11-05-2015, 04:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-05-2015, 04:36 PM by BuildingScout.)
(11-05-2015, 03:21 PM)plam Wrote: I'd still like to see better figures, but the Via Rail CEO claims that dedicated tracks ($2B) + new trains ($1B) cost $3B in all, plus $1B for electrification, while HSR costs $10B. The passenger estimates are 7M for dedicated tracks and 10M for HSR.
So he is claiming that HSR rail on the same land, already electrified line costs $6 billion more than regular rail? hmm... interesting.
Quote:I saw passenger numbers out of YYZ somewhere, and it does seem like there really is a lot of air traffic between YYZ and YUL. I think it was 2M/year?
To that we need to add bus traffic, car traffic, existing train traffic and new demand both in end to end trips and points in between. For example there would be thousands of trips a day for people going from Kingston to YYZ, YTZ, YOW or YUL.
What they have found in Germany is that availability of HSR creates traffic. Say for example, many people today refuse to commute 90min to downtown Toronto. If we offer 55min fast train, then maybe we double the number of people who would consider commuting. If we offer 35min service the number doubles yet again. Now it becomes feasible for people to use KW as a dormitory community as well as for working couples where one is employed in KW the other in T.O.
This is what happened in, for example, the Frankfurt-Koln corridor. You see hordes of bankers with their pressed suits in suit bags rushing to take the morning trains into Frankfurt. There are 8 HSR trains between 7am and 9am covering the 220km span between Koln and Frankfurt airport in 50 min, then doubling back into Frankfurt Hbf for a total time of 1hr04min. Some trains have three additional stops in Bonn, Montabaur and Limburg increasing the time by 17 minutes to 1hr21min. This matches the estimate I had given earlier of 5-6min added per stop, including wait time.