Bonne question. Je suis juste content qu’il y a trois soumissionnaires, ça fait changement de la ligne bleue…
Si je comprends, les soumissions ont déjà été reçues. VIA est en analyse/questions aux soumissionnaires. Après ça VIA donne son analyse au gouvernement qui annoncera le gagnant cet automne?
Et ça fait changement du tram de Québec… 
Un monopoly maudit.
It is really interesting to note that Cadence has the SCNF in it while Intercity Rail Developers has the RATP. Its almost like France is hedging its bets.
As far as I care, Intercity Rail Developers include First Rail Holdings which is a UK company and that loses them points. While the UK rail system is well maintained, it lacks speed, has a problematic operating model. HS1 and HS2 are both well known for having budgets that ballooned out of control.
I suspect that Cadence has a leg up on the other consortiums given the strong presence of those enterprises in Canada, but QCONNEXION has a number of enterprises which have a strong credentials and reputation.
oui en novembre.
Right, but at this point in the process it’s unclear what each consortium’s members’ roles might be. For example, CDPQ (NB not Infra) investing $150 million in the P3 that won the $6 Billion O&M contract for the Sydney Metro is more likely purely a financial investment rather than a project management opportunity. In the case of Cadence, I’d expect Atkins-Réalis and SNCF Voyageurs to take the lead, while AC-T and the Caisse provide capital as risk-sharing partners. But I dunno.
QCONNEXION are missing investors. I am suspicious about their chance…
Quoiqu’il en soit je trouve que cela augure très bien pour l’avenir… J’ai juste envie de dire “que le meilleur gagne”. Plus ce projet sera avancé et les premières ententes signées et plus il sera difficile de faire marche arrière (même pour un gouvernement conservateur). On aurait tous préféré que VIA pilote ce projet en interne mais force de constater qu’on lui avait pas donné les moyens financiers mais surtout qu’elle n’avait pas l’expertise interne non plus. Alors je pense maintenant que l’approche actuelle est bonne qui plus est le projet est porté par des personnes qui me semblent vraiment motivées.
Il y a aussi le fait que peu importe qui “gagne” le contrat, les plans des autres candidats seront remis au consortium gagnant, question de voir si y’a pas eu des blind spots, ou si y’a des idées qui peuvent améliorer le projet.
Bref je dirais que finalement, tant que le projet se fait, c’est la population qui sera réellement gagnante.
C’est le meilleur aspect de cet appel d’offre : le partage des offres de ceux non sélectionnés.
Je ne me rappel pas avoir vu passer ce rapport de recherche de la firme Cambia Consulting à propos de la construction d’un train à grande vitesse dans le corridor Québec-Toronto. Je ne connais également rien sur cette firme, donc je ne peux me prononcer sur la validité de ce rapport.
Build it Right - A Study of HFR/HSR in Canada - Cambia Consulting
This study examines in detail possible HFR and HSR networks, their associated costs and travel times, important network design tradeoffs and HFR/HSR should be implemented. The costs stated assume best planning and construction management processes are implemented as is done in countries such as Italy and Spain. The HSR system would have a maximum operating speed of 320 kph and was designed to meet specified travel time targets while minimizing capital costs. HFR would operate with a maximum operating speed of 160 kph and would not require the construction of the new grade separations.
Key Findings
HSR would achieve travel times of 2h57m between Toronto and Montreal, 50m between Ottawa and Montreal and 1h26m between Montreal and Quebec City. HFR would be considerably slower but with travel times to current rail service of 4h27m between Toronto and Montreal, 1h20m between Ottawa and Montreal and 2h16m between Montreal and Quebec City.
2.26G$ pour Ottawa-Montréal et 3.19G$ pour Montréal-Québec en TGV?!?
C’est moins cher que le PSE et un no-brainer!
A noter que le rapport mentionne que ces coûts sont basés sur les meilleures pratiques de réalisation européenne.
Their proposition seem to closely match a very large portion of what I have been saying. The main difference is that Wye for the Québec Airport. I don’t like that solution at all. It changes the direction that the train is facing. I don’t know how long they are allowing for the stop at the airport, but realistically, it should be rather short since it is an intermediary stop. I prefer the tunnel option. With modern technology, it is definitely possible for the driver to drive the train without needing to change cabin, but it is still less than ideal.
Yeah his QC airport proposition really does not make sense, specially given that the airport is on the smaller size and is unlikely to attract ridership from Trois-Rivières or Mtl.
While scouring twitter I saw the author himself admit that just having a Québec Ouest suburban station would do the job for local riders, and an aiport shuttle in some form could do the job linking the two.
Another funny thing I noticed in the study is how he assumes 1 minute dwell times, which is massively ambitious, given that’s the cadence of swiss trains which only do short intercity travel, not long distance with most of train riders, with luggage, disembarking in a single station.
Otherwise I think it’s a very good study, and I’m surprised we missed here, given the community’s obsession with debating which Montréal alignment the line will/should. I randomly stumbled on it on twitter.
Of course the goal of the study isn’t to show probable costs, but what could be possible with Spanish levels of cost control, I wager that just the Parc Tunnel (if) will cost more than his estimated cost for the whole of Mtl-QC
Something interesting he proposed for Mtl-QC I don’t remember seeing here (apart from a 12m bore for the Parc tunnel lol) is that the Ottawa-Mtl segment will very probably be the first segment to be developed while Qc would be the last, which gives the freedom of having Gare Centrale as terminus initially, and leaves time to build political will for a Parc tunnel once the first segment is operational.
I think my biggest point of disagreement with the study is only estimating costs for the lowest possible capacity (the one in the bid with 20 trains a day @ 250m trains) and not factoring in the massive ridership a HSR would bring in.
A HSR line would certainly bring in more passengers than 14k (700x20) per day per direction, and it would be foolish to go for tunnels to low for double deckers and half lenght platforms of only 250m.
You are definitely right that the tunnelling cost seems a bit low. It is physically impossible to dig a tunnel all the way to Gare Centrale. At best, they can probably go as far as Sherbrooke before they need to switch methods. Between there and Gare Centrale, they are quite literally going to be digging through the foundations and basements of skyscrapers. On its own, the amount of engineering required to achieve that feat is rather scary, especially if they end up having to move columns and build load transfer beams. It is doable, but it won’t be cheap, and it will take several years to get that kind of job done.
Based on Google earth measurements, the existing platforms in the city of Québec are 180 meters. That plan would require them to build a brand new platform. There isn’t enough space in Québec for a 250 meter platform. They can probably extend the platforms to 200 meters, but beyond that, they would conflict with the switches that are between the bridge and the station. If they want a platform longer than that, they are probably better off building a brand new station.
How many passengers ride the train from Montreal to Ottawa and Toronto right now? I just did the quick math on the number of airline passengers flying from Montreal to Ottawa and Toronto, and if every single flight on AC, Porter, and Transat left YUL full, it’s just under 4700 passengers per day. Rounded up, let’s be generous and say 5000. I have no doubt that true high-speed rail could swallow a lot of that, if the ticket prices are right. I am less convinced that high-speed rail would remove a substantial number of cars from the road between the three cities without some form of punitive government intervention like expensive tolls. So I really doubt 14,000 people a day would take the train anytime soon.
Mt-Ottawa-Toronto by Via Rail is 5800 per day total[1] plus a good part of the 2500 of Ottawa Quebec are riding the train to Ottawa, though I guess that cancels out with the passengers from the lake north shore who won’t be riding the line.
So we’re already at 10k with plane and Via.
We can probably add another thousand from intercity buses.
I don’t know the road numbers, but my rule of thumb in NA is that there’s usually 10x the amount you get on the plane, because it’s cheaper. There’s a lot of ridership to get there and a high speed train can get a lot of it because it obliterates the road travel time, while being generally cheaper than the plane, and a frequency good enough to be really convenient.
And of course there’s all the induced demand that is generated by finally having a travel mode that is downtown to downtown, cheapish and fast.
There are city pairs in europe with less favorable population/travel time than Mtl-Toronto with this amount of trains, like Madrid-Valencia[2] has 30 trains a day and increasing.
[1] 41k a week https://media.viarail.ca/sites/default/files/publications/397_034_VIARAIL_ANNUAL-REPORT-2023.pdf
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4
Either way, we don’t really need longer platforms until we hit frequencies similar to Japanese Shinkansen. I don’t think that we’ll get there anytime soon. If we need more capacity, we can just buy more trains. That’s way cheaper than extending platforms in a heavily built up environment.
As much as I am a proponent of more trains, higher capacity train have the advantage of being more economical to run, as you still only need 2 cabs and one driver.
Given the line is not going to cost 10 billions to build, at least maximizing its operations would be great.
Do you think that will attract many from the vast majority of people who don’t live downtown (or want to arrive downtown)? Honest question.
