Not that it would be done in time for me, but I’ve got one kid at McGill and #2 wants to go the next year. Toronto-Montreal in 5.5 hours and $150+ is not the best.
I just booked Barcelona to Madrid for after Christmas. 3 different companies operate the route and it takes 2.5 hours to travel 600 km. Advanced tickets were €40.
But that’s exactly my point. How does a Toronto-Quebec City route help you in that situation? Toronto-Montreal, sure, it’s a high-traffic corridor for both air and rail and I’d support improvements there. But an enormously expensive high-speed rail from Toronto to Quebec City sounds totally like a political boondoggle.
I assumed a T.O - Q.C. route would include a stop in Montreal, since it’s right smack in between the two.
Maybe they planned to tunnel under Montreal?
The busiest portion would be on the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa triangle, but politically it has to include Quebec City or the province won’t play ball. The Toronto-Windsor corridor is also less busy but gives you a connection to the US via Detroit (aka North Windsor).
Is there a midnight train going anywhere?
Montreal is rather clearly on the way.
Yes, as already previously noted. But the Toronto-Montreal corridor is already a modern dual-track system suitable for high-speed rail, as evidenced by the CN Turbo train which operated between Toronto and Montreal between 1968 and 1976. The Turbo was a good idea which unfortunately ran into too many technical problems and some bad luck. The Toronto-Montreal section may need some upgrades, but I strongly suspect that this mega-project is mostly about the Montreal to Quebec City link. I think most of us can agree that this is a political boondoggle purely to appease the Quebec government. As if Quebec doesn’t already get billions of our tax dollars in free handouts.
Wikipedia says that train took 4 hours to make the Toronto-Montreal trip and also says the Alto high-speed rail should make the same trip in only 3 hours. I dunno about spending $120 billion to knock an hour off the trip.
To be fair, it’s not knocking an hour off the trip, since the Turbo doesn’t exist any more. Compared to what’s available today, it’s knocking off about 2½ hours, cutting the travel time almost in half. And if you include all the wasted time overhead of traveling by air, on a short hop like Toronto-Montreal, Alto would be just as fast as flying.
Now if we could just drop the useless Montreal to Quebec City portion, the project would make sense. Other countries have modern high-speed rail. We should, too. But only where it’s needed.
Speaking from complete and total ignorance: Wouldn’t a high-speed connection to Quebec help the city develop to the point of eventually justifying the investment? a sort of “if you build it they will come” situation?.
I cannot begin to imagine where such a suspicion comes from when three quarters of the line would be the part that DOESN’T go to Quebec City.
And three quarters of the line already supported a high-speed rail service, as I said earlier, so the supposition is that the Toronto-Montreal portion might need only minimal upgrades. It’s already a modern dual-track system all the way.
Quebec City is already well served by passenger and freight rail service, including passenger service to and from Montreal several times a day. A passenger train that makes the trip a little faster won’t have any economic impact. But the Alto service will cut travel time between Toronto and Montreal by 2½ hours.
I see, so the objection is that it will be redundant.
My objection is that it’s a politically motivated waste of billions of dollars. The rail distance between Montreal and QC is only 270 km. There are 6 trains a day averaging between 2½ to about 3 hours trip time. After spending billions of dollars on high-speed rail, at most it would knock about an hour off that time. I don’t see that having a major impact on much of anything.
Yeah, the service that existed how long ago? This is a new program. I’d glad it might be able to use some old track, but otherwise it has to be rebuilt.
Connecting the Quebec-Montreal segment (assuming the North Shore route as proposed) to the Montreal-Toronto segment in downtown Montreal without a new lengthy tunnel would be difficult. Skip downtown and have a stop/transfer in Lachine or Dorval, with shuttles connecting that stop to downtown?
I think that the pre-existing right of way is a lot more significant than the pre-existing steel. Land is very expensive in an already developed area, especially when it’s very specific land that you need, plus the cost of overpasses/underpasses for roads that cross the line.