yay, train

News article about the government of Canada having chosen a consortium to build a new passenger rail service from Quebec City to Toronto with various major stops in between. We will only get the choice of consortium in the next week or two, but what was leaked was that the plan now is to have high speed rail along this corridor with the goal of 300kph stretches. Apparently the consortium who proposed this said that doing the high speed will come under their estimated budget of 80B$ that was first thought for the high frequency rail project.

This news excites me as it is many years over due to get high speed rail in Canada; we are behind so many other nations in this respect. For sure the populations of Toronto and Montreal warrant this new passenger service.

A major obstacle is that presently the federal minority government is unstable and actively teetering, and it looks like, based on popularity polls, that the Conservative party would form our next government and in past Conservative governments, rail projects such as this would be cancelled.

 I just hope that once the project starts, that it moves quickly. Also, I hope that, though it is over long distances, that it goes automatic and driverless, so as to lower operational costs. I also hope for Ottawa's station, that the train stops closer to the city. I also hope for Montreal it stops at Central station and in Toronto at Union station, where there are already Via Rail stations and there are big transit hubs.

Anyhow, I will be following this closely; well, as closely as I can from someone not at all involved in it.