[micheal_can]

CAHSR is planned as a single project, though in stages, and it has to, because Section 2704.09 of Proposition 1A (2008) acts as a de-facto constitution (but one which can’t be amended to align with reality!) and insists that there is a single project (“network”, opening sentence) and that it encompasses SF-LA (clause b.1), LA-San Diego (b.5) and branches to Oakland (b.2) and Sacramento (b.7). And there is of course an extreme interdependence between each segment, as any minute of minimum achievable travel added on one segment needs to be compensated on another segment. Which is why Proposition 1A (2008) is such a monument to the dysfunction of California’s overdependence on Ballot Initiatives…

They absolutely won’t be able to stick to this timeline, but as I wrote here 2 months ago:

There are only 3 explanations as to why ALTO claims that such a timeline is anything else than completely fanciful and doomed to fail - and I don't know which one (they are too incompetent to know better, they haven’t told the government yet, or the government decided to keep the illusion against better knowledge) is the least troubling.

Once they get the green light and the money starts flowing, why can it no be done in the timeline? A good chunk of it has existing rails on it so a lot of the work is already done. Just reballast, add rails and ties, and install the power. The harder parts are where no rails lie. That will take the longest.

 

[Urban Sky]

Once they get the green light and the money starts flowing, why can it no be done in the timeline? A good chunk of it has existing rails on it so a lot of the work is already done. Just reballast, add rails and ties, and install the power. The harder parts are where no rails lie. That will take the longest.

What, apart from exposing your absolute ignorance and incapability of processing anything we have been already discussing here over and over, are you trying to prove here?

 

[generalcanada]

What, apart from exposing your absolute ignorance and incapability of processing anything we have been discussing here, are you trying to prove here?

Yes we have had this discussion multiple times, but your lack of willingness to go into specific details ensures consersations are never satisfactorily ended.
some of your recent quotes:

There are only 3 explanations as to why ALTO claims that such a timeline is anything else than completely fanciful and doomed to fail - and I don't know which one (they are too incompetent to know better, they haven’t told the government yet, or the government decided to keep the illusion against better knowledge) is the least troubling.

elaborate here. you cant just handwave it away "naw no shot" is not a good answer

The point you are missing is that nobody here denies that this country is capable of building a dedicated passenger rail line between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, but that some of us doubt that the promoters of the current project will succeed in finding sufficiently exhaustive funding sources to match their ambition. The Canadian Pacific Railway construction succeeded because it was given the mandate and funding to build a railway line without mandating ambitious travel time targets like „Montreal to Toronto in no less than 3:07 hours“.

Truckloads of money (the high denominations, of course!) can buy you a lot things, but I am increasingly fearing that the lack of willingness to provide that in the required quantities will kill (or drastically curtail) the project, just like it did with all its precedessors. The way to save a project is to scale and stage it into more digestible chunks and this project has so far religiously chosen the opposite route (relentless scope creep and lack of focus)…

Okay? how much do you think this will cost?
Are you saying 60-90b is way too low? That is the number this project is run as.
That would be a crazy update to know that it would be minimum 120 billion.
What is the "required quantities"?

 

[micheal_can]

What, apart from exposing your absolute ignorance and incapability of processing anything we have been discussing here, are you trying to prove here?

That by the time the existing ROW is 'done', the new ROW will be ready for that work, and that lessons learned from the first part will be able to be used in the next part.

 

[Urban Sky]

Yes we have had this discussion multiple times, but your lack of willingness to go into specific details ensures consersations are never satisfactorily ended.
some of your recent quotes:

You are confusing something here: I’m generally very patient in explaining why plausible (or even: seemingly obvious) ideas are unfortunately misconceptions, but only as long as people are coming here with a genuine interest in exchanging ideas and challenging their viability. However, I have thankfully learnt to protect my mental health by refusing to engage with this sad spammer in any way other than calling out his low-effort trolling and that is why I deliberately (and decidedly) didn’t respond to its content. However, since you give me the confidence that I won't have to explain this to you twice, I will happily point out that no amount of reballasting and switching out of rails will allow ALTO to achieve anything remotely near the average speed of 186 km/h (180 km in 58 minutes) they are promising us between Montreal and Ottawa…

elaborate here. you cant just handwave it away "naw no shot" is not a good answer

I keep comparing Toronto-Montreal to Berlin-Munich because both city pairs have the exact same Euclidean distance (504 km “as the crow flies”) and described here in very large detail how much time and effort Germany spent to get the travel time between its capital and its largest city in the South underneath 4 hours - a speed which we foolishly believe to be ridiculously unambitious:

VIA Rail

Running more EV’s, using more polluting lithium batteries, is now the answer to fixing rail in the busiest corridor of the country? This incremental approach doesn’t add up to much if train trips are still going to take well over 4 hours between Toronto and Montreal. It’s a weak plan. I’ll...

urbantoronto.ca

As I’ve just mentioned a few hours ago, Berlin-Munich consists of multiple different segments, which were all built as different projects over the last 25 years (with one segment being still under construction):

1. North-South Mainline Berlin with the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof: new, mostly underground rail corridor opened (together with the Hauptbahnhof) in 2006 with a Vmax of 120 km/h.
2. Berlin-Halle/Leipzig (VDE 8.3): upgrade of existing line with a Vmax of 200 km/h, completed in 2006.
3. Halle-Leipzig-Erfurt (VDE 8.2): High speed rail line with Vmax of 300 km/h, opened in 2015.
4. Erfurt-Ebensfeld (VDE 8.1): High speed rail line with Vmax of 300 km/h, opened in 2017.
5. Ebensfeld-Nuremberg (VDE 8.1): upgrade of existing line with quadruple tracks and a Vmax of 230 km/h, still under construction.
6. Nuremberg-Ingolstadt: High speed rail line with Vmax of 300 km/h, opened in 2006.
7. Ingolstadt-Munich: upgrade of existing line with Vmax of 160 km/h and (south of Petershausen) 200 km/h, opened in 2006.

It's not that difficult to grasp that this is a string of very different projects if you look at a map of Germany's HSR network:

Map adapted from: Wikipedia

Note also how this corridor exploits substantial synergies by being shared between no less than 5 of Germany's main HSR routes in Germany:

• Hamburg-Berlin-Halle/Leipzig-Erfurt-Nuremberg-Munich
• Berlin-Halle/Leipzig-Erfurt-Frankfurt-Basel/Stuttgart
• Dresden-Leipzig-Erfurt-Frankfurt-Wiesbaden/Saarbrücken
• Hamburg-Hannover-Würzburg-Nuremberg-Munich
• (Ruhr Area)-Cologne-Frankfurt-Würzburg-Nuremberg-Munich

Okay? how much do you think this will cost?
Are you saying 60-90b is way too low? That is the number this project is run as.
That would be a crazy update to know that it would be minimum 120 billion.
What is the "required quantities"?

If following the research by Bernt Flyvberg and reading his fascinating book "Megaprojects and Risks" have taught me one thing it is that virtually all HSR projects end up significantly (or even substantially) above their budget, which is why the current price tag of already $60+ billion* at such an premature stage should absolutely terrify every single one of us. Because public perception of our capability to control costs will inevitably determine whether this project will be followed by an extension or successor...

*To compare, the total price tag of the "Verkehrsprojekt Deutsche Einheit (VDE) 8" was 10 billion Euros and that of Nuremberg-Munich another 4 billion Euros, which would translate to $22.7 billion in 2021 Dollars (or $26.6 billion today).

 

[micheal_can]

You are confusing something here: I’m generally very patient in explaining why seemingly plausible (or even: obvious) ideas are unfortunately misconceptions, but only as long as people are coming here with a genuine interest in exchanging ideas and challenging their viability. However, I have thankfully learnt to protect my mental health by refusing to engage with this sad spammer in any way other than calling out his low-effort trolling and that is why I deliberately (and decidedly) didn’t respond to its content. However, since you give me the confidence that I won't have to explain this to you twice, I will happily point out that no amount of reballasting and switching out of rails will allow ALTO to achieve anything remotely near the average speed of 186 km/h (180 km in 58 minutes) they are promising us between Montreal and Ottawa…

So,on the existing Via ROW, one that is reasonably straight and flat,what else would be required that is not related to rebalasting it? Realize that when I say rebalasting,that includes any change in super elevation or any other adjustment of the final dimensions of the tracks once done. This rebalasting can also include closing level crossings. Or are you suggesting that those sections will need as much work as the abandoned Havelock Sub?

 

[SFO-YYZ]

You are confusing something here: I’m generally very patient in explaining why seemingly plausible (or even: obvious) ideas are unfortunately misconceptions, but only as long as people are coming here with a genuine interest in exchanging ideas and challenging their viability. However, I have thankfully learnt to protect my mental health by refusing to engage with this sad spammer in any way other than calling out his low-effort trolling and that is why I deliberately (and decidedly) didn’t respond to its content. However, since you give me the confidence that I won't have to explain this to you twice, I will happily point out that no amount of reballasting and switching out of rails will allow ALTO to achieve anything remotely near the average speed of 186 km/h (180 km in 58 minutes) they are promising us between Montreal and Ottawa…

I keep comparing Toronto-Montreal to Berlin-Munich because both city pairs have the exact same Euclidean distance (504 km “as the crow flies”) and described here in very large distance how much time and effort Germany spent to get the travel time between its capital and its largest city in the South underneath 4 hours - a speed which we foolishly believe to be ridiculously unambitious:

VIA Rail

Running more EV’s, using more polluting lithium batteries, is now the answer to fixing rail in the busiest corridor of the country? This incremental approach doesn’t add up to much if train trips are still going to take well over 4 hours between Toronto and Montreal. It’s a weak plan. I’ll...

urbantoronto.ca

As I’ve just mentioned a few hours ago, Berlin-Munich consists of multiple different segments, which were all built as different projects over the last 25 years (with one segment being still under construction):

1. North-South Mainline Berlin with the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof: new, mostly underground rail corridor opened (together with the Hauptbahnhof) in 2006 with a Vmax of 120 km/h.
2. Berlin-Halle/Leipzig (VDE 8.3): upgrade of existing line with a Vmax of 200 km/h, completed in 2006.
3. Halle-Leipzig-Erfurt (VDE 8.2): High speed rail line with Vmax of 300 km/h, opened in 2015.
4. Erfurt-Ebensfeld (VDE 8.1): High speed rail line with Vmax of 300 km/h, opened in 2017.
5. Ebensfeld-Nuremberg (VDE 8.1): upgrade of existing line with quadruple tracks and a Vmax of 230 km/h, still under construction.
6. Nuremberg-Ingolstadt: High speed rail line with Vmax of 300 km/h, opened in 2006.
7. Ingolstadt-Munich: upgrade of existing line with Vmax of 160 km/h and (south of Petershausen) 200 km/h, opened in 2006.

It's not that difficult to grasp that this is a string of very different projects if you look at a map of Germany's HSR network:
View attachment 645479
Map adapted from: Wikipedia

Note also how this corridor exploits substantial synergies by being shared between no less than 5 of Germany's main HSR routes in Germany:

• Hamburg-Berlin-Halle/Leipzig-Erfurt-Nuremberg-Munich
• Berlin-Halle/Leipzig-Erfurt-Frankfurt-Basel/Stuttgart
• Dresden-Leipzig-Erfurt-Frankfurt-Wiesbaden/Saarbrücken
• Hamburg-Hannover-Würzburg-Nuremberg-Munich
• (Ruhr Area)-Cologne-Frankfurt-Würzburg-Nuremberg-Munich

If following the research by Bernt Flyvberg and reading his sobering book "Megaprojects and Risks" have thought me one thing it is that virtually all HSR projects end up significantly (or even substantially) above their budget, which is why the current price tag of already $60+ billion* at such an premature stage should absolutely terrify every single one of us. Because public perception of our capability to control costs will inevitably determine whether this project will be followed by an extension or successor...

*To compare, the total price tag of the "Verkehrsprojekt Deutsche Einheit (VDE) 8" was 10 billion Euros and that of Nuremberg-Munich another 4 billion Euros, which would translate to $22 billion (or $33 billion, when inflating from 2006 to current prices).

Thank you for this, especially the explanation on Berlin-MUC HSR development.

As a former uni student living in Berlin who often took DB’s ICE service between Berlin hbf and Muenchen, I can totally appreciate and personally relate to this. When I first took the ICE on this route about 10 years ago, I was surprised at how “conventional” the speeds were, very unlike the 350 kph service on a lot of the newer Chinese HSR lines like the Beijing-Shanghai HSR that opened around 2013. Some parts of the Berlin-Muenchen ICE felt fast like true HSR, while others were just chugging along at conventional regional train speeds. Back in 2013/14, my typical trip for this 600-ish km trip took at least 4 hours every weekend, but more frequently, it was like 5-5.5 hours with frequent delays and speed limitations on some segments (yea DB is really bad with punctuality and is a running joke with the German public). 600 km around 4-5.5 hours was okay, like Acela-style or slightly better than today’s VIA rail corridor service, but it most certainly wasn’t true HSR, and this was the famed German ICE “HSR” not so long ago.

I’m sure it’s much better now with the upgrades you listed, but it definitely was a very long and phased “HSR” project rather than a big bang approach, something that most people outside of Germany don’t realize or appreciate.

 

[kaptrice]

Rome wasn’t build in one day and neither was any HSR network built in a single project. CAHSR is the first attempt at doing so and, well …

The Taiwanese system was built in one go and is some 350km in length, which is on the same general level as, for example, Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal.

As we‘ve discussed before: Construction is supposed to last from 2031 to 2037 for Phase 1, from 2032 to 2039 for Phase 2 and from 2033 to 2041 for Phase 3 - so construction for Phase 3 is supposed to start 6 years before that for Phase 1 ends:

Needless to say this is absolutely bonkers, like the UK building HS1 and all 3 Phases of HS2 at once or Germany building the entire HSR Corridor Berlin-Munich in a single project (rather than in six very distinct projects: upgraded line Berlin-Leipzig/Halle, HSL Leipzig/Halle-Erfurt, HSL Erfurt-Ebensfeld, upgraded line Ebensfeld-Nürnberg, HSL Nürnberg-Ingolstadt and upgraded line Ingolstadt-Munich)…

What is put on the slides is generally questionable enough that I just treat it as given that Phase 3 will be punted indefinitely.
The German way of a zillion upgrades and smaller new line bypasses are not at all the common way things are done around the world, and, directly relevant considering who is involved in the Canadian scheme, French and Spanish lines of very considerable length have been pursued in one go. It is a mistake to assume that Germany is inherently the "normal" way of doing things.

As for estimates and cost control, you should probably not make much out of the rough order of magnitude estimate, which can be approximated by anyone with a vague idea of how much high-speed railways cost per kilometre in rich countries. What will make and break things are the numbers that will be produced as a result of the development period, when the scope has been clarified and cost estimates based on what is actually supposed to be built produced.

 

[kaptrice]

So,on the existing Via ROW, one that is reasonably straight and flat,what else would be required that is not related to rebalasting it? Realize that when I say rebalasting,that includes any change in super elevation or any other adjustment of the final dimensions of the tracks once done. This rebalasting can also include closing level crossings. Or are you suggesting that those sections will need as much work as the abandoned Havelock Sub?

Dozens and dozens of major structures to achieve the level of traffic separation required....?

 

[smallspy]

Interesting how Carney's HSR proposal is NOT from Union to QC but rather Windsor to QC. This makes very logical sense as there is far more passenger traffic west of Union than there is east of Montreal. London alone is the 4th busiest station in the network.

One station does not a ridership make, plus your numbers are wrong.

Ridership east of Montreal is higher than west of Toronto.

London is a very busy station, but Kingston is #4 in boardings on the system. London used to be #7 or 8, and I have no reason to think that has changed.

Dan

 

[crs1026]

One station does not a ridership make, plus your numbers are wrong.

Ridership east of Montreal is higher than west of Toronto.

London is a very busy station, but Kingston is #4 in boardings on the system. London used to be #7 or 8, and I have no reason to think that has changed.

Dan

There is ridership, but then there is potential ridership. I would wager that if K-W were returned to the network with adequate service, that stop would leap to a higher position both for traffic to the east and to the west....likely pushing both London and Windsor higher in the stats.
Doesn't mean i favour building HSR in a hurry, but some drastic improvement in that route is warranted, without waiting until 2050.
The Carney plan effectively defers doing the right thing west of Toronto.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

London is a very busy station, but Kingston is #4 in boardings on the system. London used to be #7 or 8, and I have no reason to think that has changed.

Kitchener/Guelph service used to be 3 trains a day - and now 1. So I suspect it's fallen, especially with the frequent and cheaper GO competition.

Though other than Kitchener, I struggle to think who else might have been 5 and 6. Though Dorval is very busy.

 

[Urban Sky]

Though other than Kitchener, I struggle to think who else might have been 5 and 6. Though Dorval is very busy.

Refer to the ranking below:

According to VIA's Total passengers at stations (boarding and deboarding) in 2018, Ottawa ranked a close third behind Montreal, though Montreal serves more destinations (in addition to Ottawa and Montreal, it has Quebec City, Northern Quebec and the Ocean). Interestingly Fallowfield beats out both Oshawa and Dorval.

Top 10 sorted by Total Passengers:

Rank	Station	Total passengers
1	TORONTO	2,839,320
2	MONTREAL	1,538,556
3	OTTAWA	1,195,495
4	LONDON	508,955
5	KINGSTON	456,586
6	QUEBEC	324,037
7	WINDSOR	268,543
8	FALLOWFIELD	233,893
9	OSHAWA	207,037
10	DORVAL	200,158

 

[ProjectEnd]

Once they get the green light and the money starts flowing, why can it no be done in the timeline? A good chunk of it has existing rails on it so a lot of the work is already done. Just reballast, add rails and ties, and install the power. The harder parts are where no rails lie. That will take the longest.

Jesus Christ. Can't wait to use the existing Havelock, as currently routed...

 

[crs1026]

Well, the CPC costed platform has been released - and not one mention of HSR, Alto, passenger rail, transit, or VIA Rail Canada. Their commentary about critical infrastructure does not refer to railways.

Not their dog, not their race.

- Paul