And I typically defer to you and Reece and many others; I love trains and like to learn about them, but I’m by no means an expert! You all teach me new info all the time. 
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Un long article dans La Presse sur la ligne de Mascouche
Le président de EXO, dans sa lettre, omet de mentionner que la ligne de Mascouche va ravoir son accès au centre-ville dans 2 ans via le REM de la phase 1.
Mais il fait bien de remettre les pendules à l’heure pour tous ces maires qui réclament le REM.
Et tant mieux si on peut moderniser le train de banlieue. Cependant dans le passé, l’AMT avait pleins de beaux projets et aucun budget du gouvernement pour les réaliser. Espérons qu’ils pourront mieux se faire entendre.
Ils mentionnent que la ligne Mascouche terminera sa route à Côte-de-Liesse pour prendre le REM et atteindre Gare Centrale en 10 minutes.
Acheter et d’électrifier la ligne EXO2 jusqu’à Parc est une très bonne nouvelle. Cependant, au sud de Parc les rails seront toujours la propiorité du CP et utilisé avec leurs trains diesel. Deux choix seraient possible pour Exo: 1- terminer le service à Parc (donc transferts aux métro de la Concorde (Orange) ou Parc (bleue). 2- Utiliser des locomotives bimodes comme sur Exo5 (Mascouche). D’ailleurs Mascouche n’a plus besoin de du mode électrique depuis que les trains n’accèdent plus le tunnel. Est-ce que leurs loco bimodes ont été remisées et remplacées par des diesel?
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On devrait tellement agrandir le réseau de trains de banlieue. C’est la meilleure solution pour les couronnes… Imaginez juste des lignes qui permettent de relier Varennes, Chambly, Valleyfield, Saint-Augustin et L’Assomption?
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Absolument!!!.
La ligne de Mascouche toutefois a été tellement mal planifiée.
Au départ je me souviens que Mascouche devait être relié à Montréal sans faire le grand détour vers Repentigny.
Cela aurait dû être 2 trains distincts.
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C’est ce qui arrive quand on court-circuite la planification régionale pour faire des projets en vase-clos.
$750M de gaspillage (bon, la ligne Mascouche était déjà $300-400M trop cher mais quand même, quel gâchis).
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Le train de Mascouche a été mis en service en décembre 2014, après un investissement total de plus de 730 millions de dollars du gouvernement du Québec. Moins de sept ans plus tard, son tracé se trouve coupé par les travaux du Réseau express métropolitain (REM) vers l’Ouest-de-l’Île et compromis par le futur REM de l’Est, dont le trajet parallèle risque de nuire à son achalandage.
Si on est obsédé par la desserte du centre-ville et le “one-seat ride”, peut-être. Même si je ne n’aime pas particulièrement le projet du REM de l’est — oui “parallèle” à la ligne exo5, mais à plusieurs km de celle-ci — je ne blâmerais pas la ligne B, ni même la ligne A, d’avoir compromis le train de Mascouche.
La ligne était compromise dès le départ avec le choix d’emplacement de gares douteux, un nombre insuffisant de gares, une offre de 6 départs par jour limités aux heures de pointes de semaine, des projets de redéveloppement tardif et modestes aux alentours des gares, des tarifs sur l’île non-compétitifs avec la STM, et une terrible intégration avec le réseau de la STM.
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Opinion: Commuter trains must be part of the equation
Montreal’s various public transit networks need to be co-ordinated to ensure that services are reliable and efficient.
Author of the article:
Sylvain Yelle • Special to Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:
Jun 14, 2021 • Last Updated 1 day ago • 3 minute read
An exo train is seen in 2019. “Compared to the REM, exo trains can carry more passengers over longer distances, as they provide more seating and direct routes,” Sylvain Yelle writes. PHOTO BY ALLEN MCINNIS /Montreal Gazette
There are several public transit projects underway in the Greater Montreal area. Once operational, each will help improve mobility for all citizens. This is great news for sustainable mobility.
These new projects are exciting, but they also raise concerns. For instance, Montreal’s various public transit networks need to be co-ordinated to ensure that services are reliable and efficient. The Greater Montreal area being vast, shouldn’t we optimize ridership on all our services rather than overshadowing them?
If optimally planned, each transit mode can efficiently serve citizens within a given territory. As such, the REM will occupy a specific niche, offering high-frequency services that connect urban and suburban areas. As for the commuter trains, they are effective at serving more distant areas, including Montreal’s southern and northern suburbs. Compared to the REM, exo trains can carry more passengers over longer distances, as they provide more seating and direct routes.
To improve sustainable mobility, commuter trains must be part of the equation. That’s why we need to invest in the system, including investments in infrastructure, new railcars, lower-emission locomotives, improved accessibility, and so on. These investments will make exo trains more reliable and attractive for passengers.
Such issues as road congestion and climate change will be back at the forefront after the pandemic. Therefore, exo’s network will be essential for the relaunch of our economy. Our teams are looking into development projects that will help commuter trains reach their full potential in the post-pandemic world.
The exo2 Saint-Jérôme line, which connects the North Shore to downtown Montreal, has strong potential. For instance, we are considering the feasibility of electrifying a large portion of that railway line and improving service.
Stations and park-and-ride lots could also be more modern and comfortable for users, while being better integrated with their surrounding environments. The exo4 Candiac line is the first that comes to mind.
Finally, we are exploring various scenarios to enhance the customer experience and performance on our Vaudreuil-Hudson exo1 line, to better serve users.
Ever since its launch, the REM project has had an impact on some of our commuter train lines’ reliability. Although we knew this transition period would be difficult, we remain concerned about there being duplication without any improvement of service to suburban areas.
The exo5 Mascouche line is a striking example: not only was its length reduced with the arrival of phase one of the REM, but the closure of the Mount Royal tunnel has significantly increased users’ travel time. As a result, the service has already become far less attractive. With the possible addition of two new eastbound REM lines, it has become difficult to envision maintaining another mode of transit on this same route. We must immediately turn our attention to its future.
Exo trains move millions of users every year. They are an essential part of the metropolitan transit equation, along with several other modes of transit. We saw this recently with the total closure of the Île-aux-Tourtes Bridge, when exo was able to quickly adjust its service to accommodate users who were being held prisoner on either side of the river. This is a concrete example of the need to invest strategically in developing our infrastructure to build a reliable and efficient public transit network.
If we find a common vision, our public transit systems will succeed in improving sustainable mobility for citizens in the metropolitan area. And exo will continue to do so.
Sylvain Yelle is executive director of exo.
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Hanes: Shiny new REM shouldn’t undermine existing transit infrastructure
New public transit infrastructure is supposed to increase service and complement existing lines — not impoverish and undermine them.
Author of the article:
Allison Hanes • Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:
Jun 14, 2021 • 14 hours ago • 3 minute read • Join the conversation
Passengers get off and on a commuter train on the Vaudreuil-Hudson line at the Dorval station in 2018.PHOTO BY JOHN MAHONEY /Montreal Gazette files
If there was a silver lining to the sudden emergency closure of the Île-aux-Tourtes Bridge last month, it was the temporary addition of extra commuter trains on one of the region’s busiest lines.
Exo, which operates the regional railway, offered three more return trips on the Vaudreuil-Hudson commuter rail line to help mitigate the inexcusable traffic nightmareunleashed on the off-island communities of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Pincourt and L’Île-Perrot, not to mention Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue on the western tip of Montreal Island. The extra trains — which were free for the duration of the repairs — helped ferry workers to their jobs and students to school. They also offered a brief glimpse of what service improvements might look like on a route that was often crowded in pre-pandemic times.
But this all vanished once the bridge reopenedahead of schedule. Easy come, easy go.
Commuter rail provides an indispensable service around the region, with millions of passengers from St-Jérôme to Candiac and Mascouche to Hudson riding the rails each year to reach Montreal and points in between. If residents of these communities didn’t have the trains — or if the trains weren’t convenient — they would instead jam highways and spew more climate-change-causing emissions. Tailpipe pollution is a major and growing source of greenhouse gases in Quebec that must be tamed.
But trouble looms over almost all commuter rail lines from an unlikely source: competition.
As the executive director of Exo warned in an open letter published Monday, the existing train service faces many hurdles from the new REM electric train currently under construction. Ditto for the REM de l’Est slated for the east end of Montreal.
The REM, which is being planned, designed, built and will be operated by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec pension fund, is taking over the Deux-Montagnes line from Exo and could siphon away West Island passengers from the Vaudreuil-Hudson line. The REM de l’Est also risks attracting ridersfrom the Mascouche line, which no longer has access to the Mount Royal Tunnel and must take a longer, more circuitous route to reach downtown.
Exo will face this potential decline in ridership and revenue at the same time as it could see some of its funding diverted to the REM.
“We remain concerned about there being duplication without any improvement of service to suburban areas,” wrote Exo’s Sylvain Yelle, pleading his case for an investment from the Quebec government in the existing commuter rail system to avoid its impoverishment.
He also asked a pertinent question: “Shouldn’t we optimize ridership on all our services rather than overshadowing them?”
Yelle hit the nail on the head.
He also underscored growing frustration in and around Montreal that the Quebec government has essentially handed authority for planning and delivering a collective good — transit — to a private entity, sidestepping the public agencies that are supposed to carry out this responsibility.
The Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain was established with the purpose of developing, co-ordinating and funding transit on a regional level. It was supposed to get all the disparate agencies offering transit, from Exo to the Société de transport de Montréal to its counterparts in Laval, Longueuil and beyond, rowing together in the same direction to make service more efficient. But since the REM came along, the ARTM’s mandate has been usurped.
This doesn’t mean the service the REM and REM de l’Est will provide isn’t crucial. A new train through the north part of the West Island has been sought for decades. A railway over the new Champlain Bridge to the South Shore is essential. And a new transit link to the city’s east end and Montreal North via the REM de l’Est will fulfill some of the goals of Mayor Valérie Plante’s proposed Pink Line, taking pressure off the métro’s beleaguered Orange Line and reaching areas of the city underserved by public transit.
The combined investment of more than $16 billion in the two shiny, new electric train lines and CDPQ Infra’s ability to get them done quickly is an economic and environmental game-changer.
But all this can’t be achieved by robbing Peter to pay Paul. New transit projects should complement, not undermine, existing routes. They should draw new passengers instead of displacing current ones. They should offer riders new possibilities, not diminish their options.
Among Yelle’s asks of the government is funding to improve service on the Vaudreuil-Hudson line so that it can compete with the REM. That sounds like a good start toward ensuring all the trains, new and old, run on time.
And just like in the A-20 ROW, there is plenty of room in the exo2 ROW to add dedicated tracks from Parc to Montréal-West. But even shared tracks can be electrified. It just seems we have no couilles when having to deal with CN/CP.
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C’est rassurant de voir que exo a une vision très rationnelle du développement de son réseau. C’est les améliorations aux goulots d’étranglements comme ça qui peuvent permettre le service fréquent et fiable qui attire la clientèle et le développement.
En plus, avec la voie libre vers St-Jérôme qui permettrait un service aux 60 minutes toute la journée et une 3e voie vers Mont-Saint-Hilaire qui ouvre la porte à un prolongement de la ligne vers St-Hyacinthe, on s’enligne vers le développement d’un vrai réseau régional. C’est à mon avis la seule façon pour les trains d’exo d’assurer à terme leur pertinence, en reliant les centres régionaux (St-Hyacinthe, St-Jean, St-Jérôme, Joliette, etc.) et la ville centre.
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Dans l’immédiat, exo se concentre toutefois sur la vitesse de croisière du train Vaudreuil-Hudson, qui roule lentement parce que ses infrastructures sont vieilles et s’arrête souvent parce qu’il compte beaucoup de gares. Peut-être trop de gares.
Again, this ignores the obvious: EMUs. Just like metros, electric motorized railcars accelerate and brake significantly quicker than exo’s ridiculously-long diesel push-pull trains; the Métro’s top speed is barely 70 km/h, and some stations are very close together, but because of electric traction these long, heavy Azurs — filled to capacity — are still able to quickly move through the system (reliably).
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Parlant justement de la ligne Vaudreuil-Hudson, la partie entre Lucien-L’Allier et Dorval appartient-elle à Exo ou au CP? À voir la demande pour du service dans le secteur, j’ai l’impression qu’avec des trains adaptés, Exo pourrait facilement justifier un train (court) aux 20 min toute la journée, tous les jours sur la partie centrale de cette ligne. Mieux encore, si ce tronçon pouvait être électrifié, on pourrait même réutiliser les MR-90 qu’on a remisé après la conversion de la ligne Deux-Montagnes.
100% CP, donc pas d’électrification, pas de priorité, pas de long rail soudés, pas de quai élevés, bref rien qui pourrait nuire aux opérations du CP.
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La portion entre Lucien-L’Allier et Montréal-Ouest avait pas été achetée par l’AMT? Il me semble sinon qu’elle avait l’usage exclusif, mais je me souviens d’annonce du genre en tout cas…
Seulement Exo utilise ce tronçon, mais il appartient toujours bel et bien au CP
En fait, je pense que le seul train du CP qui passe sur ce tronçon est le Train des fêtes du CP, une fois par année. Ça et puis les trains de travaux de la voie.
Voici un tweet intéressant au sujet d’Exo et de VIA Rail.
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Interesting but ultimately a false flag: every voice raised in opposition to REM’s exclusive use of the tunnel conveniently ignores the 150 second (or even 90 second) headways that REM will require to maintain decent capacity. A “compatible ATO system” won’t do anything to allow a mainline train to squeeze in to that frequency without a third or even fourth track, which would require boring a whole new tunnel. It’s nonsense, and I disregard declarations like that whenever I see them. Trainsparence-level nonsense.
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