VIA Rail Service Between Edmonton and Calgary

[Reecemartin]

Need a cash injection to improve the tracks and you could easily have service t 140kph

 

[darwink]

Need a cash injection to improve the tracks and you could easily have service t 140kph

Yeah, the province has studies this extensively and found the number is rather large to get to a standard level, and that there is a better economic case for going directly to high speed than for standard, as your incremental ridership more than pays for the incremental capital and operating.

 

[Reecemartin]

Idk, I can't imagining the upgrades necessary to initiate standard diesel service would be that expensive?

 

[darwink]

Idk, I can't imagining the upgrades necessary to initiate standard diesel service would be that expensive?

To have service that is faster or even as fast as a bus, pretty expensive. There is a reason the service was suspended 30 years ago. The rail lines are reasonably well used by freight and mostly single track.

 

[Platinum107]

Hey, a little bit off topic but I recently read that China wants to make and 8000 mi long high-speed rail route between Beijing and The US that would cross through Siberia and Canada. They want to go under the bearing strait as a way to get across the Continents. I'm pretty sure they would want to put at least some stops in Canada.

Also, This line as we all could imagine, is pretty controversial, as three out of the four countries are very different politically.

Here are some articles:
https://www.mtlblog.com/news/china-to-build-13000-km-underwater-railway-line-to-canada-united-states
https://anonhq.com/china-plans-8000-mile-high-speed-train-to-america-via-125-mile-undersea-tunnel/

 

[Reecemartin]

Hey, a little bit off topic but I recently read that China wants to make and 8000 mi long high-speed rail route between Beijing and The US that would cross through Siberia and Canada. They want to go under the bearing strait as a way to get across the Continents. I'm pretty sure they would want to put at least some stops in Canada.

Also, This line as we all could imagine, is pretty controversial, as three out of the four countries are very different politically.

Here are some articles:
https://www.mtlblog.com/news/china-to-build-13000-km-underwater-railway-line-to-canada-united-states
https://anonhq.com/china-plans-8000-mile-high-speed-train-to-america-via-125-mile-undersea-tunnel/

There are so many reasons why that project is never going to happen, and I also think that proposal is a few years old.

 

[chrisvazquez7]

The CP line is currently 55 mph for freight for most of the way between Calgary and Edmonton. Passenger trains can generally go 10-15 mph faster than the freight speed, so that’s not far off from 120-140km/h...

 

[Reecemartin]

The CP line is currently 55 mph for freight for most of the way between Calgary and Edmonton. Passenger trains can generally go 10-15 mph faster than the freight speed, so that’s not far off from 120-140km/h...

Even four daily trains would be a start and you'd only need two trains to make that happen reliably, if there was a will for such a service it could certainly happen and I think with nice trainsets it could actually be fairly popular.

 

[darwink]

But you need to be able to pass freight trains to actually reach anywhere close to those speeds.

 

[darwink]

From VIA rail's 1984 study:

 

[darwink]

From CP Rail's 1974 study, they estimated getting to 8 round trips a day at 95 miles per hour would cost $450 million ($2.3 billion today). For 120 miles per hour would only be marginally more, at $500 million ($2.5 billion). It would follow the CPR alignment.