[Urban Sky]

HSRs don't normally bypass cities of several hundred thousand. I would expect the Minister of Transport to know that. This sounds like a made up excuse from him.

I‘m really not a fan of this as you‘ll see in my Tweet below, but France does exactly that with Avignon (200k metropolitan population), Montpellier (800k) and Lyon (4.6M) being notable examples.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1684641490918621184

To grind a bit of an axe, any routing that runs through Peterborough IS a bypass around the major population centres east of the GTA - and any real serious desire to provide local service to these would not choose that route at all.

- Paul

This really is to me one of the most frustrating misconceptions about HxR: that the Lakeshore would have better local service if it was part of the HxR corridor than a seperate Corridor.
In reality, stations would need to be far from the city cores (as it would be impossible to exploit the Kingston Sub) and whichever cities aren’t lucky enough to force a stop of the Express trains would command too little ridership potential to justify anything more than very infrequent local service. Conversely, freed from the pressure to keep end-to-end travel times (e.g. TRTO-OTTW and TRTO-MTRL) low, you could have all-stop services Local services every two hours, complemented by a few Semi-Express trains per day…

 

[p_xavier]

If the project takes away my train station, this will be a personal war.

 

[Urban Sky]

If the project takes away my train station, this will be a personal war.

I was only involved in HFR before the Infrastructure Bank and the Joint Project Office entered the scene, but every existing Corridor station would have remained open and enjoyed better service than what stations like Gananoque or Napannee received pre-Covid…

 

[crs1026]

I‘m really not a fan of this as you‘ll see in my Tweet below, but France does exactly that with Avignon (200k metropolitan population), Montpellier (800k) and Lyon (4.6M) being notable examples.

Having been to Avignon TGV, it struck me as exactly how one would not want a HSR station to be built . a plodding and infrequent bus connection to central Avignon, and an enormous parking lot. Lovely architecture but not very convenient.

This really is to me one of the most frustrating misconceptions about HxR: that the Lakeshore would have better local service if it was part of the HxR corridor than a seperate Corridor.

I'm hard to please, I know. But the local service premise has its own unanswered questions - the main one being, if removing HxR from host freight railways is so critical to success (which I can buy into), how successful will the local service be when the relationship with the host railway is unchanged?

If you wonder what it would take to correct my annoying persistence on the topic, here's my list
- a discoverable service plan
- confirmation that there is a commercial agreement with the host railway that addresses service reliability, and/or regulatory or legislative action to impose this
- confirmation that the commercial agreement and service plan is scalable to match and integrate with (growing) local services west of Toronto - the initial service plan may match what is there today but will it be growable as connecting ridership rises?
-a funding plan that ensures that the operator is not cross subsidizing the local service from HxR - the decline of Ontario's bus network is precedent to show how the expectation of cross subsidy doesn't work. If the local service is not as remunerative, it can't be treated like an unwanted expense
When these things are addressed, I may be able to hold my pessimism

- Paul

 

[MisterF]

But he isn't saying "that HSR can't be done because those cities have to be served." He is saying he wants to make sure those cities don't get sacrificed under the guise of giving us HSR. As others have said, HSR typically builds bypasses around small cities like those, so that the trains don't need to slow down (you typically can't have a train run at 300km/h through the heart of a city if it isn't stopping at the station).

No but high speed trains do often slow down to go through the heart of a city without stopping. Express trains from Milan to Rome, for example, slow to a crawl through Florence without stopping. They still make the trip in a bit over 3 hours.

That's good for Laval, but Peterborough has a population of 85,000 and Trois-Rivières has a population of 140,000.

We haven't seen what the consortiums are proposing, but one or more may very well be proposing bypassing all three for their HSR options to speed up the trip and artificially meet certain travel time targets.

Bypassing cities in that size range is certainly common in full high speed systems but typically they still have conventional tracks serve the city centre. So small cities can be served by some trains and bypassed by others. To go back to my Italian example, cities like Modena and Piacenza are like this. But by all accounts HFR won't be a fully high speed system (even if it does have some high speed sections) and will be built relatively cheap. Unless that changes I'd say bypasses are pretty unlikely.

 

[Urban Sky]

I'm hard to please, I know. But the local service premise has its own unanswered questions - the main one being, if removing HxR from host freight railways is so critical to success (which I can buy into), how successful will the local service be when the relationship with the host railway is unchanged?

It really frustrates me that I still need to explain this to you after all the times we've been debating this, but the competitive situation is very different for the primary, secondary and tertiary markets:

• In the primary markets (i.e. the end-to-end markets like MTRL-OTTW, MTRL-TRTO or OTTW-TRTO), the competitive pressure is very high from the airplane (for time-conscious market segments) and intercity buses or driving (for cost-conscious market segments). For these markets, high levels of (average travel) speed, frequency and reliability is crucial to remain (or return as) a credible choice.
• In the secondary markets (i.e. any travel between Montreal, Ottawa, or Toronto and any city inbetween), the competitive pressure is much lower, as buses provide very limited service (given that every additional stop off the Highway adds much more time to the itinerary than an additional station stop for VIA) whereas the plane is virtually absent in these markets. Therefore, speed and frequency is much less important in these markets and with less pressure to offer aggressive travel times, it's much easier to obtain a somewhat reliable service.
• Finally, in the tertiary markets (i.e. between any two cities other than Montreal, Ottawa or Toronto), there are hardly any other competitors than the car and travel times or frequencies matter even less.

I hope you can see that the constraints imposed by CN are much less relevant for secondary and tertiary markets than for the primary markets (and that catering to the needs of the primary markets causes much more conflicts with CN's own operations than catering to the needs of secondary or tertiary markets). Therefore, it's difficult to overemphasize how much of a game changer it would be to separate the primary from the non-primary markets, but this is impossible if you take the Lakeshore route, because the pressure to serve cities like Brockville, Kingston, Belleville and Cobourg with Express trains would be very hard to ignore and with every of these cities served by Express trains, you lose more of the ridership which you would need to make Local services viable.

Conversely, if you have Express services on the Havelock Sub and Local services on the Kingston Sub, you can focus the Lakeshore services all around local needs and especially focus on the tertiary markets, which have been woefully underserved for decades now...

If you wonder what it would take to correct my annoying persistence on the topic, here's my list
- a discoverable service plan
- confirmation that there is a commercial agreement with the host railway that addresses service reliability, and/or regulatory or legislative action to impose this
- confirmation that the commercial agreement and service plan is scalable to match and integrate with (growing) local services west of Toronto - the initial service plan may match what is there today but will it be growable as connecting ridership rises?
-a funding plan that ensures that the operator is not cross subsidizing the local service from HxR - the decline of Ontario's bus network is precedent to show how the expectation of cross subsidy doesn't work. If the local service is not as remunerative, it can't be treated like an unwanted expense
When these things are addressed, I may be able to hold my pessimism

- Paul

I'm sorry to say that, but nothing of this has any relevance when discussing whether the Lakeshore communities would have better service if the Express trains roll through (or more like: around) them than Peterborough, so just to remind you what the discussion was we were having:

To grind a bit of an axe, any routing that runs through Peterborough IS a bypass around the major population centres east of the GTA - and any real serious desire to provide local service to these would not choose that route at all.

This really is to me one of the most frustrating misconceptions about HxR: that the Lakeshore would have better local service if it was part of the HxR corridor than a seperate Corridor.
In reality, stations would need to be far from the city cores (as it would be impossible to exploit the Kingston Sub) and whichever cities aren’t lucky enough to force a stop of the Express trains would command too little ridership potential to justify anything more than very infrequent local service. Conversely, freed from the pressure to keep end-to-end travel times (e.g. TRTO-OTTW and TRTO-MTRL) low, you could have all-stop services Local services every two hours, complemented by a few Semi-Express trains per day…

TLDR: Running HxR via the Lakeshore looks great on paper until you actually start sketching timetable concepts and realize how incompatible the needs of the primary and tertiary markets are and that you can't simultaneously serve all three market types on the same corridor. Havelock is ideal for focusing on travel between the 3 big cities (plus Peterborough), whereas the Lakeshore is ideal for focusing on all the intermediary markets...

 

[crs1026]

[*]In the secondary markets (i.e. any travel between Montreal, Ottawa, or Toronto and any city inbetween), the competitive pressure is much lower, as buses provide very limited service (given that every additional stop off the Highway adds much more time to the itinerary than an additional station stop for VIA) whereas the plane is virtually absent in these markets. Therefore, speed and frequency is much less important in these markets and with less pressure to offer aggressive travel times, it's much easier to obtain a somewhat reliable service.
[*]Finally, in the tertiary markets (i.e. between any two cities other than Montreal, Ottawa or Toronto), there are hardly any other competitors than the car and travel times or frequencies matter even less.
[/LIST]
I hope you can see that the constraints imposed by CN are much less relevant for secondary and tertiary markets than for the primary markets (and that catering to the needs of the primary markets causes much more conflicts with CN's own operations than catering to the needs of secondary or tertiary markets).

I may be miscommunicating - I fully expect the express service to move off the CN line, and wasn't meaning to suggest otherwise.

Where we disagree is whether, as you suggest, there will be fewer constraints on the local non-express trains on the Lakeshore once the expresses are removed. I expect CN will be even more eager to rid itself of passenger service once the express business has gone to another route. The economics of the local service may encourage a lower subsidy than today, so government may have similar incentive..

If you are suggesting that the local service of a few trains a day is all these communities should expect, I'm further in disagreement. I can easily see a local service every two hours in each direction between Windsor and Cornwall, and the long term scalability should contemplate hourly service at peak times (and maybe, over time, all day).

This may not be the official service plan, but it's my personal view of what's required to attract auto customers. I do think frequency matters to this market. Driving time is worsening as the 401 fills up, but the train speeds need to stay ahead of driving times even on the regional service.

I don't see this intensity of service getting the necessary priority over freight under the existing relationship. And perhaps it isn't practical without more triple tracking.

It may be difficult to serve Peterborough at this intensity if the high speed routing goes that way, but I can't differentiate the market or travel requirements of a city of its size from, say, Cobourg or Guelph.

- Paul

 

[Northern Light]

VIA HFR has its new CEO:

Minister of Transport welcomes the appointment of the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of VIA HFR Inc.

The Government of Canada is committed to modernizing intercity passenger rail service in a way that will best meet the transportation needs of travellers, while creating jobs and economic growth. The High Frequency Rail (HFR) project will transform passenger travel in Canada through the creation...

www.canada.ca

From the above:

***

I looked up his CV; I can't say I find it particularly on point:

He was (currently) the President and CEO of The Montreal Port Authority.

He previously worked for Hydro Quebec

He's a lawyer by training.

 

[cplchanb]

VIA HFR has its new CEO:

Minister of Transport welcomes the appointment of the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of VIA HFR Inc.

The Government of Canada is committed to modernizing intercity passenger rail service in a way that will best meet the transportation needs of travellers, while creating jobs and economic growth. The High Frequency Rail (HFR) project will transform passenger travel in Canada through the creation...

www.canada.ca

From the above:

View attachment 496417

***

I looked up his CV; I can't say I find it particularly on point:

He was (currently) the President and CEO of The Montreal Port Authority.

He previously worked for Hydro Quebec

He's a lawyer by training.

And also quebecois... id bet 25% of the "merit weight" is based on if you can speak french. Its a shame because there are probably many more CEOs who are far superior but are politically shut out.

 

[Frank_Lee]

VIA HFR has its new CEO:

Minister of Transport welcomes the appointment of the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of VIA HFR Inc.

The Government of Canada is committed to modernizing intercity passenger rail service in a way that will best meet the transportation needs of travellers, while creating jobs and economic growth. The High Frequency Rail (HFR) project will transform passenger travel in Canada through the creation...

www.canada.ca

From the above:

View attachment 496417

***

I looked up his CV; I can't say I find it particularly on point:

He was (currently) the President and CEO of The Montreal Port Authority.

He previously worked for Hydro Quebec

He's a lawyer by training.

Is the corpse of Van Horne eligible?

 

[SashaLemon]

He has no experience with rail, he is perfect for a rail project.

Only in Canada.

 

[Urban Sky]

And also quebecois... id bet 25% of the "merit weight" is based on if you can speak french. Its a shame because there are probably many more CEOs who are far superior but are politically shut out.

No Ontarian would accept someone leading a federal organization based in Ontario who doesn‘t speak English - and why should they? So why should people in Quebec accept someone not speaking French leading a federal organization based in Quebec? That the labour pool of bilingual candidates is quite substantially larger in Quebec than in Ontario is hardly the fault (or problem) of anyone in Quebec.

For those Anglo-Canadians who insist on living a life where they may never feel inconvenienced by being expected to learn another language to advance their career prospects, endless opportunities may await them South of the border…

He has no experience with rail, he is perfect for a rail project.

Only in Canada.

For this specific job at this specific stage, holding experience with overseeing large-scale transportation infrastructure construction and procurement might be much more valuable than any rail industry-specific experience. That said, I am not familiar enough with his CV (let alone: with that of other candidates who might have been considered for this position) to determine whether he merited his appointment…

 

[cplchanb]

No Ontarian would accept someone leading a federal organization based in Ontario who doesn‘t speak English - and why should they? So why should people in Quebec accept someone not speaking French leading a federal organization based in Quebec? That the labour pool of bilingual candidates is quite substantially larger in Quebec than in Ontario is hardly the fault (or problem) of anyone in Quebec.

For those Anglo-Canadians who insist on living a life where they may never feel inconvenienced by being expected to learn another language to advance their career prospects, endless opportunities may await them South of the border…



For this specific job at this specific stage, holding experience with overseeing large-scale transportation infrastructure construction and procurement might be much more valuable than any rail industry-specific experience. That said, I am not familiar enough with his CV (let alone: with that of other candidates who might have been considered for this position) to determine whether he merited his appointment…

English is the international language of commerce and business. French is way down the list. Not to mention we are not constitutionally obligated to know both languages. We saw that via the air canada ceo. They should not be limiting their search to within Canada. Ttc had byword who transformed the agency for the better. They should've looked internationally for their talent.

This whole French language requirement is leading federal agencies to look past superior candidates for leadership positions.

 

[Railrunner]

No Ontarian would accept someone leading a federal organization based in Ontario who doesn‘t speak English - and why should they? So why should people in Quebec accept someone not speaking French leading a federal organization based in Quebec? That the labour pool of bilingual candidates is quite substantially larger in Quebec than in Ontario is hardly the fault (or problem) of anyone in Quebec.

For those Anglo-Canadians who insist on living a life where they may never feel inconvenienced by being expected to learn another language to advance their career prospects, endless opportunities may await them South of the border…



For this specific job at this specific stage, holding experience with overseeing large-scale transportation infrastructure construction and procurement might be much more valuable than any rail industry-specific experience. That said, I am not familiar enough with his CV (let alone: with that of other candidates who might have been considered for this position) to determine whether he merited his appointment…

LemonCondo and cplchanb seem to be upset that this francophone from Quebec is inexperienced with rail and rail projects and would have preferred to have an experienced executive regardless of their ability to converse in one of Canada's more widely spoken official languages, which tend to have a better educated more experienced pool of talent to hire from compared to the insignificant (in comparison) francophone pool of talent. Honestly, this hiring is just emblematic of so many issues with Canadian governance. I highly doubt HFR will ever make the jump from plans to reality.

 

[crs1026]

^This person has been hired to steer the project through the procurement, political decisionmaking, and public consultation process.... the term of their contract will have expired before any skills are required to "run a railroad".

They will no doubt hire a Chief Engineer (and probably a whole bunch of people) to manage technical details.

There is not a pool of candidates anywhere with experience building and running a high speed rail operation.

If you are going to work at the political level building infrastructure in Quebec, you need to speak French.

- Paul