Can you imagine anybody here following queuing protocol like they do in Japan? Anywhere on this continent?
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Montreal’s not that bad in queueing. Worst than immaculate (Japan) but a whole lot better than many other places in the world.
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Yep, and I learned rather quickly on which side to stand and which side to walk when using escalators.
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Ça serait bien!
Le concept de la file d’attente n’est pas universel… Suffit d’essayer de prendre un bus en France, c’est plutôt le plus fort qui gagne.
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As far as I’m aware, the existing alignment is designed for 100km/h. I’ve been messing with it in NIMBY Rails, that mostly holds true. I’ve been trying to see how much I could increase speed without building an entirely new alignment.
The track before Bromont can definitely be straightened. It is possible to build an alignment that could support 250km/h with just a tiny bit of nibbling on the inner side of the curve. The expropriations required to achieve that would be relatively minor, with most of it being fields or forested lands.
The real problem is beyond Bromont. Without changing the alignment too much, the speed could probably be increased to 120 km/h which isn’t that much of an improvement. The changes that you are suggesting could get it to about 160 km/h, but that would require much heavier work.
The problem is that nibbling at the inner corner of curves would not cut it. The terrain is rather hilly and most of the curves are the result of the existing alignment ridding the edge of a valley or a mountain. This means that any straightening beyond 120 km/h would require some major work, blasting right through mountains, building embankments and viaducts. It would not be cheap.
There’s also an 80 km/h segment near lake Orford, at the food of the mountain of the same name, that simply cannot be remedied short of going through the lake, or building a new route which would probably involve extensive tunnelling.
There are several more curves between Magog and Sherbrooke. The land between Magog and Sherbrooke isn’t quite as hilly as the previous segment, but is more heavily built up. This makes it much harder to straighten the alignment without having to tear down a significant amount of buildings. That means that there’s really very little that can reasonably be done to increase speed between Magog and Sherbrooke beyond what the existing alignment offers.
Assuming that the government has any interest in actually putting some money into this route, I think that the best that we can reasonably expect would be 120 km/h along the later half of the route with a few straight segments potentially offering higher speeds. Its not the conclusion that I was hoping for when I started messing with this, but its the conclusion that I ended up with.
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Est-ce qu’il y a assez de place dans la médiane du l’A10 entre Bromont et Eastman pour faire passer un nouvel alignement à cet endroit (et rejoindre l’alignement historique avant et après).
Il y a probablement assez de place, mais honnêtement, rendu là, autant mieux faire ça en parallèle. En mettant ça dans la médiane, il faudrait construire des muret de sécurité en béton de chaque bord. Ça serait beaucoup de béton alors qu’il existe en masse d’espace de chaque bord de l’autoroute.
Le problème avec cet alignement, c’est que l’autoroute Sherbrooke Montréal a quand même beaucoup de dénivelé. Elle passe directement à travers le terrain plutôt que de contourner les montagnes et vallées.
Sur cette photo, Bromont est derrière et on regarde vers Eastman. C’est beaucoup trop accidenté. Ce n’est pas pour rien que je disais que d’augmenter la vitesse dépassé 120 km/h le long de ce segment nécessiterait des travaux majeurs. Ça nécessiterait définitivement de lourds travaux de dynamitage, et quelques viaducs.
On a de la misère à avoir un projet dans le corridor Québec - Montréal - Toronto, dans une géographie qui est beaucoup plus favorable. Espérer plus que des ajustements mineurs dans ce corridor, c’est espérer beaucoup trop.
Si tu es intéressé, je peux poster un peu plus en détail ce que ça donne une fois que j’aurais finalisé ça.
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En effet le plus qui pourrait arriver dans ce corridor est une amélioration des rails existants.
L’endroit où je pense qu’il serait productif de remettre des rails serait l’ancien petit train du nord de St Jérôme à Mt Tremblant. Un train à cet endroit partirait de la gare centrale avec arrêts à Parc, Blainville, St Jérôme, St Sauveur, Ste-Adele, Ste-Agathe-des-Monts et Mont Tremblant.
Il y a beaucoup de touristes l’hiver et un peu l’été. L’autoroute des Laurentides est congestionnée les fins de semaines aussi et je pense qu’il y aurait aussi de l’intérêt pour les locaux.
Évidemment il y a aujourd’hui une piste cyclable et beaucoup de NIMBY mais on peut toujours rêver…
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Do we need that much speed anyway? At 160km distance, and 1h30/1h45 travel time by car, it’s hard to compete on speed, especially since the car will get you directly to your destination.
If we assume stops at Saint-Jean, Farnham, Bromont, Magog and Sherbrooke, that gives us also an average of 32km between stops, which could also be a limiting factor since you will stay at higher speed for not that long, yielding a limited time gain.
I think the winning factor here might be frequency and reliability rather than speed.
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For the purpose that it would serve, I do feel that 160 would be perfectly acceptable. There are many segments that could sustain higher speeds if the railway was rebuilt up to the right standards. The curves do need some level of smoothing. As they exist right now, trains would have to slow down before curves and accelerate again after the curve. The speed that can be sustained in curves does need to be somewhat increased to ensure that a passenger train can stay at its cruising speed. In some cases, removing curves and cutting across would reduce the distance by a few kilometers and that definitely would make a difference on the transit time. I do think that its possible to go at least that far while keeping the costs within reason.
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I wonder if going with FRA compliant DMUs like Metrolinx’s Nippon Sharyo instead of more typical fleet like VIA’s Siemens could provide better travel times and make this alignment more manageable.
I don’t know… the Corridor 
is also about fives times longer than the Montreal-Sherbrooke alignement, and while it is favorable to higher speeds in many parts, it also has a lot of sections where the natural AND built environment are more challenging than what we can fin between Bromont and Sherbrooke.
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Usually the advantage of using multiple-units is faster acceleration and weight distribution. Since this particular line doesn’t have many stops I doubt it would make a big difference.
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I haven’t yet messed with the portion between Toronto and Ottawa, but as far as Montreal - Québec or Montréal - Ottawa, there really aren’t all that many obstacles to building a 300 km/h corridor. It looks a lot worse than it really is.
In Québec, if you bypass the portion going through Limoilou, you could drive that corridor all the way to the old city with a 4 km tunnel. In Montreal, the combined CP CN alignment is wide enough for 8 pairs of rails. The portion between Dorion and Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue is another story. 160 km/h is all that you are going to get out of the curve when entering the Island. The space between the two existing bridges is rather tight, so that could be somewhat more problematic.
Just beyond the Place Saint-Henri Metro station, I would enlarge the corridor to 4 pairs of rails for a short segment. Beyond Canal Lachine, the rail corridor separates in two. I would negotiate with CN to get full ownership of the northern corridor. The Southern corridor, closer to the St-Laurence would still allow CN to use the Victoria bridge without interfering with HSR.
The only real problem along that entire alignment is the segment between Laval and Gare Centrale. I definitely would like a tunnel to be built, but the more realistic option is probably to have the Québec train make a stop at De la Concorde, Canora and dead end at Dorval / YUL where transfers would be available for Ottawa / Toronto.
To be honest, the portion between Toronto and Ottawa has me somewhat worried. I really don’t understand why they did not chose a shoreline alignment. The terrain quite rugged between Smiths Falls and Peterborough, and its a lot longer than Bromont - Sherbrooke. Its also way deeper into the wilds which vastly increases logistic costs. That also means that if there ever was an emergency, it is so far out in the woods that rescue services would take hours to get there. I’m not a fan of that at all. I feel like no though has been given to that aspect. I’m much more partial to just building alongside the CP alignment going down to Belleville.
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You mean 8 tracks right? Does that take platforms into account?
I assume the following:
2 tracks for Exo
2 for HSR / Regional trains
2 for CP
2 for CN
Along the entire right of way, I assume 10 meter wide central platforms as they take less space than a pair of side platforms. The tracks in Montreal are laid with 4.5 meters between center. I’m using 5 meters. There are definitely some spots where it would get interesting to say the least. At Sainte-Anne, the power line would most definitely need to be moved. There’s a few highway ramps that would need to be reconfigured. I definitely think that its doable.
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Qu’est-ce que vous pensez d’un scénario avec 2 services qui utilisent 2 gares distinctes:
- Québec - Trois-Rivières - Laval - Montréal (Canora) - Montréal (Lucien L’Allier) - Ottawa Toronto
- Montréal (Gare-Centrale) - Ottawa - Toronto
J’ai l’impression qu’étant donné que les trajets Trois-Rivières et Québec vers Ottawa et Toronto représentent un volume qui sera très faible par rapport aux autres combinaison de destination (Montréal - Québec, Montréal - Ottawa ou Montréal - Toronto) qu’il peut valoir la peine d’offrir le one-seat ride pour Montréal - Québec via Lucien L’Allier même si ça va ralentir un peu le service des autres destinations.
Je suis inquiet qu’on va avoir un problème de capacité sur le REM avec l’idée d’une station à Canora. C’est déjà prévu que le sergment Canora - McGill va être le plus chargé du REM. Ensuite considérant le développement TOD qui s’en vient à Brois-Franc et éventuellement ? sur le branche de l’Ouest et le fait que des trains de la ligne Mascouche vont se déverser à Côte-de-Liesse, on pourrait avoir des enjeux.
Je suis désolé de le dire, mais tu as en effet raison d’être inquiet d’un potentiel problème de capacité sur le REM. La simulation de NIMBY Rails est très loin d’être parfaite, mais elle reproduisait assez bien le crush sur la ligne orange avant que je rajoute le REM. Depuis, que j’ai rajouté cette ligne, c’est le REM qui est la ligne la plus occupé du réseau. Si les choses ressemblent à ce que je vois dans la simulation, le segment le plus occupé va être entre la Gare Centrale et Côte-de-Liesse. J’utilise une fréquence de 160 secondes, avec un partage égal des trains entre les branches ( fréquence de 8 minute pour les branches ).
Là dessus, je dirais que c’est un des endroit où la simulation de NIMBY Rails génère plus de passagers que dans la réalité. La ligne Exo-Mascouche est très lourdement utilisé. À un détail près, j’ai reproduis cette ligne dans la configuration qu’elle aura une fois le REM en service. J’ai déplacé la gare Anjou au croisement de Armand-Bombardier. C’est plus central comme emplacement, donc je pense que ça desservirait mieux la population.
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Est ce que CDPQi a toujours 90 secondes comme fréquence sur le tronçon central? Est ce trop optimiste?