High speed train along QE2

[littledan]

I think if we are kicking this idea around, we need to look at how viable it would be in the future. I can definately forsee a time within the next 15 to 20 years where cost of driving from edmonton to calgary could start to escalate with increasing gas prices. also with our economy booming there will be much more migration to the 2 major cities here in AB. having a high speed rail link would definately be utilized especially by business people in the 2 cities. i'm all for it. if we dont get started on it now, and continue with our short sighted infrastructure planning, we will never be world class communities.

[RickDaTuner]

we should get some of those new 540km/h TGV high speed train, that would take the transit time down to about 30-40min, then it would be worth it, heck that would beat, flying to e-town, Less security, faster transition between destinations, way more convenient.

they should have done this back in 92 when both cities economies were emerging, heck the thing would have been paid off by now

[malbadon]

You have to remember that even if they started construction now, it would take 10-15 years to build. So the train isn't for Calgary/Edmonton/Ft.Mac now, its for those cities in 2020. They will have to study whether the assumed populations by them (I'll just ballpark 1.5 Calgary, 1.0 Edmonton, 100k FtMac) justifies a HS commuter train.

Having lived through the joke that was the Coquihalla project in BC (three times the budget and a toll that was only supposed to be in place to pay it off but just ended up staying as an additional tax revenue) I'm wary of most big projects. But the news is right about some things, if it's done like the European projects, where public/private money is involved, it comes in on budget, and it stays privately run with the government getting a cut to pay them back for the investment, it could be a useful project for long-term Alberta, assuming it will be used enough to justify it in the first place.

[blueToy]

Originally posted by kertejud2


Flying isn't really that much faster if you take into account that the Edmonton airport is miles outside of the city.

Flying was also seen as an unviable option for major carriers, not to mention the environmental impact and needless increases in airport traffic.



The biggest problem with the train is price. If it was cheap enough it would be extremely popular, but I can't see this province going with a subsidized provincial train link to be perfectly honest.
The other which has been brought up is the underdeveloped public transit in Calgary and Edmonton. Sure you can take the train up, but then it gets tough to get around. Calgary is much better set up for it simply because our main attractions are on the LRT lines (and we have the better downtown). But most of the stuff that goes on in Edmonton is out of the way.

Flying may be a unviable option ? There are 12 flights from Calgary to Edmonton between 6 am this morning and 12:30 this afternoon ! If you book in advance and buy bulk trips , it's actually a very reasonable price .

As for train ticket prices , with a investment of at least 3 billion dollars , which may go as high as 12 billion !!! , you can bet your bottom dollar that it wouldn't be cheap . My guess would be at least $150 , one way . They would probably find a median range after a few months of trial and error for the price just to keep it going , even if were to lose billions , because once you set these mega-projects in motion , they have to keep them running no matter what .

So say prices are $150 per trip . How many people do you think will take the link ? Say 1000 people per day . Times that by 7 days , and times that by 54 weeks . Even with no costs put towards powering the thing or maintenance , it still would take well over our lifetime to pay for itself . And for what ? 1000 people who cannot drive/fly or bus up to Edmonton ???? Makes absolutely no sense to me . We just don't have the population base to make this thing work , or to make it benefit the cost outlay . This has been , and will for many years to come , a white elephant in the making .

As a side note , as mentioned before , this has all the makings of a slush fund for our local government . They may start to really push a project like this to help offset the downturn we will have in the next 2-3 years . Come on , they can't even give you a rough idea of final costs . Somewhere between 3-12 Billion ?????

[LLLimit]

what land are they going to use for this HS train?

If farmers wont let the 500kV transmission line go through their land, I wonder how they are going to get a train through.

[98brg2d]

For those saying take the flight you obviously haven't done it much. It takes just as long to fly as it does to drive due to the increased time required for check in, loading and unloading. I have done this many times (flying and driving) in the last year and it is a wash.

Everybody thinks the flight is only 45 minutes and you are there but you have to check in 60 minutes before boarding, boarding/taxiing takes 15 minutes, flight is about 50 minutes and taxiing/unboarding takes another 15 minutes, then you have a taxi or a shuttle to the rental shop and even more time. It also takes me 45 minutes to drive to the airport and 10 to park and get inside. This adds up to 3 hours and 15 minutes not including the taxi/rental time in Edmonton.

If I could drive 45 minutes to the train, ride the train for 60 minutes and then taxi I would be ahead of a driver or a flyer by probably an hour after loading/unloading.

[blueToy]

Originally posted by LLLimit
what land are they going to use for this HS train?

If farmers wont let the 500kV transmission line go through their land, I wonder how they are going to get a train through.

MONEY ! Huge bags of it . The amount of money that was supposed to be given to the landowners for that 500kV line wasn't a huge sum . It was a private consortium that wanted that project to go thru , and they had to post profits so the money allocated for the line's right-of-way really wasn't huge .
But Stelmach's new government would likely pump huge volumes to landowners as he himself is a farmer , no ? Farming has recently taken a downturn as well when our dollar went up . The feds just gave them another $400 million just before Christmas I believe .

Wave a big bag'o'cash in any persons face and I'll bet you they'd sell in a heartbeat . New pick-ups are now $60 ,000 + ,

[blueToy]

Originally posted by 98brg2d
For those saying take the flight you obviously haven't done it much. It takes just as long to fly as it does to drive due to the increased time required for check in, loading and unloading. I have done this many times (flying and driving) in the last year and it is a wash.

Everybody thinks the flight is only 45 minutes and you are there but you have to check in 60 minutes before boarding, boarding/taxiing takes 15 minutes, flight is about 50 minutes and taxiing/unboarding takes another 15 minutes, then you have a taxi or a shuttle to the rental shop and even more time. It also takes me 45 minutes to drive to the airport and 10 to park and get inside. This adds up to 3 hours and 15 minutes not including the taxi/rental time in Edmonton.

If I could drive 45 minutes to the train, ride the train for 60 minutes and then taxi I would be ahead of a driver or a flyer by probably an hour after loading/unloading.

Oh , I concur . It's almost never what it's supposed to be . Kinda like how the folks working up north are becoming rich

Let's take a closer look at the proposed train , shall we .
Drive to train station , and park . Sure , I'll go with 45 minutes like you mentioned .
Board train and wait for schedualed time for departure . Now , I'm no expert on this , but I'm assuming that right out of the box this train isn't gonna pick up and hit top speed whilst it's in city limits , so it'll probably putt out till it hits the open country . Probably up to a hour+ now . So it's in open country and the engineer takes it to it's max . Now , I know France's TVG can max out at 550+ or whatever speed they get to , but I'm pretty sure for our conditions here in Alberta we're not going to get anything remotely that fast seeing our temperatures etc. are more sever then France . Even a steady 400+kph I'm thinking would be pretty far fetched . Anyway , even once the engineer got up to speed and started racking up the miles , it'd really wouldn't be too long before he'd have to back off and start slowing it down because from what I've read , the high-speed train is not a direct Calgary to Edmonton route , it actually is going to stop in Red Deer . So , they slow down , and stop to pick up more passengers from RD . Again , start up slowly until cleared of city limits , then off to Edmonton where you do the same thing ( city limits -> putts to station )

Sooo , by the time you end up wherever they are going to drop you off in Edmonton , and you get a ride or taxi to wherever you'd going to , I'm betting the reality of time is going to be much greater then just drawing a straight line on a map between Calgary and Edmonton and calculating the maximum speed of a TVG . The " real " time you save would be nominal at best . For what , a $ 3-12 Billion dollar investment ?

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by LLLimit
what land are they going to use for this HS train?

If farmers wont let the 500kV transmission line go through their land, I wonder how they are going to get a train through.

I was under the notion that the province has most of the land (but I have a feeling I might be confusing it with the West LRT line, I've been really tired this week).

Its the cities that would be the biggest problem ( A downtown station in Calgary and Edmonton wouldn't be cheap).

[98brg2d]

Oh , I concur . It's almost never what it's supposed to be . Kinda like how the folks working up north are becoming rich

Let's take a closer look at the proposed train , shall we .
Drive to train station , and park . Sure , I'll go with 45 minutes like you mentioned .
Board train and wait for schedualed time for departure . Now , I'm no expert on this , but I'm assuming that right out of the box this train isn't gonna pick up and hit top speed whilst it's in city limits , so it'll probably putt out till it hits the open country . Probably up to a hour+ now . So it's in open country and the engineer takes it to it's max . Now , I know France's TVG can max out at 550+ or whatever speed they get to , but I'm pretty sure for our conditions here in Alberta we're not going to get anything remotely that fast seeing our temperatures etc. are more sever then France . Even a steady 400+kph I'm thinking would be pretty far fetched . Anyway , even once the engineer got up to speed and started racking up the miles , it'd really wouldn't be too long before he'd have to back off and start slowing it down because from what I've read , the high-speed train is not a direct Calgary to Edmonton route , it actually is going to stop in Red Deer . So , they slow down , and stop to pick up more passengers from RD . Again , start up slowly until cleared of city limits , then off to Edmonton where you do the same thing ( city limits -> putts to station )

Sooo , by the time you end up wherever they are going to drop you off in Edmonton , and you get a ride or taxi to wherever you'd going to , I'm betting the reality of time is going to be much greater then just drawing a straight line on a map between Calgary and Edmonton and calculating the maximum speed of a TVG . The " real " time you save would be nominal at best . For what , a $ 3-12 Billion dollar investment ?

I agree that it may end up being a marginal benefit (just like flying vs driving). I think the big problem with what is currently proposed is that it is some sort of "milk run" with too many stops (Red Deer is too many, sorry Red Deer people, but its true, nobody wants to stop there). Terminal placement would be key but remember that from city center to city center is under 300 km and from the north edge of Calgary to the south edge of Edmonton is only around 260 km.

Edit: those are driving distances not train line type distance, which would be even less.

[ashee]

They should have a highspeed train accross the country too, that is another option to flying that doesn't cost $800+.

[culebra]

If you include the time you spend on check-in, security check, boarding time and baggage pickup. You can't say it takes less than driving.

Originally posted by blueToy

why don't you fly ? Several flights leave daily for Edmonton , and it's not super expensive , yet way faster then the train would ever be .

[blueToy]

Originally posted by culebra
If you include the time you spend on check-in, security check, boarding time and baggage pickup. You can't say it takes less than driving.

I agree . My bring up flying was in responce to someone who mentioned they don't like to drive , or found it boring unless they could speed or something .

Personally , I love to drive . This is after all a car forum , no , lol ? Those that don't share my passion do have a alternative already . Adding yet another , for that amount of money would be extremely foolish , IMHO .

[hjr]

Originally posted by ashee
They should have a highspeed train accross the country too, that is another option to flying that doesn't cost $800+.

umm, it probably would cost as much if not more.


the real issue is cost. the train would cost too much. sure there are lots of people who make the trip, but what happens when you get into town, taxi about? in the long run its not practical in a society which values the car as much as we do

[ashee]

Originally posted by culebra
If you include the time you spend on check-in, security check, boarding time and baggage pickup. You can't say it takes less than driving.

For a train?
Baggage pick up isn't exactly tedious considering its either in the overhead or at the end of your car and you just pick it up as you exit...

[BlackArcher101]

Heavily against the train line and even more so if Bombardier is involved.