High Speed Rail - Calgary/Edmonton

[Bindair Dundat]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Back to where we started. If there are vehicles behind you and nobody in front of you, then move over to the right.

Full circle..and back to my initial point:

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. Always have an escape route in mind for collision avoidance and modify your speed as required. A GOOD driver will rarely touch his brakes, as he has already seen what is coming and has used the braking power of his drivetrain to bring him down to a lower speed. This is what PROPER following distance gives you. This is why I get P.O.'ed about the "White Knuckle" crowd...
They force defensive drivers (like myself) into quick reaction situations which are basically ?

Only a creation of their own incompetence...

And the beat goes on (lah-de-dah de-dee)

Really people? It's not that difficult.

[doozwimp]

Christ I love trains.

[Bindair Dundat]

Originally Posted by doozwimp

Christ I love trains.

Me too.
Whether it makes sense economically is the heart of the matter under discussion here.
I am a businessman, yet I have no need to commute between Calgary and Edmonton.
I am also a rate-payer and there are maaaaany projects that I'd prefer to see prioritized before this one.
Just saying

[stampsx2]

Let's be realistic, nobody in this thread would continue going 130km/h in the left lane "to not impede traffic" if they saw a cop ahead. They wouldn't pass on the left going over the speed limit either if it were a cop they were passing.

[calgarywinning]

Well there is also a general understanding to move with the flow of traffic. Whether that be slightly faster than the posted speed limit or slower in inclement weather. This to me seems to be common sense.

As far as police officers go, if you interview any of them, the bane of their existence is the "by the book" driving that happens when they are on the road. They can't stand it. Often they will move with the flow of traffic which means you will see many cruisers on the deer foot exceeding the posted limit and other streets.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Let's be realistic, nobody in this thread would continue going 130km/h in the left lane "to not impede traffic" if they saw a cop ahead. They wouldn't pass on the left going over the speed limit either if it were a cop they were passing.

I've done both on the QE2... RCMP cop was going at least 20 over the speed limit as well, since that's what the flow was. It's one of those things where the law intersects with common sense. Bit of a grey area, but you won't get dinged for it if you're driving with the conditions.

Notice how most people that get pulled over for speeding were going faster than everyone else? Not necessarily because they were exceeding the speed limit (To a point) but because they were exceeding the flow

[OffsideSpecialist]

Nvm

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by ken0042

From www.qp.alberta.ca/documents/Regs/2002_304.pdf
(I can't get the PDF to open.)

2(1) A person shall not do any of the following:

drive a vehicle at such a slow rate of speed so as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic then existing on a highway except when it is necessary to do so for the safe operation of the vehicle or to comply with Parts 1 and 2.

Bottom line, let the police do the policing of traffic laws.

I also note that doesn't apply on rural highways.

(b) subject to this Part and Part 2, where a highway that is
located outside an urban area has 2 or more traffic lanes
on the same side of the centre line for use by vehicles
travelling in the same direction, drive a vehicle in the
traffic lane nearest the centre line unless the vehicle is
being driven at or near the maximum speed permitted;

[Wormius]

Thought this thread was about a potential high speed rail line. Anyway, I was going to suggest that Calgary->Edmonton route is a bit short-sighted. I would hope the goal would be to at least serve a few other stops than just Calgary and Edmonton. More of a Medicine Hat/Lethbridge/Calgary/Red Deer/Edmonton/beyond high-speed rail line would be more useful.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Anyway, I was going to suggest that Calgary->Edmonton route is a bit short-sighted. I would hope the goal would be to at least serve a few other stops than just Calgary and Edmonton. More of a Medicine Hat/Lethbridge/Calgary/Red Deer/Edmonton/beyond high-speed rail line would be more useful.

If people don't think the route between Calgary and Edmonton would be used enough to justify the price tag, then adding Medicine Hat and Lethbridge would make it atrocious. Even Red Deer is only justifiable because it happens to be along the way.

Medicine Hat to Calgary is pretty much the same distance as Edmonton to Calgary...so double the infrastructure, yet I'm sure a tiny fraction of added ridership. If we're planning fantasy extensions, you'd be much better off going Edmonton>Red Deer>Calgary>Canmore>Banff. That extra route to the Rockies would at least get steady tourists year round.

[octothorp]

Hey, we're back to talking about trains? Awesome.

It was interesting to read the link a few pages back to the Chinese testing a cold-weather train last winter. Certainly the climate of Harbin is equatable to Alberta; if anything, Harbin is colder in the winter and hotter in the summer. The cost for the constuction of that line was about 16 billion, for a 921 km route, but experienced significant overruns because of frost heaving during construction. The winter timetable (3 months a year) currently operates at 200km/h on the winter timetable, and the summer timetable runs at 300km/h.

Anyway, big difference is it's serving a number of cities that are in the 3-5 million population range. It averages 78,000 passengers a day, and right now it's running 14 to 18 trips a day, each way. An end-to-end ticket costs $81 Canadian, and would be higher in summer months. That would be about $6 million a day in ticket revenue if every one of those passengers were getting an end-to-end ticket, but since most probably aren't, it might be $3 million in revenue a day, and nearly 2 billion a year. No idea what the operating costs are, but it'll pay for itself pretty quickly for them.

Ours would, by comparison, be lucky to have a tenth of the ridership, (the 2004 study suggests 1.3 million to 1.6 million, vs. 28 million plus for Harbin-Dailin), and could charge at best double or triple the ticket price. Operating costs would be significantly lower, with only a few pairs of trains vs the 67 that China did for this line, and lower maintenance costs for a far shorter length of track.

I'm not really comparing the two, they're really apples and oranges. But it was interesting to look at the numbers of another cold climate HSR.

[MelBridgeman]

Let's get the chinese to build it!!!!
http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2014/05/c...ing-vancouver/

CHINA PROPOSES TO FUND AND BUILD HIGH-SPEED RAIL LINE FROM BEIJING TO VANCOUVER

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Let's get the chinese to build it!!!!
http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2014/05/c...ing-vancouver/

Why bother with a 37 hour train ride when you can accomplish the trip via plane in half a day? What a terrible idea.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Why bother with a 37 hour train ride when you can accomplish the trip via plane in half a day? What a terrible idea.

That wouldn't be for passengers.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

That wouldn't be for passengers.

I assumed it was passenger but for cargo it seems a little more logical although at $2 Trillion it seems very uneconomic vs conventional ship transport. They would be better off putting that money towards R&D for improving ships.

[Krovikan]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Why bother with a 37 hour train ride when you can accomplish the trip via plane in half a day? What a terrible idea.

Freight and fiber line

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Ahuch]

Pretty pointless if you need a car once you get to either Calgary or Edmonton. Make transit useful in the major centers first.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I assumed it was passenger but for cargo it seems a little more logical although at $2 Trillion it seems very uneconomic vs conventional ship transport. They would be better off putting that money towards R&D for improving ships.

All the R&D in the world doesn't get cargo across the ocean in 37 hours.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Ahuch

Pretty pointless if you need a car once you get to either Calgary or Edmonton. Make transit useful in the major centers first.

That's basically the crux of the entire project. Access and egress to and from the train stations kills the economics of these projects. If Calgary and Edmonton were more dense and by virtue of that had better transit then a HSR would likely make sense. But there's no point once you get downtown with no car. That will severely undercut the ridership potential and make the payback for the HSR untenable.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Ahuch

Pretty pointless if you need a car once you get to either Calgary or Edmonton. Make transit useful in the major centers first.

Originally Posted by Tinordi

That's basically the crux of the entire project. Access and egress to and from the train stations kills the economics of these projects. If Calgary and Edmonton were more dense and by virtue of that had better transit then a HSR would likely make sense. But there's no point once you get downtown with no car. That will severely undercut the ridership potential and make the payback for the HSR untenable.

It's settled then, get Car2Go up and running in YEG.

Or could they do like the Chunnel trains and have some vehicle cars, so you have your vehicle upon arrival.