Renewed passenger rail service between Banff and Calgary?

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Wouldn't a train system have issues due to weather? That's a long track through an area prone to extreme conditions for most of the year, whether it's snow, wind or hailstorms. I imagine it would need to be sheltered somehow, which means you're not getting much of a view on the way.

The train will have a roof.

[Fuzz]

I hear they come with walls and windows, too.

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

The train will have a roof.

Well that's all well and good but how will people see out the sides? X-ray vision???

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Hilarious. I'm obviously talking about sheltering the tracks themselves. I have no idea what type of wind gust it would take to cause problems for a train or what size of hail could damage something external and important, but...

[topfiverecords]

Did I wake up in 1830?

[Fuzz]

You know trains run on that section year round, right? And it's pretty mild compared to the Field hill and Rogers Pass.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by GGG

First you need to drastically improve the Banff transportation once you get there. A train to downtown Banff is pretty useless.

Banff isn't that big?

Even in the winter it was very walkable.

Maybe a Minnewanka to hot springs & gondola shuttle running as frequently as the trains here would be useful for the fringe activities.

[Hockeyguy15]

If cars can make it...

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You know trains run on that section year round, right? And it's pretty mild compared to the Field hill and Rogers Pass.

Well, sure, if we're talking about an old school rail system then I guess there's probably no major issue. I thought this was suggesting something more fancy and modern.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Lessee of the Banff Station who owns Mount Norquay had great plans to build a gondola up from the station to the Norquay parking lot. Would effectively stop cars from going up the mountain.

Imagine taking your skis and Starbucks coffee, grabbing a train at Palliser square to Banff and riding the gondola up to Norquay.

Of course, surprise surprise, Parks Canada said nope.

Sigh.

Parks Canada has become the biggest wet blanket in recent times.

Add the outdoor games at lake Louise and now needing boat inspections just to take out a personal raft or kayak on Banff Lakes. I get the reasoning, but its also feels unrealistic and too hard to enforce to make it worth implementing except for on larger and motorized water craft.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Wouldn't a train system have issues due to weather? That's a long track through an area prone to extreme conditions for most of the year, whether it's snow, wind or hailstorms. I imagine it would need to be sheltered somehow, which means you're not getting much of a view on the way.

Glad someone brought this up finally. Can't believe in the 200 year history of train travel no one has considered extreme weather conditions.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Glad someone brought this up finally. Can't believe in the 200 year history of train travel no one has considered extreme weather conditions.

To be fair the major rail companies tend to be more reactionary than proactive when it comes to safety issues. Remember that train near golden a few years ago that was parked on an incline in extreme cold and the break lines gave out causing the train to roll backwards down the tracks and eventually derail? The policies were changed after the incident, but it could have been prevented had there been better safety standards in place to begin with.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

To be fair the major rail companies tend to be more reactionary than proactive when it comes to safety issues. Remember that train near golden a few years ago that was parked on an incline in extreme cold and the break lines gave out causing the train to roll backwards down the tracks and eventually derail? The policies were changed after the incident, but it could have been prevented had there been better safety standards in place to begin with.

Yeah, but that's just capitalism. It's not due to a lack of knowledge.

[Northendzone]

So let’s spitball this. I live in the deep SE and I could drive to Say Johnson canyon to check out the ink pots or take the train.

. Leave my house at 6.15 to drive downtown to catch a 7.00 am train ( I have to pay to park in calgary)
. Train leaves downtown at 7. Stops in the NW, Morley and Canmore. So 30 to 45m in stopped time, plus about lest say 75minutes of rail time
. I have to then catch a shuttle to Johnson canyon - 30 to 45m
. So it is now what about 9.45 and I am at the trail head

Or I could leave directly from my house via a private vehicle and be at the trail head by 8.30

And with my own vehicle I likely have flexibility on when I want to leave. With the train, I am likely locked in leaving at a certain time and I have to catch a shuttle back to the train, then do the whole process in reverse.

So instead of being home by 4 it is likely more like 7.30.

Seems like an appealing way to spend a whole day.

Of course at this moment, driving is still reasonably cheap and my time has value. With the group in Ottawa, they are likely die to crank up taxes on gas, so maybe that changes things a bit.

This has epic boondoggle written all over it.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

Why do people prefer rail over bus? That's a pretty tricky question to untangle. It's largely emotional because consumer preference is not entirely rational, but it's also a question of investment -- many bus systems are poorly funded and so people's perceptions of buses suffers in comparison.

Could you build a high quality bus system that would move the needle in a similar way to a rail investment? Sure.
Could you do it cheaper than rail? Maybe.
But, would politicians be tempted to cheap out, cut lines, driver schedules, etc to save a buck? Absolutely.
And, would travellers view it in the same way they would view rail? No.

You'd be swimming upstream against consumer / traveller preferences which is almost always difficult. And regardless, I don't see any P3's stepping up with plans, feasibility studies, MOUs, and investment dollars to make a multi-billion dollar investment in a bus transit system.

Two seconds of googling here, but I found a study from a pair of researchers who looked into the question - Bus or Rail: An Approach to Explain the Psychological Rail Factor (2012). Here's the abstract.



https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdo...=rep1&type=pdf

* worth pointing out Germany has traditionally been a preferred market for Alberta's tourism agencies to attract international travellers so the German mindset shown in this dataset is particularly useful to understand.

Essentially people like trains because poor people take buses. That 50% of the reason is emotional not logical really is frustrating. I really struggle with government policy being based around people’s prejudices on the other hand whatever you invest in needs to be used so you have to take it into account.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by GGG

Essentially people like trains because poor people take buses. That 50% of the reason is emotional not logical really is frustrating. I really struggle with government policy being based around people’s prejudices on the other hand whatever you invest in needs to be used so you have to take it into account.

In some routes, the extra capacity justifies (and pays back) the cost of rail. But the romantic view of trains often (like in the US) leads to disastrous transit decisions where you spend billions of dollars for capacity that is unused.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

So let’s spitball this. I live in the deep SE and I could drive to Say Johnson canyon to check out the ink pots or take the train.

. Leave my house at 6.15 to drive downtown to catch a 7.00 am train ( I have to pay to park in calgary)
. Train leaves downtown at 7. Stops in the NW, Morley and Canmore. So 30 to 45m in stopped time, plus about lest say 75minutes of rail time
. I have to then catch a shuttle to Johnson canyon - 30 to 45m
. So it is now what about 9.45 and I am at the trail head

Or I could leave directly from my house via a private vehicle and be at the trail head by 8.30

And with my own vehicle I likely have flexibility on when I want to leave. With the train, I am likely locked in leaving at a certain time and I have to catch a shuttle back to the train, then do the whole process in reverse.

So instead of being home by 4 it is likely more like 7.30.

Seems like an appealing way to spend a whole day.

Of course at this moment, driving is still reasonably cheap and my time has value. With the group in Ottawa, they are likely die to crank up taxes on gas, so maybe that changes things a bit.

This has epic boondoggle written all over it.

Some people do things differently. You’ll also notice a lot of people carpool as well, as evidenced by the massive parking at the PetroCan by HWY 22. So the inconvenience of being at somebody else’s whim isn’t everybody’s concern.

This will be great for people who don’t own cars or don’t drive or have a visitors from out of town and don’t have enough room in their family car. There are a lot of use cases.

Also if a train means there will be less parking taken up at the trailheads, doesn’t that make people driving happier? Maybe it will mean more people can actually view the larches at Moraine Lake in the Fall.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I hear they come with walls and windows, too.

Amazing! What will they come up with next?

[Redliner]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

To be fair the major rail companies tend to be more reactionary than proactive when it comes to safety issues. Remember that train near golden a few years ago that was parked on an incline in extreme cold and the break lines gave out causing the train to roll backwards down the tracks and eventually derail? The policies were changed after the incident, but it could have been prevented had there been better safety standards in place to begin with.

I knew the locomotive engineer who was killed in that wreck. The Transport Canada report on the accident has not been released yet, but a lot of things had to (and unfortunately did) go wrong in order for that to happen. Obviously when people lose their lives things get emotional and everyone wants someone to blame, but I would argue that railway companies in Canada are actually extremely safety-focused and that incidents like the Field Hill runaway are very much the exception to the rule. Mile for mile, rail transport is at least ten times safer than driving or flying.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Redliner

Mile for mile, rail transport is at least ten times safer than driving or flying.

Per passenger-mile flying is many times safer than rail. Bus is safer than rail.