GT: Federal Election

[Resolute 14]

But again, not nearly enough to cover ongoing maintenance and operation, let alone recoup the initial construction. Calgary and Edmonton are simply too small to justify it.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I have the ultimate low carbon high employment solution to all of our problems.

Rickshaws pulled by poor people instead of cars

and using poor people as pack animals instead of using semi's to haul cargo.

We are the 1% and this is our low carbon manifesto.

It is time to come full circle. Roman society was basically as developed as ours, less sources of mechanical power.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

But again, not nearly enough to cover ongoing maintenance and operation, let alone recoup the initial construction. Calgary and Edmonton are simply too small to justify it.

So I looked at the 2006 study here for hs railroad

In terms of people traveling from Calgary to Edmonton every year.

By Car 5,037,000
By Air 616,000
By bus 236,000

I would assume that things have shifted a bit, but would it have grown by much. As it stands right now WestJet has reduced flights between the cities because of reduced need.

I very much doubt that all of the drivers are going to give up driving, they want their mobility when they get to the city without adding the additional cost of a rental car.

How much do you charge to take this train. $100.00? Right now Westjet is running calgary to edmonton round trips for $196.00.

so lets say that you do well enough to suck half the communters to train so slightly over 3 million. So you're generating about $300 million a year. Sounds like a lot until we find out that not only are we trying to pay it off, but you have to pay salaries, infrastructure and maintenance and all the little costs to keep this thing going including building the back infrastructure for things like power.

So, because you don't want the tax payers to eat the whole cost of a 10 or 20 billion dollar government railroad construction, (I say 20 because we all know that governments will tax any estimate and double it). So we make the costs $150.00 for a two way trip.

Westjet because a railroad is direct competition moves in to squash them as do the other airlines.

If high speed railroads between Calgary and Edmonton were a profitable or smart venture, someone from the private sector would have stepped up and bought the corridor land and went to the government and said, subsidize this byatch.

[CaptainCrunch]

Going further, even in the 2006 marketing study when they talked about the technology, the maximum fair that they felt they could justify for a one way trip was $120 dollars for the fastest tech that was 300 mph.

A lot of people wouldn't shift from their car because they can jam their wife and kids into the car and spend about $80.00 in transportation fee. That same family isn't going to spend $200.00 per family member for a weekend trip to Edmonton.

[Tacopuck]

Just going to throw this out there, a $20B budget for a high speed mass environmentally friendly transit system would be a comparable of a R&D budget of a space program that could deliver people anywhere in the world within hours, or solar powered commercial planes. Both of which would have far more reaching technological achievements that could be utilized elsewhere in other industries.

If we are going to spend $20B on a single project, lets put that money to a little better use than a rail system that is reliant on a non-flexible infrastructure system.

Others have said it, the reason Canada dosent have a decent rail network is population density, we dont have it. Thus the ROI is significantly smaller.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

You might get away with Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto, but nowhere else in Canada has the population density to support it.

The cost to build such a line from Vancouver to Calgary would be astronomical. I can't in any way see enough demand to justify it.

There is talk of high speed rail from Windsor to Toronto being built in Ontario (with presumably stops in Kitchener/Waterloo and London)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windso...says-1.3440700

I suspect Ottawa/Kingston/Toronto would be the next on the list (and to Montreal/Quebec City if Quebec wanted to pay).

I do think it will be a tough sell even here. You'd really need people willing to commute from Windsor/London to Toronto. Real estate is way cheaper there than anywhere near Toronto but that's still a long haul for work each day (the article says it cuts down the Windsor to Toronto trip from 4 hours to 3, which I just can't see being worth the upgrade).

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

So I looked at the 2006 study here for hs railroad

In terms of people traveling from Calgary to Edmonton every year.

By Car 5,037,000
By Air 616,000
By bus 236,000

I would assume that things have shifted a bit, but would it have grown by much. As it stands right now WestJet has reduced flights between the cities because of reduced need.

I very much doubt that all of the drivers are going to give up driving, they want their mobility when they get to the city without adding the additional cost of a rental car.

How much do you charge to take this train. $100.00? Right now Westjet is running calgary to edmonton round trips for $196.00.

so lets say that you do well enough to suck half the communters to train so slightly over 3 million. So you're generating about $300 million a year. Sounds like a lot until we find out that not only are we trying to pay it off, but you have to pay salaries, infrastructure and maintenance and all the little costs to keep this thing going including building the back infrastructure for things like power.

So, because you don't want the tax payers to eat the whole cost of a 10 or 20 billion dollar government railroad construction, (I say 20 because we all know that governments will tax any estimate and double it). So we make the costs $150.00 for a two way trip.

Westjet because a railroad is direct competition moves in to squash them as do the other airlines.

If high speed railroads between Calgary and Edmonton were a profitable or smart venture, someone from the private sector would have stepped up and bought the corridor land and went to the government and said, subsidize this byatch.

I think the only way it works is if you stop in Red Deer and gain commuters that way. Just not enough people travel daily between the two cities. You need commuters to make it worthwhile.

[puckedoff]

Why move all the way to Red Deer when Airdrie is just 15 minutes from downtown?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Why move all the way to Red Deer when Airdrie is just 15 minutes from downtown?

Cause if I move to Red Deer I don't have to hear #### about being 15 minutes from downtown like Airdrie residents like to incessantly remind us.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Why move all the way to Red Deer when Airdrie is just 15 minutes from downtown Balzac?

more accurate now

[Coach]

If you could live in Red Deer and be in Calgary in 30 min (lets say the train stops at Memorial and Deerfoot, right outside of DT), people would for sure do it. Red Deer would probably get a nice boost if that was the case.

Although, I think that a main feature of the train would have to be the happy medium between speed and cost. If it's going to take 2 hours to get to EDM for $100 because of a stop in RD, it would probably have people opting to drive.

If you're going to think about a CGY to VAN line (pipe dream I know), you wouldn't be able to have it stop in Kelowna, Kamploops, Abbotsford, etc... It would have to be city-to-city, or the time frame would make it such that it would be better use of time/money to just fly.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by MattyC

If you could live in Red Deer and be in Calgary in 30 min (lets say the train stops at Memorial and Deerfoot, right outside of DT), people would for sure do it. Red Deer would probably get a nice boost if that was the case.

Although, I think that a main feature of the train would have to be the happy medium between speed and cost. If it's going to take 2 hours to get to EDM for $100 because of a stop in RD, it would probably have people opting to drive.

If you're going to think about a CGY to VAN line (pipe dream I know), you wouldn't be able to have it stop in Kelowna, Kamploops, Abbotsford, etc... It would have to be city-to-city, or the time frame would make it such that it would be better use of time/money to just fly.

I just don't think you have enough people who make the trip regularly to make it work without commuters.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

I just don't think you have enough people who make the trip regularly to make it work without commuters.

Yeah I think the demand would have to already be there. MattyC brings up a good point, but that growth would take time

[Fuzz]

The 2 big advantages trains have is you can just walk up and get on. No one hour before your flight, no security, long boarding, etc. So trains can be far more convenient and save time over flying that way. The other advantage is they can go directly to somewhere useful, say downtown. So you don't need to worry about getting to an airport. Timewise though, you don't need to go faster than a plane, you just need the total time to be similar.

That being said, every few years someone studies Calgary to Edmonton, and it never makes financial sense.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

The 2 big advantages trains have is you can just walk up and get on. No one hour before your flight, no security, long boarding, etc. So trains can be far more convenient and save time over flying that way. The other advantage is they can go directly to somewhere useful, say downtown. So you don't need to worry about getting to an airport. Timewise though, you don't need to go faster than a plane, you just need the total time to be similar.

That being said, every few years someone studies Calgary to Edmonton, and it never makes financial sense.

It depends though. When I was in Europe in the fall there was security to get on the train from London to Paris. Granted that is between countries, but it's still likely you would want to have some security.

[Fuzz]

Ya, the chunnel has security, but I don't remember any other. And it was still way quicker than an airport.

[killer_carlson]

Very little chance that any new train project anywhere in the developed world will not have substantial security screening.

And I suspect that most will be quickly retrofitted to include security screening.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Slava

It depends though. When I was in Europe in the fall there was security to get on the train from London to Paris. Granted that is between countries, but it's still likely you would want to have some security.

Security is also pretty light for flights between Calgary and Edmonton. I've walked into the airport 10 minutes before my flight and still had time to sit and check the hockey scores from the night before. Depends on the time of day of course

[Coach]

Yeah I took a train from Dusseldorf to Eastern Switzerland and didn't have to go through security once.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Very little chance that any new train project anywhere in the developed world will not have substantial security screening.

And I suspect that most will be quickly retrofitted to include security screening.

Why? City transit doesn't have it, I don't remember really any trains I've taken anywhere int he world(other than the Chunnel) that have had it. It's not like you are going to hijack a train and drive it into the White House.