know the answers for at least another 5 years and it won’t really matter as long as no investor (private or governmental) has committed a single Dollar towards construction…