u/Rail613

In case you missed it yesterday, and some demand statistics.

There were problems on this section earlier today too and tonight:

“According to a memo from Rick Leary, the general manager of the Transit Services, Line 1 service will be shut down east of Tremblay stations after 8 p.m. to allow for repairs on the OCS overhead catenary system.”

From Gare Centrale area to Laval, an HSR tunnel could be 15km. So that could be $30 billion of the $90 billion rough estimate, for the whole project including trainsets. (Article may be paywalled)

No wonder the HS2 in London will end in suburbs for now, due to the huge cost of getting closer to the other north-end train stations.

Portage Flyer Steam Locomotives Centennial Celebration!
🚂🚂 Look who's turning 100! The Portage Flyer steam locomotives are hitting the century mark and we're celebrating at the Rotary Village Station at Muskoka Heritage Place on August 8. Join us as we commemorate this historic milestone! 🥳🥳

📅 Saturday, August 8, 2026
🕚 11am - 3pm
📍 100 Forbes Hill Drive

Seats that don’t align with windows, backwards facing seats (although this is normal on all HSR trainsets), narrow seats (wider aisles?), poor reclining etc. Will long distance and HSR fleets be better? On the other hand, accessibility, toilets, ride quality and noise levels seem better than legacy coaches.

Lesson 12: Amtrak should consider passenger comfort throughout the design and procurement processes. This lesson, which also applies at the Initialing, Planning and Execution stages, is a corollary of Lesson 11. It should be Amtrak’s objective to deliver an experience for all riders that focuses on comfort to the maximum possible extent. Passengers who enjoy a comfortable ride have an incentive to promote the Amtrak experience through word of mouth, while those who had an uncomfortable ride will have an incentive to disparage it. As with Lesson 11, this form of positive or negative “advertising” will affect Amtrak’s reputation and the amount of revenue Amtrak earns from riders on the affected lines.

Example: The comfort level on the Venture cars in service on corridors outside the Northeast and on the NextGen Acela trainsets in that region have the following features that can deliver an uncomfortable ride: no footrests; seats that do not recline (moving the “pan” forward does not create a reclining seat, but one that some rider-advocates have called “a slouching seat”)*; firm seats with little or no cushioning; narrow seats, with half of them facing backward at all times; and seats that do not necessarily align with windows, which degrades a customer’s view. These negative features are not likely to induce motorists to forsake the comfort of the seats in their automobiles to ride Amtrak instead. While the Airo cars (your team wonders why a railroad would use such a name for passenger railcars) are not in service yet, there is no reason to expect that they will be more comfortable than the Venture or NextGen Acela equipment. Preliminary reports indicate that they will be like the cars on those trains. Even worse, your team is concerned that future long-distance cars will also have similar features, which will deliver a less-than-comfortable ride for a longer time. The next question is whether management will listen to these recommendations, and even more important, implement them.

For the last 4 days, there have been trains running on the east extension; I assume this is pre-trial running? Does anyone here know how much pre-trial running is required before EWC hands the keys over to the City for them to start the 21-day trial running?

He was interviewed this morning on CBC Ottawa Morning show. Key comments were that they want to keep Montreal to Toronto as under 3 hours and swinging past Kingston would still allow this. The Kingston HSR Station would be 4 tracks, so of the eventual 25 to 35 trains a day, some would stop, others would pass by at speed. (Would Peterborough be similar 4 tracks?). If interconnectivity with VIA and local regional bus services is important, exactly where would the Station be located?

Even though Smiths Falls is a key local, VIA, and rail hub, he discounted a stop there. Discussion of designing a 320 km/h “straight” line, and compensating landowners, not only for the land, and also future lost (farm) revenues. Wildlife passages are important. Details of alignment of the Laval-Ottawa segment this fall.

Ran across a post about this on Facebook where people are big mad at the Federal Liberals for signing this NDA..... The only person I see in this photo is a failed federal Conservative MP candidate who moonlights as the City's Mayor.

Anyway, thoughts about the city signing this NDA? And how long until they are signing data center NDAs?

Does nothing for Ottawa-Montreal HSR, which is a key driver, and building straight/few curves from Cobourg along Lakeshore / 401 / CN / CKPC to core Toronto is very expensive and congested. Lots of expropriation, overpasses, NIMBYs.

Thirteen years after the disastrous fire of exploding tank cars laden with volatile western crude oil product heading across Maine to a New Brunswick refinery, they have finally agreed on a route to bypass the core of the village.

May be behind paywall. EXTRACT

“Alto is assessing this option rigorously, considering not only construction costs, but also its overall potential impact on ridership, regional accessibility, technical feasibility, economic and social benefits, and the project’s long-term performance once in operation,”

Yesterday was Bytowne Cinema’s special presentation to see Gio Petti’s documentary about the Trillium Line (the 2002 original O-Train, now part of Line 2, “Train to Nowhere”. It was well attended by about 250 people, including two mayoralty candidates.

There was a panel discussion after with Gio and his co-author, plus 4 people from various activist organizations. Michael Kostiuk, Alex Cullen, Alex Munter and David Jeanes featured in the interviews. The whole story was skillfully woven together with archival video, newspaper clippings, maps, and current video.

While it is from the Canadian Taxpayers Foundation, they are correct that it will add to Alto capital cost, operating cost, and the travel time for some travellers. But highly beneficial to Kingston and its users.

1. The CTF “Taxpayers Foundation” always criticizes any government expenditure and believes no government executives anywhere should ever get a bonus. But they never complain that banking, CN, CPKC, Air Canada, or consulting engineering company execs get bigger bonuses (and salaries). Or it’s impossible to attract/retain good people without paying them.

2. Right now is the HSR planning stage. If you were building a house, you would spend the first months/year finding the land and “designing” the house. Long before you dug the hole or even poured concrete. Same with Alto HSR.
   Sigh.

Ottawa and Boston have North America’s busiest low-floor LRT lines and both run double trainset MU’s. Some 15 years ago, RTG proposed a CAF LRV similar to this one that was used in Europe, but the city rejected it because of insufficient experience. So RTG was forced to find an alternative which was a modified version of the Alstom Citadis. Boston is now replacing its LRV Green Line C trams with these.

Would it have been a better solution?

The city is supportive of HSR and even signed an NDA to get in on early plans/discussions.

There is not much new here…when Alto decides on the precise line, then we will all know. And some conservation and farmland will be required.