Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
I don’t even see the demand for it getting anywhere close. That’s higher than SFO numbers and even those trains are pretty breezy/empty outside of super high traffic hours.
Maybe 4-6 trains an hour. And that would probably be plenty.
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Calgary is a logistics hub. 15 trains an hour could make a ton of sense if it means they can piggy back some of those trains to do delivery. Instead of fleets of Fedex/UPS/Purolator trucks/intelcom going to/from airport constantly, many can go to some location downtown to pick up additional packages? That's not including the others like Canada post and other delivery people that go to those locations. I've seen how crazy it gets at times around Deerfoot city when all of those delivery vehicles suddenly leave at the same time.
That being said, the thread is about passenger rail. So I agree that the volume of people going back and forth between Calgary airport and DT doesn't make sense at 15 ish trips per hour.
I think one of the benefits of train that many will consider is consistency and not having to focus for long periods of time. A Calgary-Edmonton airport to airport rail could make sense if many do not want to spend 3+ hours focusing on driving between the two cities. But IMO the rail project makes a ton more sense if delivery of packages was also factored in.
Basically Fuzz's freight car idea, but I don't know how easy it is to attach and detach freight cars that do 15 trips an hour (ie: 4 minutes per train @ 15 per hour, or 8 mins per train on a dual platform @ 15 per hour?).