High Speed Rail Might Finally be a Reality in Canada! | Ontario Northlander Returns!
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- Опубликовано: 15 дек 2022
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Yesterday was an extremely exciting day for Canadian passenger rail: We break down all the latest in today's video!
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
As an American I want this just so that we can point north and say "look, they have it! Why can't we?". Beyond that I'd love to see a Vancouver to San Diego track, and maybe a Toronto to the U.S great lakes cities. That would be super cool.
BecAuSE aMEriCa Is tOO BiG!! HIgH sPEed TrAinS caN't cRoSs thE WhOle cOuNtrY!!!1!!
Add some Adequate health coverage and actual paid Minimum leave requirements on it too
but...America has highspeed rail service already, Amtrak just bought new fully electric railsets, and is building fully electric HSR in Cali...
California is currently building hsr. 🥴
@@ianweniger6620 And even Amtrak's existing, non-highspeed, service blows VIA out of the water.
Helping to ensure that the project continues despite changes in government is literally the first argument for having a private partner that I've ever heard that actually makes sense (since most of the others are based on fallacies around efficiency and costs). That being said, the devil is always in the details
Sad that our governments are so self serving and short sighted but that’s the reality of it. I’d invite brightline or another
Operator With open arms
The lower costs are actually a thing. Private companies aren’t bound by the bureaucratic inefficiencies and “good-government” rules that hamstring government entities, and are also able to much more easily fire incompetent workers. As a result, they tend to be able to run much more efficient operations and avoid expensive delays. Also, they’re not run like little fiefdoms, so the various parts of the organization work better together rather than having two departments that don’t like each other and refuse to cooperate. And of course, they can simply choose a vendor instead of being required to put everything out for a competitive bid with a long response period, enabling them to move faster and save money by not having to pay a bunch of salaries while they wait for bids to come in.
The big problem as far as I can see is that because they're moving so slowly there's a good chance they might not even get the agreement in place until the government changes. Hopefully they are able to expedite things. At the current rate it seems like the whole thing won't be functioning until 2040
@@somethingsomething404 Brightline isn't building high-speed rail, what it's building only looks good because there's not much there to begin with.
@@michaelimbesi2314 You should see some of the companies I have experience with... More seriously, state rail operators are something of a mixed bag, true there are the Amtrak and Vias of the world but there are also the DBs and TGVs. All private rail operators are somewhere between mediocre and poor.
In the UK since privatisation almost no local trains have been replaced. Long-distance rolling stock has been replaced but often has an inadequate capacity, and in many cases, long distance tickets cost twice or treble what they did before privatisation. Meanwhile, government subsidies to the rail network have also risen.
The real complaint I have with VIA is that they don’t own enough of the rail they use(causing most of their delays). I look at the Toronto to Windsor train and it goes at the go transit speeds from Toronto to Hamilton, then slows down to like 60kmh in the CN/CR rails. Once the train reaches Chatham, 150kmh all the way down to Windsor. (VIA owns the rail from Chatham to Windsor)
We all know that the real problem is the expensive tickets
All railroads in Canada should be nationalized as a public good. And then charge the rail users a fee to travel on the tracks.
It's ridiculous that CN and CP can hoard these resources to prevent freight competition and handicap passenger services.
@@kb_100 You don't necessarily need to nationalize a railroad to use it for public benefit. If the railroad behaves like a greedy monopolist, you just regulate to allow for better and cheaper passenger frequency. For example in the US, railroads are limited by law how much they can charge Amtrak (but sadly track availability requirements aren't enforced). Another legal trick is "easements". In the US many high powered voltage lines are built on private line. The land stays private, but easements allow for the government to still use it for a public interest.
@@AaronSmith-sx4ez sure. Nationalizing is a brute force approach but other mechanisms to achieve the same goals would be fine too.
However the US example shows a taking lighter touch requires constant oversight and enforcement. Which is difficult to maintain over the long term and prone to political meddling by the entrenched interests who gradually and quietly defang the agencies meant to regulate them.
@@kb_100 Letting CN keep all the tracks when they were privatized was probably a mistake.
Greetings from northern Ontario (Thunder Bay, actually). While not directly impacted by the Northlander project, this is an exciting step forward in hopefully eventually having passenger rail reach us again for the first time on over 30 years. As northerners, we are often "beggars" regarding our public transportation resources, how thrilling to receive such a "chooser" train. Thanks for another great video!
I also hope the northlander includes Thunder Bay as a branch line using autonomous railway technology to reactivate the old railway station under the name (thunder bay tender shuttle)
So i looked this up, and apparently the tracks that run from Sudbury to Thunder Bay are owned by CP, and that fully explains why there no passenger service on that route. CP has been a royal pain for passenger train plans for decades throughout the province, and basically is able to refuse any request for Via or Metrolinx to run trains on their tracks. Unless CP is legally forced to allow passengers trains at a price via can afford, Via literally cant run a train to Thunder Bay unless it uses the CN tracks to Winnipeg and have a transfer to the train to Sudbury from there.
This also is why the Lakeshore West train from Toronto almost never runs to Hamilton's downtown train station, CP owns the track through downtown. Metrolinx had to build had a whole new station in the North of Hamilton to allow Lakeshore West trains to routinely go to Hamilton from Toronto, which also allows the route to extend to St.Catherines and Niagara Falls.
@@MirorR3fl3ction Where do you think the Sudbury-White River train runs? Extending the train a little further west to the largest City in Northwestern Ontario is a no-brainer.
High speed from Toronto to Montreal and Quebec City would be incredible for both business, local travel, and tourism. I work for an airline, but I love taking trains, and for relatively short routes, it just feels like such an easier thing to just hop on a nice quick train city centre to city centre. I used to live in London, Eng. and would do train day trips 2-3hrs away just cause it was easy. I would never do that on a plane; even if the time is technically the same, it just feels like a bigger deal when flying.
I'm Canadian and I took my first train in the spring. By comparison, I fly quite often because I live far from where I grew up/my family is. I was SHOCKED at how much more relaxed taking a train was !! It wasn't stressful at all, plus you have more space and cell service/internet. What a lovely experience!
You can easily add Ottawa, the Kitchener-Waterloo region, Hamilton-Niagara satellites to the list.
I was just looking at a map of Canada and though "wow, how doesn´t Canada has high speed trains connecting Toronto, Ottawa, Montral and Quebec? such a lost oportunity" and one of my favorite transit youtubers uploads a video about it! cool!
The answer is because Quebec, Ontario and Ottawa are always at odds and the High Frequency Rail seems to be an attempt to improve things in a way that denies the next government the ability to take credit for getting the long awaited High Speed Rail line done since when that change happens it'll be an exceptionally rare situation of all three being politically aligned and thus likely to get passed.
NIMBY. That's why.
Three words: Air Canada Lobby
Love this news as a rail conductor In northern Ontario ! Doing my engineering classes and its a HUGE PLUS having more engineering jobs out here 🤩
As a French, I was so shocked to see exhaust smoke coming out of a passenger train in Montréal & in Toronto. Considering how cheap electricity is Canada, it’s just bazinga to still be running diesel trains in the densest part of the country.
I would imagine that part of the issue is the initial capital expense to build the infrastructure. Consider that the Pennsylvania RR electrified substantial portions of its network in the 1930s, and while the equipment has certainly been upgraded since to be used by Amtrak, the legacy infrastructure was already there. By comparison, CN and CP stuck with steam power until into the 1940s, then moved to diesel-electric. Had the Windsor-Quebec corridor been electrified by CN 90 years ago, I suspect it still would be now.
what's totally nuts is how train travel has disappeared outside the big corridor compared to 90s and 70s. We used to travel from Montreal to Maritimes to see family then in 90s I believe they got rid of it and the cost of a plane ticket there was the same as for Paris so we travel by car since then. This has repeated all over the country: smaller lines getting closed and people having to use more and more cars.
The train stopped being an option when it should have been the other way around.
The Canadian train offerings are truly sad compared to Europe but Canadian distances are so much bigger. I dont see any will to invest massively in infrastructure change to electric that will still continue to underserve canadians.
There are a lot of canadians who don't understand how cheap our electricity is compared to literally every other place on the planet. The oil and gas as well as carmaker industry has done an excellent job of disseminating false information about that.
I rode Via from Halifax through Montreal in 2019.
As much as the train to Timmins is a great addition, "Northern Ontario" is a huge place. It's too bad it doesn't extend to places like Sault Ste. Marie.
Would love to see this on ACR, if possible.
This would be really nice if they also bring it to locations that have lost their passenger rail services over the years. I miss having/seeing passenger trains around and all we have left are the tracks and the questions asking "what happened to your trains?"
Yes, that corridor is pretty much a no-brainer for highspeed rail. Should have been there 20 years ago. But better late than never! Keep my fingers crossed for you!
The lack of a decent high speed railway service between Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal is definitely very exasperating. The train between Ottawa and Toronto is really not much faster than driving (5 hours). One could go to Billy Bishop airport and take a Porter Dash 8 but it’s not as convenient as simply going to Union station via the subway. And if you and a group of friends want to go on a last minute trip to Ottawa or Montreal you can split the cost of gas and driving duties. Last minute train tickets are not exactly cheap. But a convenient high speed service that doesn’t require 10 or 12 hours of total travel time would give you more time to enjoy your destination and be worth the price premium of a ticket.
Absolutely agree on all parts haha!
The reason that VIA wouldn't operate any project that was built by a private consortium is not just their inexperience in HSR: most of these private consortiums lowball the capital costs in the bidding process and recoup those costs with an operations contract to service and operate the line for x number of years. Companies are much more interested in long contracts like this that provide a steady flow of money over a large number of years rather than a capital cost contract that ends when the project is built.
Didn't this exact scenario happen with the ontario line?
also very common: Lowballing the cost of construction in their bid and then pretending all the entirely predictable things that end up costing more were utterly unexpected (anyone who accounted for them bid higher and thus didn't get the job, natch). It's about half of how these things always end up massively over budget.
@@laurencefraser Yeah. BC Hydro commonly signs hard bid contracts where they won't pay above and beyond for any of these issues that always arise, that should probably be more common.
@@laurencefraser And the "private" partner is really an incorporated consortium made just for the project. The big name "partners" are shareholders but their liability is limited to their investment. When things go belly up the corporation declares bankruptcy and only the public partners are left to pay it off.
Train braking news! Glad you're reporting on this.
Someone’s gotta do it!
@@RMTransit the Northlander has been reported on Facebook for over a week now, somebody else has done it already!
It's worth noting that rail doesn't necessarily have to be high(er) speed to compete with short-range flights. Consider this: In October, I flew from Toronto to Montreal. When I was boarding the GO train in Oshawa to head downtown, there was a Montreal-bound Via train at the station. It was an hour to Union, a further 30 minutes or so to the airport (morning rush), check-in et al. I was able to get a standby spot on the earliest flight out after arriving at the airport. When I walked out the door at Trudeau Airport, guess what was just pulling in to the adjacent Dorval train station?
But there's a YYZ-YUL flight every half-hour and only a handful of trains a day at oddball timings. You're absolutely right that we don't need faster trains, we need more frequent trains with a predictable schedule. If there was a train every 30min that you could walk up to then 5h is actually competitive today. Of course faster is still better too.
@@gregs2284 If you need to be in Montreal or Ottawa from Toronto to make it to a morning meeting, flying works much better. It is hard to get there before lunchtime by train, while you can usually make it to a 9am meeting by plane.
@@scottcampbell2707 Well... there are two flights in time to make a 9am meeting -- one of them just barely. That one leaves at 7am and it'll take at least 40min to get to Pearson so you'll have to leave before 6am. If you wanted to be sure you would have to take the 6:20 so you would have to leave around 5. So if there was frequent convenient train service you could make it downtown by 10am. It wouldn't take much faster trains to be faster.
The thing that would most excite me about a potential new corridor for HSR through Ottawa is the possibility that it moves away from the current route for VIA, which would open up a huge amount of right of ways that could be transformed into inter-suburb lines for the O-Train or even regional lines to Casselman, Arnprior, Smythfalls, Carleton Place etc...
I did recently added up all the projects listed on wikipedia, and, excluding commuter rail, Canada has about 425km of urban rail. Meanwhile we’re currently either building or about to build ~300km of urban rail. I knew we were building a lot, but… a ~75% increase is crazy.
You know what’s crazy? India is building 6000km of HSR, another 1000km of metro, and 2000km urban rail in the next 20 years! So excited for a global transit renaissance
@@Yuvraj. there’s a massive Infrastructure boom in India. The entire country right now is a huge construction zone. Locals love it, they are getting their decades long demands fulfilled.
Thank you for your service!
I really hope you guys get an HSR line. We here in Australia have seen huge amounts of investment on public transport within cities, but not between cities. The Melbourne to Sydney air route is the second busiest on Earth, and the Sydney to Brisbane one is also in the top ten. I believe the flight from Seoul to Jeju Island is the busiest. Numerous Governments have commissioned feasibility studies with most of them saying it would be successful, but it never gets built. HSR feasibility studies seem to be our government's favourite hobby.
That thing was announced so many times.... I'll believe it when trains are actually running.
The HFR plan has only been announced once.
We need a bc version of GO transit. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to take a train from Vancouver to Kelowna or whistler, and there should be a rail service from Schwartz bay to Victoria.
There used to be both of those things. Then the government, despite saying they would not, killed the passenger service and leased the rails to CN.
No reason except how difficult it is to run trains through the mountains. There is no good, reliable route for trains from the coast to the Okanagan. The cost to build and maintain any direct route would be prohibitive and likely not be able to run most of the winter; there likely just isn't enough passenger demand either.
@@stephenshoihet2590 Switzerland runs more trains through worse conditions year round
And there’s definitely passenger demand for it. The coq is like 4 lanes through a significant portion of it, and Ik many people on both sides would love to be able to do weekend trips to the other.
@@alc3biades262 I doubt they are harsher than the coquihalla subdivision area. We already had a train running through the coquihalla to the interior and it was shut down because of the high cost of operation, frequent interruptions in service due to avalanches/rock slides, it not being able to run during the winter and a lack of demand. Freight is what supports train operations in the west and there isn't enough demand for that. The Okanagan hasn't had any train service for almost 10 years. The Coquihalla hwy is exactly why there's no demand for train service from the coast, people would rather take their car since due to lack of good public transit in the interior and everything being pretty far apart, you're going to need a car anyway. Currently you can take a train from Vancouver to Kamloops, it takes about 9 hours, or you can drive in about 4 hours in good weather.
@@alc3biades262 Switzerland makes nearly DOUBLE Canada's GDP per capita, Switzerland has 219 people per square kilometer, while BC has 4.8 people per square kilometer. Tell me how they're supposed to operate like the swiss?
As someone who often travels between Toronto and Sudbury the Northlander news is huge! No more overcrowded coach busses during peak times.
you still have bus service? I don't think we've had that for about 10 years in south western ontario.
@@ADobbin1 we do with Ontario Northland as the bus provider.
@@frederickmoller ok. We used to have greyhound down here but I'm pretty sure they went bankrupt in canada a few years back and I hadn't seen one of their buses for over 10 years anyway.
@@ADobbin1 yes I know, but ONR has the bus service that I use.
I’m so excited for Canada! I really hope this happens!
It's still just a dream, but so was once a regional rail network for Toronto.
At least y’all have regional rail☹️- an albertan
Exactly!
The Kingston note is always so interesting to me, especially considering the population of the city. Do you have any ideas on why Kingston is such a busy VIA station? I would guess that it’s got something to do with the number of post-secondary schools here, but by comparison London also has WU and Fanshawe, plus is more than twice the population, so you’d expect they’d have a busier station as well.
I’ve been to Kingston station a few times and it is mostly students taking the train as you guessed. As for why London isn’t as busy, I would guess that because it’s closer to Toronto more people end up driving or bussing instead.
I also think it’s a decent stop on the way to Montréal. Like ^^^ said, london->Toronto is a car drive, Toronto->Montreal may be more suited to train
If your crazy and there’s no traffic you can do Toronto to london in like
An hour and half, Toronto to
Montreal not so much.
@@Islington_Express_Bus Kingston actually does have a small airport, and there are regular flights between it and Billy Bishop. It’s a really terrible distance for a flight though and it’s very expensive even when compared to the overpriced train.
There also used to be (it's been a long time since I've done this so perhaps this is no longer the case) a decent number of transfers happening there. Often going Oshawa to Ottawa I would have to transfer in Kingston, and occasionally the same Oshawa to Montreal (and vice versa). That could push it up in the rankings.
Obviously, if we get this in the Winsor-Quebec City corridor I would really love to see efforts made elsewhere in this country like a Winnipeg-Calgary, Calgary-Edmonton, Regina-Saskatoon, and Winnipeg-Edmonton via Saskatoon corridor. I know the population density and the type of economies are different in the west but I think a city of 1 million like Calgary (same size as Ottawa) should have intercity rail. Let's not forget out east too with a Moncton-Halifax corridor being very possible as well.
I hope Manitoba gets serious about building passenger rail infrastructure.
Moncton-HFX would be HUGE, as it'd serve a bunch of larger northern Nova Scotia towns that just don't have reliable, frequent VIA service right now. Obvious routing is more or less paralleling NB-2 / NS-104 and NS-102. This would potentially hook stations like Amherst and Truro up to some seriously great rail, with a potential extension to Fredericton and branch to Saint John.
(I totally don't live mere minutes from said corridor, no way)
The HSR line should be all the way from Windsor, Ontario all the way to Quebec City, Quebec. And it should be a 250 to 275 km/h line that has been "winterized" like they do in Japan. Even at 275 km/h, a single train seating around 900 to 1,000 passengers on 15 minute headways could be a viable alternative to on this busy corridor.
@@TheUrbanGaze I'd almost agree, but the issue of customs and immigration makes it much harder to do.
This is amazing news, not just for Ontario Northlander, but for VIA Rail. I think this new board is I think a good way to go at getting HSR off the ground. Especially if we’re asking for other experienced operators for help in development.
I'm holding my breath.
Wait, scratch that.
But we're getting so good at high speed rail studies. We're the envy of published bindings!
Working for Siemens Mobility and partly involved in management of VIA Rail and Brightline, I'm really happy to see, that Canada seems to be pleased with out equipment. Get yourself some Velaro trains and I'll come by and do the commissioning :D
This isn't huge news. We need more investment in the development and maintenance of our rail system. Northland is a service that never should have been cancelled in the first place.
I think the fact that they bought brand new trains for it is definitely huge!
7:25 It’s tough to hear a guy sitting in front of a map of Vancouver talk about how great this new plan is for passenger rail in Canada, all the way from Montreal in the east to the far wild western land of Hamilton. Because west of Winnipeg there remains no intercity passenger rail, only a sightseeing tourist excursion and a service temporarily suspended twelve years and counting.
I mean if BC wants to get on with building passenger rail it can! I grew up in Vancouver, so I would love it, but the truth is the great corridors are mostly in the east
@@RMTransit VIA Rail should do province-supported routes like Amtrak does with state-supported routes. Those are good for cities that are pretty close to each other.
It’s in all of Canadians interests to get Via to be a profitable company so that it can run lines that aren’t as profitable down the line. So I’m very hopeful the East gets their high speed rail so that the West can follow suit.
Give the high speed rail service a name like RailJet or something to insinuate that it is a replacement for short hop flights.
Wow what an exciting video! Thank you so much for putting this together, I'm thrilled by all these announcements!!!
You are so welcome!
I hope Canada one day builds a great high speed corridor from Detroit to Quebec. That would be a huge step forward for Canadian passanger rail, and also for the climate.
That would also give Detroit a purpose.
@@davidty2006 I think even now, if we don't have highspeed rail yet, the Via railtrain to Windsor should be extended to Detroit. Maybee even introduce a sleeper train from Toronto to Chicago.
@@OnkelJajusBahn and in the meantime, an easy integrated bus transfer should be in place. There's a Thrubus service with Amtrak, but it goes straight to Toronto, and doesn't come near Windsor station. It's pretty low- hanging fruit if both Amtrak and Via Rail can come to an agreement, here.
Thanks for keeping me in the loop. It's -11 here in Vancouver (right next to the Oakridge Skytrain station) and while the project here is keeping me busy, it's still nice to hear what's happening in the rest of the country
You should to a video on the issues plaguing the Valley Line in Edmonton. The solution is an absolute joke and the city seems completely fine with it. Local investigative journalism is holding up to the job either. It could use some professional criticism and exposure.
Very interesting, also for people in the UK, such as me. We have endless debates about the value of new rail infrastructure and then, after a project gets the go ahead, we have a habit of reducing its scope. HS2 and HS3 are cases in point: the extent of HS2 is under threat and at this time HS3 isn't happening at all! So fingers crossed that Canada's high frequency/high speed rail plans stay on track... if you'll excuse the pun!
With the current plan it should be pretty hard to scale back much. One terminus in Quebec City would be very difficult to get rid of given politics and the other end goes to Toronto, completely impossible to leave out. Where we might see cutting is on the service quality perhaps? But even then so long as they don't lose the dedicated right of way ( which would be a huge cut ) a 250kph HST would still be a substantial upgrade and relatively easy to upgrade later to 300kph.
@@AmurTiger well let's hope they planned for higher speed but actual operating speed be set much lower... should the axe comes down...
at least it had more chance than KL-SG HSR plan... damn politics and "regime" changes... it's a chaotic time for malaysia...
We might be lucky in a way, a change of government in the UK tories out labour in would probably stabilise the projects. Canada is about to hit a brutal recession, so liberals out tories in, and big projects can be rhe first to go
Imagine a High Speed Rail between Edmonton and Calgary.
Even better would be to have it extend West at both ends to Jasper and Banff
The company I work for has already largely (though not entirely) switched our business travel between our Ottawa and GTA offices from commuter air to VIA business class rail because the VIA Rail experience is so much more enjoyable, the cost is lower, and (accounting for airport security etc) the travel time is comparable. I am sure future increases to speed and frequency will definitely have a big impact on rail use, my only fear is we end up treating Ottawa the same we treat it with air travel now - as a regional hub. Wouldn't put it past anyone to build a HSR line from Toronto to Montreal and bypass YOW completely lol.
As someone who used to take the train a tonne between Oshawa, Montreal, and Ottawa, this is exciting news! Fingers crossed that it comes to fruition -- though I don't live nearby anymore I'd ride this in a heartbeat if I needed to. I'd love it if it could be run along the same alignment as the existing lakeshore trains, but I imagine there's not enough room and too many level crossings to do so. Looking forward to it and your coverage in the coming years.
The Canadian government and VIA Rail should get people on board from several European railways companies in order to assist with the plans for the future, because I have the feeling that although the people in VIA Rail mean it all well, they lack the knowledge folks from European railways have about how to properly do a railwayline.
A bigger team is usually a worse team. If we have to involve anyone outside the government, than it should be a single private partner. Vertical integration is how you streamline a process. Subcontractors are the enemy.
I've taken that train from Toronto to Timmons up in Northern Ontario and it was a beautiful trip. Really fun.. and those old cars had rotating benches so you could pull a lever and spin one bench around to have 4 seats facing each other for a family or group.
It's Timmins, not Timmons.
Very glad there's good news! Hopefully this push towards public mass transit spreads the concept to the rest of the country as well.. my city ripped out her rail lines after the trans canada cut past us and everyone flocked to subsidized personal vehicular transport. Would love to see trains rolling again, all we have as a public transport option is the intercity bus..
Yeah, it's hard to leave your city without a car. I know here in Edmonton we have some buses to St. Albert and Jasper/Banff but that's bout it, that I know of at least.
I would argue that there are 3 Canadian HSR corridors, Windsor-Quebec, Calgary-Edmonton, Vancouver-US. The third barely counts as Canadian as the vast majority would be in the US.
As a European I just don't understand why this line is not already electrified. I mean with just one line you can connect four of the major cities of Canada, It's not like you have to build a full high-speed network.
Cause nobody in north America likes investing in rail infrastructure except the maybe the Mexicans because they have some electrification
You have to remember the distance and density. Just going from Toronto to Montreal is 500km in a straight line (more like 550km or 600km if you go out of your way to add Ottawa). That is the equivalent of London to Edinburgh, or Berlin to Munich, or Milan to Rome, but without any of the density along the route to support it. And remember, this is Canada's shortest, most efficient line (barring possibly Edmonton-Calgary), so we have no shorter, more cost effective routes to gain expertise and establish cost effective supply chains.
In essence, Canada's easiest rail project (whether for electrification, HSR, or any other milestone) would be equivalent to the final, most difficult capstone project of any Western European rail network.
Ottawa - Montreal is shorter, though buses might compete.
@@boosterh1113 Actually, density is the enemy of high-speed rail because it increases the cost (in dollars and votes) to expropriate the land you need. And any communities you come near will demand local service, which increases dwell times (though you could arrange a couple of daily "milk run" local trains for them, so long as the expresses aren't held back; and electrification decreases dwell time.) This is about replacing commuter flights; Air Can's YYZ-YUL doesn't stop in a dozen places along the way; so HSR/HFR won't either.
While I am excited for this project and am hoping it works out, I hope that Via rail will put more effort into the lines further outside the Toronto-Montreal area.
Montreal-Toronto is where the traffic and the money are for HSR in Canada.
@@andrewweitzman4006 true, but SW Ontario has enough potential, too, is my guess. Especially if you can improve border crossings again, Detroit is literally on the other side of the river in Windsor, and has multiple daily departures to Chicago, While I would prefer a through train, even an integrated ticketing solution with a bus transfer between Windsor and Detroit should have a major beneficial effect on both ridership and mobility in the region.
@@barvdw I have heard of Windsor added to the axis. But extending it north to Quebec City would be purely political.
@@andrewweitzman4006 I wouldn't be too sure. Québec is still a major tourist destination, as well as an important administrative city, and with almost a million people in the general area, it's not too far out to think
But even political reasons are valid, Via Rail is supposedly a service to all Canadians, and paid for all Canadians as well, it's reasonable to assume that at least all mainland provinces deserve to be served by them. Quebec deserves that much, I think.
Further east, both distances and population make HSR unviable, but Québec (and Trois-Rivières) definitely seem to have a business case as well as a political case.
Thank goodness.
In other positive news..
Amtrak announced the new Airo sets aimed to replace Amfleet cars by around 2025-26. They have four variations of the Siemens sets, with plans to modernize over a dozen lines. They haven't released anything in terms of how many sets, but im hoping its a significant increase to what they currently hold with Amfleet to make more frequent service. the NEC is simply restricted from operating more trains for various reasons, which has made ticket prices skyrocket out of control. They need way more service than what is currently available. There is still significant lag in updating the NEC, or downright trying to re-route certain areas (especially the Connecticut proposed re-route) that would be critical to delivering true HSR. I would honestly love to see a video from you going into depth (if you haven't already) about the speculation on improving the NEC, but diving more into potential re-routing opportunities + frequencies + scale of work needed + additional branches that could service the region as a whole.
Edit: It looks like there will be about 58 train sets operating on the NEC for multiple services. I'm not sure how many currently operate, however.
Great news! 320km/h TGV M or something equivilent please, I'll use it from Montreal to Ottawa and Toronto. So will my friends in both cities.
I been waiting about a hundred years for railroad
Back in the mid 70s, I'd occasionally ride the Ontario Northland train, between Toronto and Kapuskasing. Of course, it ran over CN track between Toronto and North Bay and again from Cochrane to Kapuskasing. There was also a Timmins section of the train that split off at Porquis Junction. I also remember when they brought in a train from Europe, to run to Timmins from Toronto. This train was known as the Northlander, IIRC.
Imagine an Anglo Canadian politician from the 1800s finding out that their compromise capital would be within commuting distance of Montreal in the future
Great video. Subscribed!
Kingston is such a busy stop as its the split between Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. People have to switch there because, will skip a stop like Belleville on Toronto Montreal run, but stop on the Toronto Ottawa trip, so people have to get off there and switch trains. Its almost like a cross over station between Line 1 and Line 2 on the TTC
Bruh, this guy is soo hyped on transportation infrastructure. Big thumbs up from Montréal
yo big G love when you cover the news. knew you would be on it! hope you are well man.
I enjoy your videos. Thanks for making them.
I enjoy the train, have used it frequently to travel Toronto - Montreal/Ottawa.
I agree, that better more frequent service could reduce the number of eastern triangle flights.
I don’t understand the logic of the proposal to build an entire new HFR line, essentially tracing the original CPR route Toronto to Montreal.
The population is along the lakeshore route, as you stated, Kingston is a very busy station. Would it not make more sense to build a freight only line, along the proposed HSR route, with branch lines to the populated centres? Then modify the Kingston subdivision for passenger only operations? Ottawa could be served with a more streamlines branch that would bypass the bottleneck at Smith’s Falls.
Thanks again for your videos.
Only if they can maintain decent speed.
Btw how much time did it take for an end to end journey.
Possibly, but only if the alignment along the lake was modified for higher speed
It's great news to hear that Canada is considering a high speed rail line, it´s an opportunity to improve the decline of rail on the continent, also, as you rightly said, it helps to create competition against air travel impoving the connection between major cities.
However I must say that not everything is an advantage, I know from experience, I´m from spain. (For those who don't understand it, Spain has the second largest high-speed network in the world)
But, even with the disadvantages or problems that this type of infrastructure shows in the long term, I must say that it´s one of the best transport system that a country can have. I hope that Canada will succeed in making this project a reality and that its citizens can enjoy this incredible service.
Greetings from Spain :)
Man, the point about PPPs insulating against potential political interference is one I kind of took for granted but come to think of it, it's a critical benefit assuming the project should be built in the first place.
Absolutely, not something to be underrated! It leads to some additional stability.
As I stated before a new corridor thru Toronto should be built in the finch hydro corridor from tapscott and finch in the east thru finch and Yonge Stn over to richview sub with a stop at the airport then thru to 403 and Eastgate area following 403 towards wintson out to the west. This creates a new main line for HSR, with a mix of tunnels viaduct and trenches thru Toronto.
I still feel like we’ve only reached a questionable stage and getting it. It’s hard to tell when something is actually going to happen
Thanks!
Thank you!
There is a major pitfall for the HFR/HSR project: the loss of the Mount Royal tunnel in Montreal, which was the only dedicated passenger rail access into Central Station. The fact that we allowed CDPQ Infra to seize the tunnel for its own exclusive use and replace the existing high-capacity electrified heavy rail system by a radically incompatible smaller-gauge, smaller-capacity light rail system operating on primitive 600V DC is totally baffling. It's the antithesis of good transportation planning.
It essentially means that the Montreal to Quebec city portion of the route cannot get built without either a costly new city tunnel running well into the 2B$ range (CDPQ Infra bought the whole DM line for 125M$... that's a steal), or a long roundabout route through Cote St-Luc or St-Laurent. It also complicates planning of the Montreal to Ottawa section by removing a potential route on the north shore of the Ottawa river (through Laval and Ste-Thérèse along CP trackage which is mostly used by commuter trains). This will force VIA to keep accessing Central station from the south, which involves a problematic cohabitation with CN, whose freight trains run in the 12000' and 18000 tons range and often stops on the mainline at Turcot to change crew or swap blocks of cars. This is totally incompatible with fast and modern passenger rail operations.
Passenger trains have no future on North American freight railroads infrastructure since all of them have adopted the Precision Scheduled Railroading model of operations (which, ironically, is neither precise, scheduled, and barely qualifies as railroading since it's driving a lot of customers away from rail, onto trucks).
Sure hope they hear you
Very exciting that there is consideration for High speed back on the table. I do want to hear thier pricing though, I worry they will try to set a higher price than the current service which is already disinsentivizing.
If we can open up weekend Montreal - Toronto trips for the average person that worth a lot. If we subsidizing building HSR infrastructure and it is only affordable to people who would otherwise fly I'll be incredibly disappointed.
Imagine how much good high-speed rail would do for the Prairie provinces! No more driving through hours upon hours of boring, flat, featureless wheatfields!
I'm in Hamilton, my Dad's in Winnipeg -- usually about a 2 1/2 hour flight by airplane, and the flights are getting increasingly uncomfortable. I would LOVE to have an overnight sleeper car service from Toronto to Winnipeg. Currently it takes VIA more than 2 days to make the trip (I looked it up once). Even cutting that time in half to one day on the train would be a lot more fun than suffering through sardine cans in the sky.
Next routes to address: Calgary-Edmonton and Vancouver-Seattle
@@hysterics8011 really insufficient traffic to justify the cost. Each city is only 1M people. HSR to service 2 to 3 million people total isn't going to be cost effect for anybody. Starting with regular rail would be much better. Nevertheless, for a government that just wants to spend money on flashy projects without good business case, it can be a pet project.
@Esh The segment between Portland and San Francisco is too mountainous for HSR.
@@vincentng2392 We just need to get the Swiss over to help ;)
@@hysterics8011 Edmonton and Calgary should offer service to Jasper and Banff. The tourism it could bring in would probably help make Edmonton to Calgary economically viable.
The Northlander should be painted in the blue and yellow livery used for the RAm/DE IV sets 1976 to 1992. (First time a train is built new for this service!)
Siemens Mobility seems to be on a roll in NA
Siemens has really hit a home run with these new products. I believe North America is seeing a renewed interest in passenger rail as car ownership and air travel is getting more expensive and less convenient. It does make me wonder if this Via order could be expanded on to have a few sets for Northern Quebec services, perhaps with the cab car housing a baggage compartment. The nice thing about these trains is they don’t require turning, so time and money is saved there. I hope we will see further corridors develop such as Calgary-Edmonton, some lines in Texas etc
Went to school in Northern Ontario and had to endure 6 hour car rides or upwards of 12 hour bus rides if I wanted to go and visit my family.
The Northlander would have been amazing.
I'm planning a trip to Japan next year and the distance between Toronto/Ottawa is uncannily similar to Tokyo/Osaka (actually Tokyo/Kyoto is more closely similar but I liked how the names matched here lol)
As a kid in the 60's I heard of HSR being developed in Japan an Europe. Canada has been talking about it since. Hopefully I will able to use it within my lifetime. Imagine traveling to Ottawa, Montreal, or Quebec city on a day trip!
Hi Reece, amazing news! Having travelled a bit in southeast Asia where high speed rail operates, I am VERY excited for something like this to have a real shot of being built in Canada. What do you think is the best thing to do to show support for this project to make sure it actually happens?
Thanks for a really informative video. I really hope that we have HSR in my kid’s lifetimes.
Erh mah gherd the Northlander is coming back!
It'd be nice if it was twice a day, at least. Arrive in Toronto at 9am and leave at 3pm or something like that. Still, that's great and I'm definitely gonna make the trip. Especially if I can bring my bike with me.
BrightLine North!!! Living in Montreal and being a Pilot myself, we have to lower the amount of flights (at least 50-60%) between YYZ-YOW-YUL-YQB corridor.
In my urbanist passionate opinion, they should build the corridor parallel to the 401 since the highway is pretty much a straight shot between Toronto and Montreal.
I'm excited
Hopefully VIA Rail can extend this HSR to Windsor-Detroit and then Michigan, Indiana and Illinois can pick it up from there
Sleeper sets would be cool for the Ontario northland trains
I'd imagine that would be one of the busiest corridors on the planet. Should be running trains every 20-30 minutes at least?
A high speed to Windsor makes a lot of sense, once the logistics are resolved, with CN and CP, because the closest metro area to us is Detroit, and closest Canadian metro area is London which is a two hours drive away.
So a one hour ish train ride to Toronto will be amazing for the economy of both cities and every city in between Windsor and Toronto
I used to love taking the train from Southern Ontario to North Bay. Much preferable to the bus. It was a memorable occasion when our school went to see the new Northlander train! We were given a commemorative coin.
this should have been done several years ago, canada will benifit greatly from a 300km/h rail network which will connect far cities like ottawa , toronto and montreal. the economic value is huge from connecting these cities
I soooo hope it will happen! However, there is a big problem in Montreal: The REM will monopolize the main tunnel to reach Gare Centrale from the north, so the trains will need to add a transfer outside Montreal CBD...
Its not actually true that other trains couldn't run through it - would just be a bit more complicated.
Winter is when we need to be able to travel by train the most. People get killed driving up here (and down south) every winter.
Government switches can be just as deadly to private contracts. Ontario politicians for example don't care about cancellation fees
I heard your comment about high speed from Toronto to Ottawa. It also makes me regret the lack of GO service between Toronto and Peterborough.
Canadian Pacific owns the right-of-way and there is a rail line that runs through Peterborough and Smith's Falls to Ottawa, but deliberec lack of maintenance has left it useless. The line runs through the Agincourt freight yard then goes through Leaside and Central Toronto. The Central Toronto station is now a liquor store. Of course CP avoids passenger service like the plague.
What used to be the route of The Canadian passed through Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay to Winnipeg-then through Regina to Calgary and on to Vancouver. Now the only train between Calgary and Vancouver is the Rocky Mountaineer...if you gave the $$$$.
Finally the rail service on Vancouver Island no longer exists. Like the Peterborough line it's been allowed to deteriorate-in the winter if you want to drive from Victoria to the Nanaimo or the northern part of the island is to equip your car with snow tires because of the Malahat...it's the law. Word has it that the Victoria railliner is part of the exhibit in Toronto. BTW the train used to run in the opposite direction than the Victoria rush hour...maybe that explains why so few people used it!
The bottom line is that what was a good line is now in a state of decay.
I'm ambigous about a private operator for the high speed train on the Quebec-Toronto corridor since it is supposed to be a cash positive corridor. Why should we give the money to a private firm when it could be used by VIA to inscrease service on other lines ?
This is huge! Thanks got this update! I am so excited to see this make progress!
the issue with the Northlander is that the tracks from Toronto to North Bay are owned by CN or CP, and as such are maintained to a lower standard than passenger tracks , and also the existing legislarion give freight traffic priority over passenger, I sat on a siding beside Lake Simcoe for over an hour waiting for a freight train to pass
If there will be a 300 km/h train, then flights automatically become non-competitive (except case when they drop prices deep below train tickets). Montreal is 550 km by a rail, and a few stops ride should be around 2:30 hours. Flight tooks 1:20 because of in such a short flight significant part of time is taxi, takeoff and landing. Add here a security, baggage, boarding, travel time to and from airport - and rail already beats it flight terms of time (as train station in the middle of the city). But! On train you have additionally all time internet and cell connectivity, much more space and comfort in train and all time of travel and you're free to do anything you want, you don't need to walk million times between gates, security, wear seatbelt and all other stuff. I just can't imagine who can choose a flight in that case.
I would also point out that the little track that Via actually owns has it’s maintenance and RTC contracted out to Siemens.
If you're building a new alignment why not go all the way to 350 km/h? I know the time saving for TO-MTL would probably be small vs 300 km/h but for longer trips like Windsor-MTL the difference adds up and would be more competitive with flying,
the line is being built for 200 km/h swith high frequencies.
@@TheTroyc1982 Did you watch the video? The Transportation minister asked the prospective private partners for a 300 km/h solution.
Well, that's great news
Exciting news! The only thing stopping me from taking the train more is the price.
320kph is the standard for new HSR.
Wait. 3 sets of trains to operate once a day service?
If iam not mistaken the distance isn't too large so the trains should travel to and fro on the same day.
In that case it will mean that everyday one train is running and other two are sitting. You can surely operate atleast 2 trains a day and do the maintenance on the third.
And if you optimise you can have all three trains running on some days when demand is high(holiday season or some days of the week) and two on days when demand is low. (Like weekend).
That is if the distance is small and trains can go to and fro in day. Say leave a 7-8 am and return back by 10-11 pm. If not then fine.
@@hysterics8011 is it 750 km one way?
In any case even if the speed is 120 kmph (and I expect it to be faster than that) the two way journey can be completed in 16-17 hours (considering stops and turnaround time as well)
A train can start at 7 am in the morning from both sides and reach the other side by 3 pm (8 hours) and then depart at 3:30 to reach back by 11:30 and then go for maintenance from 12 midnight to 6 am which in many countries is ample time for basic daily checks.
This way they can ATLEAST have two services everyday. plus the timings arn't too odd. alll communities enroute will have both services during normal hours. Plus you will always have a train in reserve.
@@hysterics8011 i am not talking fantacy. Here in India trains do conver 800 km one way, to and fro journey in a day.
And the timetable I mentioned is that of a train i use quite often to see family. I cover 775 km in 8 hours and it's not that we have some world class rail infrastructure.
And what good is a train that can not maintain a timetable.
The distance is long, and the track does not allow for very high speed
Dedicated high speed lines, on their own tracks, with connections to tradition transit, and no more short flights is a dream of mine too.