Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro is a big advocate for high-speed rail service between some of Canada

Source Link: By David Akin, The Gazette

OTTAWA — The MP who leads the non-partisan “rail caucus” in the House of Commons is pushing a new high-speed rail plan — a super-fast tri-city train link between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

“If you were to start a line that connected these three major centres, you would have a line that would be well-supported, would offer significant economic benefits, and, obviously, you’d have significant environmental benefit,” said Dean Del Mastro, a Conservative MP from Peterborough, Ont.

Del Mastro said that, given the geography such a line would run through, the trains would probably be limited to speeds of about 240 kilometres an hour but that would still cut the rail ride between Ottawa and Toronto, which now takes a little more than four hours, down to about two hours.

It would trim the hour-and-forty-five minute trip between Ottawa and Montreal to around 40 minutes. An express between Montreal and Toronto could take travellers from downtown to downtown in about two-and-a-half hours. The fastest ride now takes about four-and-a-half hours.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest, at last fall’s First Ministers Conference here, was trying to sell the federal government on the merits of a high-speed rail line from Quebec City to Windsor, Ont. using the corridor that runs along the shores of the St. Lawrence River and then Lake Ontario.

It’s an idea that’s been around for about two decades but various levels of government have balked at the multi-billion dollar price tag for such a service.

In most earlier formulations, such a high-speed line, which requires its own dedicated track, would service Quebec City, Montreal, Kingston, Ont., Toronto, London, Ont., and Windsor, Ont., but Ottawa would get left out of the picture.

Del Mastro believes that a less ambitious project that avoids the lakeshore right-of-way in favour of a sweeping curve north through Ottawa makes more economic sense.

“I think we’re seeing around the world that rail works, that it makes sense,” said Del Mastro. “It’s a good way to flow goods and people.”

Del Mastro said he and Transport Minister John Baird have not yet discussed the idea. Instead, Del Mastro hopes that those currently studying the viability of high-speed service in the Quebec-Windsor corridor consider his alternative. Last January, the federal government along with the governments of Ontario and Quebec agreed to jointly cover the costs of updating feasibility studies on high-speed service between Quebec and Windsor. Two earlier studies had been done in 1992 and again in 1995.

A spokesperson for VIA Rail said the company would not have any official comment on a Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto high-speed line until a feasibility study on future high speed services is completed.

“We are all waiting very impatiently for the results of these studies and then we will probably have more information,” said Nadia Seraicco, a VIA Rail spokesperson.

Transport Canada was unable to say when those studies would be complete.

But documents obtained by Canwest News Service using access to information laws show that Del Mastro’s idea is a plan that was being pushed last summer by VIA Rail’s president, Donald Wright. Wright met with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on June 16 specifically to discuss a high-speed link between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.

Officials in Flaherty’s office were not immediately available for comment.

Meanwhile, high-speed rail enthusiasts say they’re getting impatient with yet more studies. They say it’s time for governments to commit to the kind of high-speed rail lines that are now common in many countries in Europe and Asia.

“In 20 years, there has never been more potential for a high-speed rail project and for rail renewal,” said Paul Langan, founder of the advocacy group High Speed Rail Canada. Langan’s group has organized a symposium on high-speed rail projects in Canada to take place later this month in Kitchener, Ont. “There is no logical argument not to have high-speed. The question just boils down to the political or public will.”

Source Link: By MARK BONOKOSKI, Toronto Sun

Let heroes ride free – Retired railroader revisits idea of VIA rail pass for our soldiers

With the pavement of the Highway of Heroes now indelibly inked by the tire treads of hearses — with nine repatriations of fallen Canadian soldiers in the last month alone, and with the military death toll in Afghanistan now at 104 — an idea broached here two years ago might have more resonance today.

The idea, first envisioned by a retired Via Rail engineer, was this: That Canadian soldiers and their families be given lifetime Via Rail passes akin to those already given to his family and other Via Rail families and management personnel.

The response, back then, was lukewarm.

At that writing in October 2006, however, “only” 42 Canadian soldiers had been killed doing their duty in far-off Afghanistan, although two had died the very weekend prior to that column’s publication.

Perhaps the blood was not deep enough then.

On Saturday night past, when the Leafs blew by the Senators with a 3-1 victory, there was a powerful pre-game ceremony wrapped around Canadian Forces Appreciation Night — with the sold-out crowd giving props to our troops with several loud and prolonged standing ovations, their sacrifice represented at centre ice by Chief of Defence Gen. Walter Natynczyk, his wife, Leslie, and their three children, all presently serving in the Canadian military.

BLOOD DEEP ENOUGH?

Perhaps, with the repatriations of December, the blood is now deep enough to revisit the idea of free Via Rail passes, especially now that the body count is tragically only 22 repatriations shy of tripling the number of soldiers killed when that first column was written.

Two-plus years ago, in discussing the idea, Via Rail spokesman Catherine Kaloutsky offered the fact that all department of defence staff already got “discounts” on rail travel, with the exact amount being “privileged information.”

While Kaloutsky would not confirm, those discounts are believed to range between 5% and 10%.

It is better than nothing, of course, but it is also as close to nothing as one can get.

Then, in 2008, Via Rail announced the month of July would be a travel-free month for military personnel. Occasionally, good ideas need time to simmer.

The originator of the idea of free rail travel for our military was Daniel Christie, a retired railroader living in Port Hope and now, after a period of absence, once again a columnist with the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide.

In a pre-Christmas column, Christie revisited our collaboration of two-plus years ago, and got zero response from federal Transport Minister John Baird, as well as from Via.

NON-RESPONSE

The Via non-response, however, was almost to be expected, since the 58-year-old Christie has been a burr to Via Rail for years — beginning when he was fired, and then reinstated for challenging a station manager’s right to open the door of one of his coaches with his permission — and ending when he finally quit in 2004 prior to another firing for posting critiques of Via Rail on a satirical website under the assumed name of Merklin Muffley, the fictional U.S. president in the cult movie Dr. Strangelove.

In other words, Christie and Via have history.

Still, a good idea is a good idea. Or is it?

According to Scott Taylor of the Esprit de Corps military magazine, or at least as he outlined it in an e-mail he sent to Christie, Via Rail’s free rail travel in July got lukewarm response from military personnel.

“To make that last forever-and-a-day may not make much sense, given the low level of response to that gesture,” wrote Taylor, adding that our troops are “presently very well-paid, and apparently prefer to fly.”

This I find difficult to believe, considering the fact that more than a few families of low-ranking soldiers have too regularly had to rely on food banks to get them through a week.

And, as far as “low level response” goes, this is also difficult to believe considering the fact that Via Rail’s Catherine Kaloutsky said yesterday that the response to July’s promotion was “extraordinary.”

“In fact, it was overwhelming,” she said. “We had sold-out trains. We consider (the promotion) very, very successful and better than we ever anticipated.”

The July deal — offered because it was a key month for military holidays — was extended to military personnel, national defence staff employees and veterans, with free travel anywhere in Canada for them, and a 50% fare discount for their family members.

60,000 BOOKED

According to Kaloutsky, some 60,000 trips were booked in July — 75% of them free, with the rest being the discounted fares offered to military families — and some 20 million miles, or 38,186,800 kms, logged.

Unless there is a change on the political scene, Canada’s mission in Afghanistan is scheduled to end in 2011.

If free “forever-and-a-day” rail passes for military personnel make no sense, then what about free passes within Canada until this bloody war is over?

Canada, after all, is not only the country our soldiers are both representing and defending, but it is also a country in which, to date, 104 soldiers will never be seen again.

It is not much to ask.

Source Link: by Paul Langan, GuelphMercury.comk

Dear Editor – Longtime advocates of improved passenger rail service in Guelph have a right to be excited.

I remember vividly the fight to convince Via Rail, less than a decade ago, to add a second morning train from Guelph. It seemed like a miracle at the time when Via announced they would add the new train service to Guelph.

In the near future, Via Rail is poised to announce major track and service improvements for the line going through Guelph. GO Transit is already set to bring GO rail service here in the next few years. That is good news.

But is it not time that the people of Guelph and our elected officials on all levels consider moving forward to implement high-speed rail service in Guelph? This would complement the future existing GO and Via service.

The idea is not new.

A 1995 Canadian-Ontario-Quebec government study clearly showed high-speed rail was a viable option.

The preferred alignment from Windsor to Toronto was through the Guelph area.

This high-speed rail line also connected with Pearson airport.

I am outraged at the fares I have to pay for using companies such as Airways Transit and Red Car Airport Service that operate services to Pearson from the Waterloo Region and Guelph.

On Dec. 20, the Toronto Star leaked another study commissioned by the Ontario government stating high-speed rail lines were economically feasible and recommended their implementation in Ontario to help jump start our economy.

Again, Guelph was a preferred alignment for one of the high-speed rail lines.

In the United States, president elect Barack Obama has announced he is very supportive of a passenger rail renaissance, and massive funding is set to be given to passenger rail service there. Senator John Kerry has unveiled the High Speed Rail Act of America. The government has recently requested proposals to build and operate 11 high-speed rail corridors in the U.S.

In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not signalled any intentions on where money will be spent to renew our economy.

It would be beneficial for the people of Guelph to learn about the benefits of high-speed rail in Canada. There is a free one-day high-speed rail symposium in Kitchener, Jan. 31 from noon to 5 p.m. at the Region of Waterloo council chambers, 150 Frederick St.in Kitchener.

It is put on by High Speed Rail Canada, a national citizen advocacy group for high-speed rail. To learn more about the symposium and register to secure a seat go to the website highspeedrail.ca.

The future planned GO and Via train service (the top speed Via Rail trains now travel at from Guelph to Toronto is 112 km/h) travelling in the current rail corridor could still exist.

The addition of a new high-speed corridor moving people and light freight quicker, more efficiently and economically at speeds between 200 km/h and 300 km/h into Toronto and west into Kitchener/London makes sense.

The people of Guelph deserve better.

– Paul Langan, founder, High Speed Rail Canada, Cambridge