Need for speed

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 1:27 PM - 15 Comments

NDP MP Brian Masse wants the government to get aboard the high-speed bandwagon.

Masse sent a letter to federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel and launched a “Need for Speed” campaign calling on the government to join with the private sector and ensure highspeed rail investments become reality.

It should include investments to run a high-speed service through Windsor to Chicago, he said. ”Significant upgrades to Canada’s rail capacity are long overdue and impacting our ability to compete in the global economy,” said Masse in his letter to Lebel. He noted this country remains the only G8 country which has no high-speed rail networks.

The NDP agenda

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 12:25 PM - 8 Comments

The party is ready to propose language law reforms. And Brian Masse, potentially the industry critic in the next NDP shadow cabinet, sees an opportunity for high(er) speed rail.

In the meantime, the federal government should back “prep work” needed for a Windsor to Montreal high-speed network, such as building road-rail grade separations, Masse said. Improving travel time from Windsor to Toronto by an hour to 90 minutes should be the initial goal, he said. “It’s doesn’t have to be high-speed, but can be higher speed,” Masse said. “Then it becomes real viable. That’s when we have a real ability to start connecting it internationally.”

The long, slow ride from NYC to Montréal

By John Parisella - Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 12:08 PM - 0 Comments

8:15am – Penn Station, New York City
If you believe in high speed rail (HSR), you have to have explored the alternatives. Traveling by plane after 9/11 is not a joy ride. Having to arrive two or three hours early on an international flight, going through security checks and hoping there are no delays has become the routine for air travel. Car travel gives us more flexibility, but aside from observing the scenery and watching out for less scrupulous drivers, there is not much more you can do with the time it takes to get to your destination.

The next 11 hours will be my story. I am traveling on the Adirondack, the daily train operated by Amtrak between New York City and Montréal. It covers a distance of approximately 381 miles. I am expecting outstanding scenery through the scenic Hudson Valley and Adirondack Mountains, and to catch up on my reading. All aboard? Continue…

High-speed rail over hockey

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 4:36 PM - 16 Comments

Is this the birth of a brave new Michael Ignatieff?

Leader Michael Ignatieff says he hopes for the return of the Quebec Nordiques, but his funding priority would be the often-discussed and never-built high speed rail link from Quebec City to Windsor.

The popular idea of bringing the Nords back to the provincial capital arose when the city’s incumbent mayor began campaigning on a promise to build a modern arena that could attract an NHL team.

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 28, 2009 at 12:27 PM - 52 Comments

La Presse confirms Michael Ignatieff’s intention to pursue high-speed rail.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff will reportedly promise the building of a high-speed train as part of the Liberal Party’s election platform.

The train would be built along the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, and would have many economic spin-offs for Quebec and Ontario, according to a report in Monday’s La Presse. A high-speed train for the corridor has been studied several times and estimated to cost $20 billion, so the timing of the project would have to depend on government finances at both the federal and provincial levels, the report adds.

High-speed railroading

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 2:27 PM - 115 Comments

From the print edition, Andrew Coyne says a lot of really mean things about my high-speed rail dream. And yet I rather like where his argument ends up.

Unnecessary at any speed

By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 1:50 PM - 84 Comments

It is a special kind of boondoggle that even a politician can resist. People who spend other people’s money for a living aren’t in the habit of asking too many questions at the best of times, still less when even the most colossal waste of funds can be justified as “stimulus.” But when a project promises not only the usual thousands of jobs and billions in spinoff benefits, but to save the earth in the bargain, you’d think they’d be falling over themselves to sign on. But some ideas, it seems, are just too insane.

Hence the latest act in the ongoing, 30-year farce known as high-speed rail. The setting this time is Alberta, but the action is always the same. A consulting firm reports, after many months and millions of dollars, that the latest scheme to link city A to city B by high-speed rail—in this case, Calgary and Edmonton—will cost billions of dollars, in fact billions more than was previously estimated. The politicians take a look at the numbers, blanch, and thank the consultants for their work. The project does not proceed. It never does. Continue…

It's a fast train

By selley - Monday, September 22, 2008 at 6:32 PM - 7 Comments

Elizabeth May on our Green, glorious, incredibly fast future:

“When we really make history is when we get to Parliament, and we are able to change transportation policy in this country to ensure we have access to modern, high-speed trains,” she said in Kamloops.

“If we had access to Canadian-made Bombardier trains that people do in China and Spain and other advanced countries … the trip from coast to coast would be 18 hours instead of five days.”

You won’t find a bigger fan of high-speed rail than me. It’s the tops—the bees’ knees. A true high-speed line between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal would put the airlines out of business in two weeks, and we’d all wonder why the hell we hadn’t done it years earlier. And the Greens, to their great credit, are avid proponents such ideas.

But an 18-hour trip from Vancouver to Halifax? Well, It’s ambitious, I’ll give them that. May’s vision, assuming it followed the same route she’s taking on her whistlestop tour, would necessitate a coast-to-coast average speed of 353 km/h—a world record, and not just by a little. The current A-to-B speed record for conventional high-speed rail, according to the Railway Gazette‘s 2007 survey, is 279.3 km/h over a distance of 167.6 km. Vancouver to Halifax, on VIA Rail’s current route, is 6,531 km. I’m all for thinking big, but maybe we should start out in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal and see how it goes.