Canada is great at high-speed rail studies — but not at actually building high-speed rail. So why is it the only country in the developed world considering a...
Canada is great at high-speed rail studies — but not at actually building high-speed rail. So why is it the only country in the developed world considering a new conventional-speed passenger network?
Created by Paige Saunders with special guest Reece Martin
Trains competing with planes don’t have to win by speed. Even if it takes 5x longer, I’d prefer taking the train. And that’s a feasible speed for HSR. The current state is >20x longer, so yeah if we don’t put in the effort of building HSR through the rockies, they will never compete indeed.
Canada used to have that. But then we decided to urbanize, which allows people to walk everywhere, and thus we eventually had no need for the transit and eventually we ripped it up. It’s interesting we want to go back to the rural lifestyle again.
I agree when it comes to transporting goods, but low speed rail isn’t good enough to transport people. Remember, isn’t actually that insanely fast. They start at 200km/h, so aren’t anything too amazing at the lower end.
That said, if we can get some more low speed rail for goods installed, the tax revenue from that alone should give the governments more than enough to set up high speed rail lines soon after. Canada has a serious internal trade problem. Every single province trades more with the US than their neighbouring province. More cargo rail would help fix that.
In addition, since cargo and passenger rail is combined right now, passenger trains need to wait hours for cargo trains to pass through sections of it because they have priority. Just building a new cargo line would significantly reduce this one problem even if cargo trains are still allowed to use the old lines.
But I’ll point out that 200km/h is still ~50% higher than highway speeds, with no traffic, and you can still focus on other things.
So even low end rail is still better than driving.
I just don’t feel like 50% faster is enough. People are just so attached to their cars that they’ll just rent one if they can’t afford to own one. People in Canada compare things against planes if they talk about riding, so I think 200km/h is still a bit low unless if it’s a short trip, which I doubt it would be. Most likely it’ll be something like between Toronto and Ottawa, or Ottawa and Montreal.
200km/h isn’t quite enough to make the trip feel short. I think you’d have to be closing in on 300km/h before people take high speed rail seriously, as then you’d be doing less than 2 hours including boarding for a trip like that, where boarding on a plane alone would take much of those 2 hours, though the flight itself would be quite a bit faster.
I agree with the need for more lines. Here in Ontario, I think ViaRail has to share the only line with other rail companies. So, if a train needs to get past in the other direction, you have to sit on a side line and wait. So annoying!
I priced a return trip from Ottawa to London for three and it was almost $900+tax (I think it didn’t include tax), taking 8-10 hours.
Sharing lines isn’t that unusual, it’s been done since the dawn of the railroads. It’s just that freight would be waiting on sidings while passenger and mail moved. Via Rail is just bass-ackwards.
I suppose the problem is that CN or CP own the tracks, and Via is just the renter, so CN and CP give lower priority.
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I’m not even sure I mind low speed rail. I just want more and cheaper lines to everywhere. It’s way nicer than busses.
High speed can come afterwards if we can get public thinking behind trains as regular transport
Comparing to buses, sure, LSR is fine.
Vancouver to Toronto takes 4 days by train, though. So if we want trains to compete with airplanes, it has to be HSR.
Trains will never compete with planes on a route that long, even if they were high speed. Also good luck building HSR through the rockies
Not with that mentality! lol jk
Trains competing with planes don’t have to win by speed. Even if it takes 5x longer, I’d prefer taking the train. And that’s a feasible speed for HSR. The current state is >20x longer, so yeah if we don’t put in the effort of building HSR through the rockies, they will never compete indeed.
Canada used to have that. But then we decided to urbanize, which allows people to walk everywhere, and thus we eventually had no need for the transit and eventually we ripped it up. It’s interesting we want to go back to the rural lifestyle again.
I agree when it comes to transporting goods, but low speed rail isn’t good enough to transport people. Remember, isn’t actually that insanely fast. They start at 200km/h, so aren’t anything too amazing at the lower end.
That said, if we can get some more low speed rail for goods installed, the tax revenue from that alone should give the governments more than enough to set up high speed rail lines soon after. Canada has a serious internal trade problem. Every single province trades more with the US than their neighbouring province. More cargo rail would help fix that.
In addition, since cargo and passenger rail is combined right now, passenger trains need to wait hours for cargo trains to pass through sections of it because they have priority. Just building a new cargo line would significantly reduce this one problem even if cargo trains are still allowed to use the old lines.
I agree with you mostly.
But I’ll point out that 200km/h is still ~50% higher than highway speeds, with no traffic, and you can still focus on other things. So even low end rail is still better than driving.
100% increase, if you’re talking about 100kmh roads. You’d need to be doing 130 for it to be a 50% increase.
I assume you mean 150 unless I’m misunderstanding something.
130 to 200 would be an increase of 50%, ish, 65 being 50% of 130.
I thought you meant 100 to 150. My bad.
For a fair comparison I’m assuming that most people will speed on the highway
I just don’t feel like 50% faster is enough. People are just so attached to their cars that they’ll just rent one if they can’t afford to own one. People in Canada compare things against planes if they talk about riding, so I think 200km/h is still a bit low unless if it’s a short trip, which I doubt it would be. Most likely it’ll be something like between Toronto and Ottawa, or Ottawa and Montreal.
200km/h isn’t quite enough to make the trip feel short. I think you’d have to be closing in on 300km/h before people take high speed rail seriously, as then you’d be doing less than 2 hours including boarding for a trip like that, where boarding on a plane alone would take much of those 2 hours, though the flight itself would be quite a bit faster.
I agree with the need for more lines. Here in Ontario, I think ViaRail has to share the only line with other rail companies. So, if a train needs to get past in the other direction, you have to sit on a side line and wait. So annoying!
I priced a return trip from Ottawa to London for three and it was almost $900+tax (I think it didn’t include tax), taking 8-10 hours.
Sharing lines isn’t that unusual, it’s been done since the dawn of the railroads. It’s just that freight would be waiting on sidings while passenger and mail moved. Via Rail is just bass-ackwards.
I suppose the problem is that CN or CP own the tracks, and Via is just the renter, so CN and CP give lower priority.