The trains can't travel fast through those mountain passes,
or up and down through the fraser canyon,
and the slower the better for viewing, and I would imagine
the trains need to be filled to capacity on a bullet train
to make any money.
Should canada have high-speed rail?
- Thread starter countryboy
- Start date
The trains can't travel fast through those mountain passes,
or up and down through the fraser canyon,
and the slower the better for viewing, and I would imagine
the trains need to be filled to capacity on a bullet train
to make any money.
You got it right Talloola- grades on the C.P.R. between Revelstoke and Field are anywhere up to (if not exceeding) 1.8%- used to be 2.2% before the new tunnel unneath the Connaught. There's a trestle at Rogers Pass that is about 1000' above the creek which I don't think I'd care to hurtle across at 200 mph. thank you very much. When I was just a young feller we grabbed a freight out of Revelstoke after dark while drunk and that was quite enough for me.
T
Hey, JLM, I don't know much about grades and limits on them. Just curious...the bullet train in Japan goes through tunnels quite frequently, but there is one tunnel that goes between the northern island of Hokkaido and the main island of Honshu (under the ocean) that seems to have a fair grade to it at either end. I remember it feeling like a bit of a "dive in an airplane" when entering the tunnel...is there some sort of maximum grade that these things have to stick to? Just curious...I ain't very technically "inclined"... :lol:
You bet, the guy I was with was an ex employee of the C.P.R. and knew a lot of the Hoggers (Engineers) out of Revelstoke and one was "kind" enough to sneak us on. From Revelstoke to Golden was relalive luxury riding in one of the engines (it took three or four engines to pull a freight over the Selkirks and the Rockies). HOwever when we got to Golden about 4 AM, we were told we'd have to change freights and ride in the rear compartment of the engine where you couldn't hear yourself think and the temperature was about 95F. By Field we'd had enough and hitchhiked the rest of the way to Calgary.
Apart from very rudimentary stuff I have no knowledge of bullet trains, other than to day a lot would have to do with the horsepower of the engine as far as grades go. Regardless of the vehicle there are serious restrictions to horizontal alignment because there is not much that can be done to eliminate centrifugal force. On conventional railways hauling freight and passengers I know that a 2.2% grade is pretty well the absolute limit. One aberation was the old line from Grand Forks up to Phoenix, where grades were much steeper, but between the rails a cog was employed to pull it up the hill. (Not really conducive to 200 miles an hour)
Isn't it the kicking horse pass, that has the spiral tunnels,
so that the train won't run away down the hill, you can
see the back of the train up above and the engine down below, as it
spirals through the tunnels, down the hill,can't quite imagine that at 200 m per. lol
Once a train came out of the fraser canyon after Hope,
then it could boot it on to Vancouver like a bullet,
but that is kind of a waste of money, as it can't do it
anywhere else in B.C.
My daughter went through those spirals on the train, before they changed
the route to the northern one through edmonton, jasper, etc.
so that the train won't run away down the hill, you can
see the back of the train up above and the engine down below, as it
spirals through the tunnels, down the hill,can't quite imagine that at 200 m per. lol
Once a train came out of the fraser canyon after Hope,
then it could boot it on to Vancouver like a bullet,
but that is kind of a waste of money, as it can't do it
anywhere else in B.C.
My daughter went through those spirals on the train, before they changed
the route to the northern one through edmonton, jasper, etc.
Absolutely correct Talloola - between Field and the Alberta border. There is a lookout on the highway where you can observe it- quite fascinating. There is an interesting story about the engineer who did the calculations for building the tunnel but I can't recall all the details nor is there the space to do it here.
Speaking of passes and such, I got on to Google earlier after JLM was telling me about gradients. I found out that Japan's new planned mag-lev line calls for a 6% max grade or gradient, or whatever the right term is. That apparently means a 6 ft. drop/rise every 100 ft. Doesn't sound like a lot but I guess it is in the railroad biz.
I found somewhere that there is a line in Switzerland that has a 48% grade on some portion of it. I had to read it twice to make sure...that one sounds a bit steep, and I'm sure there are other factors involved that they didn't list (like a cog?).
Anyway, an interesting topic for sure...I'm just trying to understand it a bit better.
PS - Apparently the Japanese mag-lev has topped out at 581 km/hr in tests...sounds like a speedy unit. For the US folks, that's a whisker under 350 mph. Now we're talking!!!
A tidbit...I didn't realize how fast the new maglev trains can go. Like I mentioned earlier, the Japanese one currently being tested holds the world speed record of 581 km/hr. Trying to put that into perspective, I think the distance from Calgary to Winnipeg is somewhere under 1,300 km (roughly), and if a train like that could average say, 480 km/hr, that would make the travel time a bit over 2.5 hours. Not sure of the current flying time between those two places...about 1.5 hours sound right? The gap is narrowing...
I would think that any of the grades up or down, at those speeds would be
absolutely straight though, with no curves, don't you
think?
I wonder what it feels like as a passenger, does one's
stomach go wierd, similar to an elevator.
Well, I doubt it. Otherwise, nobody would be riding on high speed trains anywhere! I used to ride the Japanese bullet trains regularly, 4 or 5 times a month for about 6 years. Last year, I was back for a visit and had a couple of rides on the "Nozomi" (newest, fastest model) from Tokyo to Osaka. It cruises around 280 km/hr most of the way, but does get up to 300 km/hr quite often. (there is a digitial speed read-out in every car).
It's like sitting in a living room. Except the food and drink service is par excellence, typically Japanese 5-star great. The only time you realize how fast you're going is when you have your face up to the window gazing at Mt. Fuji and you enter a tunnel...at around 300 km/hr, Mt. Fuji disappears in a hurry! But really, it is an incredibly comfortable and gentle ride. Comparing that to say, the "turbo train" that ran between Montreal and Toronto (which I used to ride, but don't know if Via still has it) would be like comparing a ride in a stagecoach to a ride in a new BMW.
The bullet trains are engineered to be comfy and safe. And fast. But you really don't feel the sensation of speed when you're riding in it. Standing on a platform when one goes by at cruising speed is a different story though...it's a hair-raising experience if you're on the platform! But it's over fast!
We think BC has challenging terrain (and it does!), but you have to keep in mind that Japan is not like Saskatchewan...it's basically a big long chain of volcanic mountains with a bit of flat land here and there around the edges. I'm talking about the main island of Honshu, which has the bulk of the bullet train lines.
Safe? Oh yeah...they've been at this since 1964 with constantly increasing speeds and they've never had a fatal/serious accident! That's a pretty good record, considering the number of trains that run there (don't know the stats, but LOTS). Of course, they built an entirely new infrastructure to run these things on, but it was the right thing for them to do and they've never looked back.
It's rare to fly between Osaka and Tokyo because flying effectively takes a lot longer than the train, when you consider all the line-ups and delays getting to and through the airports, and the somewhat inconvenient proximities of the airports to the final destination points.
Our train system in Canada is far behind much of the rest of the world that it must be hard for people to even relate to the concept of "modern" train travel, and I can certainly understand that. Until I rode the Japanese trains, I was wondering what all the fuss was about. The best thing I had seen in trains up to that point was that Via "turbo" thing from Montreal to Toronto. Not a fun experience, especially considering that the tracks run through less than upscale neighborhoods..."ugly" would describe a lot of it that runs through the settled/urban areas.
I remember my late Grandfather telling me about the first car in my little prairie home town way back in the old days. Some guy was trying to sell cars to the farmers and drove one down the street at around 10 mph. "Look at that crazy bugger", everyone said. "He's going to kill himself!" Even though the average kid could probably run faster than the guy was driving, it was such a new and unusual concept that people recoiled in horror.
I see that some people in this thread dismiss the idea of high speed rail travel in Canada as being too expensive, impractical, or just plain stupid. I'm not trying to "sell" the idea, but I do think it's a concept worth looking at. Nobody really knows the costs (they would be high, no question about that!), but we also don't know what the benefits might be in terms of fuel savings (including environmental impacts), revenues, and a whole host of other possibilities. And we never will, if the concept is never looked at. Who knows? It might prove to be impossible, or it might not.
Canada is a big vast country that foreigners from many lands want to see. We'll soon see a big influx of Chinese people coming to visit, in addition to all the others that have come or will return for repeat visits. One of the biggest obstacles to them seeing the country is the difficulty in getting around to the little corners that offer all kinds of "different" things to see. These folks represent "fresh" money coming into the country, and that is important to our economy.
From a conceptual point of view (call it brainstorming, dreaming, whatever), here's just one off-the wall-thought...what if we had a coast to coast high speed rail system that offered a "piggyback" or "bring your car with you" service for domestic tourists? The Canadian tourist drives directly to the train terminal. The car jockey drives the car on to the auto carrier car, the passenger proceeds to his/her passenger car. When the train arrives in Calgary, the passenger gets off, jumps in his car, and is off to explore the area around Calgary. A few days later, he gets back on the train and is off to the next stop (Regina, maybe) and does it all over again. And so on, right across the entire country. Or part of it. Or whatever. For the foreign tourist, the rental car industry could set up a rental car infrastructure at stations and let those tourists do the same thing. Set up right, with "packages" sold to make it all easy, I think it would do a lot for our tourism industry. Just ask the local businesses in Kamloops what they think of the Rocky Mountaineer making an overnight stop there...and that's not even remotely close to the scale I just outlined.
I am sure that the idea of the "iron rail runnin' from the sea to the sea" (as Gordon Lightfoot put it in his "Canadian Railroad Trilogy") must have sounded waaayyyy off the wall back in Canada's early days. But, it got done. Not without problems, but it got done. You'd think with all the progress, technology, and other improvements we've made since then that an upgrade to John A.'s railroad would be a relatively easier thing to do!
Anyway, sorry for the long-windedness there...it's just a concept to "kick around" so feel free to keep kickin'!
Railroad travel at present is 'expensive', but it is pleasant and not fast.
If the train was extremely fast, I would have no interest
at all, but I can understand it for those who have time
interests, and need to move about quickly.
For every upgrade the railroad does, the price will also
rise again and again, pricing the average person out of
the market for that product.
Even now, the average person cannot take the train across
the country very often, it took us a long time to save
air miles and visa gold points, then we used them to pay
for most of our trip.
We paid $2500.00 for train fare, from Halifax to Prince
Rupert, (both of us) and that was on a seniors
special, where the second person rides for 70% reduction,
that has now been discontinued.
We had sleeping accomodations.
Meals were only supplied on the 'canadian' from toronto,
west, all other trains, meals were separate.
Other than obvious upgrades for trains and tracks, I would
like the trains to stay the way they are, as have been
for years and years.
The travel is relaxing and fun, and one can see the country,
as one travels, taking in how big this country is.
It takes about 5 days from toronto to vancouver, 7 from Halifax, and that
is perfect, wouldn't want to get there any faster, ruins the character of
train travel.
If the train was extremely fast, I would have no interest
at all, but I can understand it for those who have time
interests, and need to move about quickly.
For every upgrade the railroad does, the price will also
rise again and again, pricing the average person out of
the market for that product.
Even now, the average person cannot take the train across
the country very often, it took us a long time to save
air miles and visa gold points, then we used them to pay
for most of our trip.
We paid $2500.00 for train fare, from Halifax to Prince
Rupert, (both of us) and that was on a seniors
special, where the second person rides for 70% reduction,
that has now been discontinued.
We had sleeping accomodations.
Meals were only supplied on the 'canadian' from toronto,
west, all other trains, meals were separate.
Other than obvious upgrades for trains and tracks, I would
like the trains to stay the way they are, as have been
for years and years.
The travel is relaxing and fun, and one can see the country,
as one travels, taking in how big this country is.
It takes about 5 days from toronto to vancouver, 7 from Halifax, and that
is perfect, wouldn't want to get there any faster, ruins the character of
train travel.
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Sure it was a reeeeeally big challeange back then. Also back then Occupational Health and Safety wasn't on the radar, and most of the land was either owned or claimed by the Crown. I never said it was a crazy idea, but sometimes economical challenges are more insurmountable than physical ones.
Well, Japan is a different country, with a culture and collecive mindset far different from ours. Canada may have lots of room, but most of that room is owned by someone other than government.
Yep, with people's over inflated sense of what real estate is worth these days, R/W acquisition is virtually impossible at an affordable price- I think the days of $100 an acre are long gone. :lol::lol::lol::lol:
Well, I still remember the magical formula fo figuring out market price, "what you're willing to pay and what someone's willing to accept = market price, and only when the deal is signed", Real Estate 101. Anything else is speculation, and anyone who tells you othewise is lying or uninformed, or the tax assessor ;-).
Couldn't agree with you more on the challenge part, and there are many more. Economic challenges are very real, but they have a couple of sides to them if it ever got down to a realistic assessment - the revenue/benefit side and the cost side.
The physical challenges should be a lot easier to overcome today than they were back when. Generally speaking, I think equipment and technology have progressed a fair bit since then, no?
The mindset challenge is likely the biggest one of all...the old "why we can't or shouldn't do it vs. why we could or should" scenario. It's quite normal for many people to react negatively to an unfamiliar concept. I'm not saying that's good or bad...it just "is."
However, if some get past the "what an unworkable idea" reaction, you never know what might pop up. Certainly no single person has all the answers to anything but one of the big values of a forum like this is that people can put forth ideas and opinions without restriction...kinda' like "letting it all hang out" and that's where the "many truths" (Cliffy taught me what truth is, and it makes sense to me) can be laid out for all to see.
But hey, it's a discussion and a very interesting one at that. Gives one a great deal of insight into what makes the country tick.
But, where's that spirit of challenge, innovation, adventure, curiousity, and desire to seek new and better solutions to some of our problems? I'll bet it's out there but just hasn't come to the surface yet! After all, some of that must have been around back in Sir John A.'s day, right? And we've done a lot of innovative things since then, like the Avro Arrow (bad example...we didn't follow through) and even the Canadarm (we did follow through)...and there are many, many more examples of Canada doing new and different things. And high speed rail would likely qualify as "new and different", to put it most kindly! :roll:
:canada: