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The Need for High-Speed Makes Tracks

By RichardWhittall

20090212highspeedrail2.jpg
Photo by uwajedi from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.


Most Canadians aren’t really aware how President Barack Obama’s $789 billion (at last count) stimulus package might directly benefit this country, but there is at least one area of United States infrastructure improvement that, if approved, could have an enormous impact on the city of Toronto.
That’s the plan backed by several congressional representatives from upstate New York along with Hillary Clinton’s senatorial replacement, Kirsten Gillibrand, to direct stimulus money toward a high-speed rail corridor extending from New York City through Albany and Buffalo and terminating in Toronto. High-speed rail, in addition to its efficient use of energy and relatively low environmental impact, could cut travel time from Toronto to New York to less than an hour, a potential boon for inter-city travel and a catalyst for all sorts of cross-collaborative cultural mash-ups.
But don’t get too excited by thoughts of racing through Schenectady at 400 kilometres per hour on your way to a weekend show at the MOMA; so far plans are only in the “extremely vague” phase, with the stimulus bill still awaiting the president’s signature. Still, the timing seems right; it was only this past December that U of T engineers made recommendations to Dalton McGuinty for a high-speed rail corridor connecting the Golden Horseshoe, advice included in Roger Martin and Richard Florida’s economic blueprint for the Government of Ontario. Perhaps if local politicians pushed Steven Harper to discuss the idea further with President Obama when he visits Ottawa this February 19, the idea could gain traction. But then again, considering the fate of similar plans for cutting-edge technology in this province, high-speed rail may still be a long way off.
Thanks to Jonathan Taylor for the tip.

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  • http://null Robsonian

    It CAN’T take less than an hour.
    I won’t believe it!

  • http://null Astin

    At 800km between here and NYC, that would be quite the feat. Let’s just assume an hour to New York state, because that seems to be the definition of “high speed” in this country.
    I doubt we’ll see a true high speed train in this country in the lifetime of anybody reading this. Despite what David Suzuki may want. The costs are just too big, and the vision too long-term for any Canadian party to endores and support it long enough. If this wasn’t the case, there’d long ago have been one built in the Windsor-Ottawa corridor, and we’d be talking about great the trans-Canada high speed line will be when it’s finished.

  • http://null dowlingm

    Google Earth puts Toronto-New York as 560km straight line, 772km by road. The fastest in-service long-distance trains in the world top out at 350km/h and average about 250km/h. That’s 3.5 hours minimum even with on-board immigration control etc.
    The Americans won’t buy those trains at the moment because they insist on adding extra weight to them so they can co-exist with freight, which is why the Acela tops out at 240km/h over about 20 miles of track (but has a trip average speed of 140km/h which will tell you how often it has to slow for unimproved track).
    The fallacy of improving rail is all about improving maximum speed when it should be about a) journey time and b) trip average speed. Journey time is reduced by having trains more often (less waiting time in stations). Trip average speed is improved with modern signals that allow trains to run closer together and more tracks so that trains don’t have to stop in sidings to allow another train to pass in the other direction.
    VIA Rail, a little at a time, is doing this and against all expectations the Tories have been giving them some money to do it. They could give more and VIA could do it quicker but it’s the right approach as long as it is persisted with steadily until the last of the bottlenecks are remediated and we can get on with real improvements like modern signalling, electrification and so on.
    Add to the problems above in respect of TOR-NYC that of customs – Vancouver-Seattle isn’t getting more trains before the Olympics even after millions were spent on extra tracks. Why? Canada Customs wants $$$$$$$$$$ to allow one extra train a day! With crap like that allowed to continue how can we aspire to bullet trains?
    By the way – Vancouver-Seattle 4hr20 to do 251km – that’s 58km/h average speed folks. (amtrak.com) No chance that Sea-Tac could relieve the zoo that YVR is going to be one year from now. No chance that US visitors will park and ride rather than be tailbacked down I-5. According to wiki, the Seattle Amtrak train itself has a dead locomotive with a concrete weight inside acting as a rear-end control cab. This is the reality of passenger rail in the US right now.
    High speed rail in the US is likely to work best where there is an expanse of open land and thus few obstructions to a wholly new track and little need for intermediate stops. Las Vegas-Los Angeles is a prime corridor to run a new, segregated-from-freight 350km/h Siemens Velaro or Alstom AGV. Pushing one through the Poconos? Not so much.

  • http://null lunarworks

    I’ve traveled that route a few times. You usually end up sitting at the border for two hours… minimum.
    Then, if they’re even 5 minutes off schedule, they have to sit and let freight trains go through at various points on the trip. Freight has priority. Add another hour or two.

  • http://undefined Vincent Clement

    Less than an hour? Does the phrase “fact checking” mean anything at Torontoist?

  • http://www.amoresplendidlife.com Richard Whittall

    Well, less than an hour from the Toronto corridor to the New York line is the idea, but as earlier commenters pointed out, that would involve a fairly complicated and probably unlikely border agreement…but granted, it’s ambiguous, which is the fault of the author.

  • http://null ked

    Want!

  • David Topping

    The Washington Post dismissed the idea as pork this morning, for what that’s worth, but the stimulus package did pass in the House today, and the Post did include the exciting detail that the speed of the train would be more like 500 kilometres per hour! Why, Vincent, that’s faster than the speed of your outrage! Richard already mentioned this above and Astin caught it too, but the “under an hour” figure was referring to New York state, not New York City (the post mentions both the state and the city in that same paragraph). The article should have been clearer on that point but it’s really not worth freaking out about.

  • http://null Chester Pape

    It’s frustrating that we can have an uninterrupted roadbed from just this side of Windsor to Quebec City for cars and trucks (i.e. the 401/Tcan) but can’t do the same thing for rail.
    There are something like 400 level crossings on the CN tracks between Toronto and Montreal. The thing that limits the speed of VIA now is level crossing signals, they detect an approaching train 1/4 mile from the crossing, at the current top speed of 160km/hr that provides 9 seconds to start the bells and lights flashing and drop the gate (if any) before the train gets to the crossing. The rolling stock and road bed could go quite a bit faster but redoing the signals for earlier detection is deemed too expensive.

  • http://null TokyoTuds

    The 894 km from Tokyo to Hiroshima is covered in about 4 hours for 18,000 yen one-way (C$240). Under 4 hours to NYC sounds good to me. About 890 km from Windsor to Montreal also possible in 4 hours … nice!

  • http://null TokyoTuds

    We should build 2 double-track routs in the Windsor-Quebec City corridor.
    1) The Ottawa Route
    Windsor-London-KW-Toronto-Peterborough-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City
    2) The Hamilton Route
    Windsor-London-Hamilton-Toronto-Kingston-Montreal-Quebec City