This is the best article on the current state of high speed rail lobbying in Canada. Unfortunately to view it, you have to sign up for a two week free trial subscription to the Lobby Monitor. Well worth the little effort needed. http://www.lobbymonitor.ca/2015/11/15/high-speed-rail-players-waiting-for-clear-signs-before-beginning-canadian-lobbying-efforts/14196

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/04/high-speed-rail-canada-via-rail-yves-desjardins-siciliano_n_8473342.html

Windsor Star - The Windsor market will gain two runs as part of a strategy by Via Rail Canada to increase ridership. Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, the president and CEO of Via Rail, announced the return of a 5:30 p.m. weekday train from Toronto to Windsor and an extra run between Windsor and London during a Wednesday luncheon hosted by the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce. “We’re working hard to increase ridership at Via Rail,” Desjardins-Siciliano told about 50 people at the Caboto Club. “We believe we’re poised for growth.” He said the extra service should be in place late this year or by early 2016. There is also a plan to add an extra service between Sarnia and London.

High Speed Rail Canada officially announces that their on-line store is now open to buy High Speed Rail Canada clothing. WireService.ca Press Release (05/20/2015) Cambridge, ON , - High Speed Rail Canada is Canada's only national advocacy group promoting the introduction of high speed rail since 2008. High Speed Rail Canada has over 20 previous Canadian high speed rail studies on their website as well as the world’s largest publically available video and audio recordings relating to the CN Turbo Train and Bombardier Jet Train. Their newsletter goes out to over 300 supporters and is growing each month. The introduction of clothing embroidered with the High Speed Rail Canada logo for sale is now being offered on their website. Payment is available through Paypal. Clothing available through the site includes: Short and long sleeve T-shirts. Ladies and mens polo Shirts. Zippered and pull over Gildan Hoodies High Speed Rail Founder Paul Langan states , ...

Just two days ago we posted an article about VIA Rail CEO in Italy talking high speed rail partnerships now the Financial Post has a similar article. Here is the problem nobody will partner with VIA unless the federal government is committing some substantial funding also. The good news is VIA is trying to do something! http://business.financialpost.com/2014/12/04/via-rail-eyeing-private-capital-to-build-its-own-dedicated-rail-lines/

Michele Mario Elia, CEO of Italian State Railways met December 1st in Rome with Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, CEO of Via Rail. Italferr, the Italian State Railways Group engineering firm, operates on the Italian and international markets in the field of railway transport engineering. The article states that Italferr is doing exploratory work in Canada. What could it all mean, especially while the current anti-passenger rail Conservative government is still in power?

Well nobody tells the tragic story of VIA Rail quite like Rick Mercer. Japan announces 500kph trains so Rick does another spoof on VIA Rail.

Why in Canada do we live in a cultural abyss when it comes to having a modern passenger rail service? I was trying to remember when I last had hope that Canada would modernize its passenger rail service and join the rest of the world. In 2000, I was excited when VIA Rail purchased 139 of the Alstom-built Nightstar passenger rail cars.1 These were originally built for an overnight train service between the UK and the mainland. Pro-rail federal Transport Minister David Collenette announced the “Renaissance (the new name for Nightstar equipment) of Passenger Rail in Canada,” which represented a $402 million influx of money for VIA. In my community it meant the addition of a second morning train into Toronto and the refurbishment of the historic railway station in Kitchener. Around 2002 VIA also announced it was purchasing a new General Electric Locomotive for its fleet. I went to the press conference in Toronto that was promoting the new locomotives. Sadly, the Renaissance funding...

High Speed Rail Canada founder Paul Langan talks to CKNW Radio show host Phil Till in Vancouver about Toronto's high speed rail idea and also the situation in Vancouver.

The Green Party of Canada has started a campaign to get more funding for VIA Rail. As the Harper government continues to cut VIA Rail services across Canada, VIA's very survival is at risk. To the credit of the Green Party their support for passenger rail renewal has been consistent over the years. Elizabeth May travelled by train on her Whistle Stop Tour in 2008. In the last federal election the Green Party announced their support for high speed rail in a VIDEO . Now they have an on-line petition " Get back on Track " you can sign to support renewal of passenger rail. Here are some good graphs on the Green Party Site regarding Harper government passenger rail declining investment in VIA. http://www.greenparty.ca/back-on-track Also Bruce Hyer, Member of Parliament for Thunder Bay–Superior North and Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Canada embarkedon a rail trip from Halifax to Montreal this past Sunday, in order to push for a national transportation strategy and to...

AGENDA of the STANDING COMMITTEE ON ALBERTA’S ECONOMIC FUTURE DATE: Tuesday, December 3, 2013 TIME: 6:15 pm to 7:15 pm LOCATION: Committee Room A 4th Floor – Legislature Annex 1. Call to Order 2. Approval of Agenda 3. Approval of Meeting Minutes: November 25, 2013 4. Presentation on the feasibility of high-speed rail transit within Alberta a) Ministry of Transportation Mr. Rob Penny - Deputy Minister Ms Sara Wong - Director, Multi-Modal Transportation Policy b) Questions from the Committee 5. Other Business 6. Date of Next Meeting 7. Adjournment http://www.assembly.ab.ca/committees/docs/EF-1181-agenda.pdf

http://www.wireservice.ca/index.php?module=News&func=display&sid=11234 High Speed Rail Canada is releasing to the public for free the Canadian National Railways 1966 press releases and background material relating to the introduction of the Canadian National/United Aircraft high speed Turbotrain. Media Release - November 19th, 2013 - High Speed Rail Canada is a national non profit organization dedicated to educating Canadians on the benefits of modern passenger rail in Canada. They do it through their blog, youtube video channel, Facebook site and public symposiums. High Speed Rail Canada has the largest audio and video collection of the United Aircraft and Canadian National Turbotrain. This train ran from 1968 through to 1982. It was Canada's high speed train with speeds over 200km/h. These 1966 CN and UAC Press Releases and background material, including diagrams and models of the Turbotrain, are being made available for the first time in over four decades. Paul La...

High Speed Rail Canada is utilizing the Internet Archive as a place to store its archives. Although we have used them before, we will move forward to storing all our archive there. Here are 4 maps from studies of the possible high speed rail lines in Canada. New York-Montreal, Boston-Montreal, Quebec City- Windsor, Calgary-Edmonton. These maps are not new but making them easily accessible for future generations is important. Here is the link - https://archive.org/details/HSRCanadaMaps

High Speed Rail Canada Opens Flickr High Speed Rail Photostream :: Wire Service Media High Speed Rail Canada has started a Flickr Photostream to further their mandate to educate people about the benefits and history of high speed rail in Canada. WireService.ca Press Release - 10/04/2013 - Toronto  - High Speed Rail Canada is proud to announce the newest addition to their web presence. They have started a Flickr High Speed Rail Photostream. High Speed Rail Canada was formed in 2008, to educate Canadians about the benefits of high speed trains through their website, public forums, YouTube channel, Facebook and twitter accounts. The creation of their own Flickr photostream is another positive step in this process. Paul Langan, Founder High Speed Rail Canada states,  " We have started our Flickr photostream by adding over 65 images of the iconic CN, UAC Turbo Train. The Turbo ran at faster speeds 40 years ago then current VIA trains today. These photos are a reminder that Cana...

We have serious passenger rail problems in Canada and the USA. We are almost half a century behind in the development of modern high speed trains. To his credit, President Obama realized this problem and in 2009 announced his vision for modernizing the outdated U.S. passenger rail system. Perhaps they should have used the phrase "higher speed rail" instead of high speed rail, since most money would go to upgrading existing rail infrastructure. The President knew the economic, social, and environmental benefits that could happen. While progress has definitely been made, the current political quagmire of American politics has made acceptance and implementation of his plan difficult. The national passenger rail carrier Amtrak is carrying record ridership. In June 2013 more people rode Amtrack that month than in its history: 2.9 million people. Its signature high speed train the Acela Express has done very well. In Canada the situation is very grave for the future of a...

Perhaps the most often asked questions to me is, "Does High Speed Rail make money?". Unfortunately the anti passenger rail folks who love asking this question, do not ask the same question of other infrastructure projects. Do roads make money? Car ownership and the building, maintaining and use of the roads is one of the largest financial and environmental costs to Canadians. One example to illustrate the cost of roads is the PEI Confederation Billion dollar bridge. We as taxpayers are paying a staggering $44 million a year for the next 33 years to in effect pay the mortgage on it. Does providing policing, sewage treatment and health care make money? Of course not, these are things that are done for the public good. We also seem to ignore the cost overruns associated with the building and maintaining nuclear power plants. An example: Just one plant, the Darlington Nuclear Plant original cost in 1993 was estimated to be $3.95 billion. The final cost was a staggering $14.4 ...

The State of High Speed Rail in Canada | media! It’s not hard to describe the current state of high speed rail in Canada. It’s pretty much non-existent. That is apart from Bombardier who is busy building high speed trains for countries around the world. The ZEFIRO by Bombardier is capable of speeds up to 380 kilometres per hour. Yet you won’t find any of them in Canada. Around the world many countries are expanding existing high speed rail infrastructure; yet Canada it seems is intent to sit on the sidelines. media! News Magazine asked the founder of High Speed Rail Canada, Paul Langan, about the state of high speed rail in Canada. Here is what he had to say. How did you get involved with High Speed Rail Canada? I had been doing passenger rail advocacy for about 25 years in Canada. Grassroot groups that were mostly about fighting to keep VIA Rail service going in a community. I found myself often in conflict with VIA RAIL management on how the organization was run. I decided to do...

Over the next few months. I would like to organize some meet and greets. The events will be called, "You Can't Organize Unless You Socialize".- The Future of High Speed Rail in Canada. We can discuss strategies on how to get improved higher speed passenger rail on the political agenda in the next federal election in Canada. Basically we would meet in a bar/restaurant and network. A Saturday 1-4pm type of thing. If you have a fun place in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and want to help get the word out let me know. I can do an Events page on Facebook. I can also do a poster and send it out to our 300 email list and our media list. So lets start in Toronto in August. Send suggestions on where and if you can help get the word out to highspeedrailcanada(at)yahoo.ca . It is time for Harper to go. Paul Langan, High Speed Rail Canada

by Tyler Brûlé - If you’ve had the misfortune of travelling through some of the US’s bigger, busier airports this week, you’ll no doubt have noticed that all of those threatened cuts to the country’s creaking transport infrastructure have started to bite – and rather hard. As if the situation wasn’t painful enough at the conveyor belt and X-ray machines, it’s now lurched to a sputtering halt. Already we had the comical scene of normally sensible people lining up in stocking feet (the seriously daft are the ones who go barefoot in airports that haven’t seen their floors get a proper cleaning since 1972), and toting multiple plastic bins full of the contents of their travel bags. This has now deteriorated from being a process that moved along with the jerky pace of a stop-motion sketch to something that resembles a frozen frame from a manga comic chronicling the collapse of civil society circa 2013. Read the rest of the article here. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/04c06b86-ad94-11e2-82b8-0...

It always makes our day when we find footage of Bombardier's Jet Train. We still hold out a slim hope that this engine will be introduced some day. For background on the Jet Train go to this good summary on the TRAINoftheWEEK BLOG .We have also added a Bombardier JET TRAIN PLAYLIST on are very popular Youtube Channel.