Dayliner No9022 at Lethbridge railway station July 17 1971 - Lethbridge is Alberta's 4th largest city and may not see passenger rail return for 60 more years according to the Rail Master Plan. Photo courtesy of the Galt Museum and Archives It is no secret that the lack of any inter-city passenger rail in Alberta is a provincial embarrassment. Now the provincial government has released the Alberta's Passenger Rail Master Plan Executive Summary . It is looking at a passenger rail plan or the next 30-60 years.  Since 2004, I have advocated for getting  passenger rail between Calgary and Edmonton. At that time I had made presentations in province, when their was a high-speed rail study done and during the attempt by Bombardier to sell their JetTrain in the province. The Bombardier JetTrain, Calgary, Alberta 2003 - photo by Julian Lengauer The Failed 2004 Edmonton- Calgary High Speed Rail Attempt In 2003, the Alberta government was studying the concept again of high-speed rail betw...

Alberta to study high-speed rail as part of comprehensive passenger rail plan. The province of Alberta has completed five studies since 1985 about the possibility of high-speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton. There is no question that corridor is well suited for high-speed trains. It would be the simplest and least costly to implement of any other potential corridor in Canada. However, no government has moved forward on past study recommendations. It came as a surprise that Premier Danielle Smith has announced a nine million dollar study to look at a comprehensive passenger rail plan for Alberta. Part of that plan would include the Calgary-Edmonton high-speed rail link. It is a provincial embarrassment that a comprehensive inter-city passenger rail system does not exist in Alberta. We hope the resulting plan recommendations will have positive, constructive ways to move the province of Alberta forward to implement a modern  inter-city passenger rail system. That plan would includ...