High Speed Rail Canada is celebrating 15 years of educating Canadians about the benefits of high-speed rail. The main purpose then and now was to educate Canadians on the benefits of high-speed trains. High Speed Rail Canada biggest accomplishment was being the number one source for all previous high-speed rail studies in Canada. That included studies relating to Seattle-Vancouver, Edmonton-Calgary and Ontario-Quebec high-speed rail corridors.  These previous studies are available as a free download to all. Over 867,000 people have accessed the site and the studies there. Paul Langan, Founder of High Speed Rail Canada states,” It has been a difficult, but a rewarding objective to ensure the Canadian studies on high-speed, and the truth about the benefits of high-speed rail are made readily available." The High Speed Rail Canada website: http://highspeedrailcanada.com is the main way information is transmitted to the public. High Speed Rail Canada also utilizes their social media;...

  Sylvain Larocque, Le Journal de Montreal - Plus rentable, meilleur pour l’environnement : le gouvernement Trudeau devrait mettre de côté son projet de train à grande fréquence (TGF) entre Québec et Toronto pour miser sur la grande vitesse, martèle le géant français Alstom. « Tant qu’à mettre des sommes comme celles-là, autant que soit dans un investissement le plus rentable possible et qui amène l’impact à la fois économique et sociétal le plus élevé », confie au Journal Michael Keroullé, président d’Alstom pour les Amériques. https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2023/01/24/alstom-propose-a-nouveau-un-tgv-entre-quebec-et-toronto

  The Young Liberal wing of Liberal Party Canada  #highspeedrail  policy was approved at the Liberal Policy Convention and was prioritized as number 4 out of 26. GREAT NEWS! Let us hope the Prime Minister does not confuse  #TGV   #highspeed  rail with VIA Rail flawed, slow trains, high frequency rail proposal. Here is LINK to convention policies that were approved.

 Canada is now a half-century behind the rest of the world in fast efficient passenger rail service. Do not be fooled by terms like "High Frequency Rail" . These trains travel at low speeds. Canada needs TGV (train à grande vitesse). Real high speed trains (TGV) that travel on their own dedicated corridor at speeds over 250km/hr. http://highspeedrailcanada.com  Photo credit - Michael Goll

 High Speed Rail in Spain - Opens Up to Competition   Guest post by Phillps - The 14th of December, 2020 was a historic day for Spain. 3 high speed corridors (Madrid-Barcelona; Madrid-Seville/Málaga; and Madrid-Alicante/Valencia) were opened for competition, bringing an end to state-owned Renfe’s monopoly. 3 operators won each one one of the three service packages that were offered. On this post I’ll cover all the information known to date about each operator, the rolling stock they’ll use, ticket prices and the services they’ll offer. RENFE State-owned Renfe won Package A, covering 60% of the services offered. Renfe’s services will be served with AVE and AVLO: AVE AVE is the high speed service Renfe has been offering since the introduction of the first line back in 1992. It’s a regular 3-class service that uses 4 different rolling stocks. Prices range depending on the line, with the highest prices on the Madrid-Barcelona line (between 60€ and 150€) and considerably lower on o...

The Honourable Janet Austin, OBC,Lieutenant Governor at the Opening of the Fifth Session, Forty-first Parliament of the Province of British Columbia. The throne speech 02/11/2020 outlined priorities for the government. Good news for people believing in high speed rail between Vancouver and Seattle/Portland. Here is a quote from the speech. "British Columbians can look forward to more options like rapid transit, HOV lanes and commuter rail out to the Fraser Valley, and high-speed rail connections with our neighbours to the south."

Despite a wealth advantage, Canada lags behind Spain on high-speed rail, VIA Rail Canada Toronto Star - Jan. 18, 2020 by Amir Barnea is an associate professor of finance at HEC Montréal As a pair, Toronto and Montreal, Canada’s two largest cities, have a lot in common with Madrid and Barcelona. Both city couples are roughly 600 km away from each other: Madrid is 650 km from Barcelona, and Toronto is 540 km from Montreal. Jointly, 11 million people live in the metropolitan areas of the two largest Spanish cities, compared to 10 million in the metropolitan areas of the Canadian cities. Read the whole article HERE.

Inside the driver’s cabin of the Alfa X Shinkansen - JP Rail It is time for high speed trains - Vancouver - Seattle - Portland There are many previous studies done on high speed rail in Canada with no action taken on any of them. Ontario-Quebec HSR - 22 studies , Edmonton-Calgary HSR- 4 studies.  In 2017 Vancouver,joined the Canadian cities that have high speed rail studies.The 2017 Vancouver-Seattle-Portland Feasibility Study and this was followed up with the 2019 Analysis Report. - 2 studies - Currently another more detailed study is underway with funding from government and the private sector. Vancouver-Seattle-Portland  Ultra High Speed Ground Study Rail Business Case Analysis completed in 2019 by the Washington State Department of Transport (UHSGT) had some interesting findings. Train speed - Ultra High Speed Rail (meaning 350 kilometers per hour) The ridership model survey results show that UHSGT almost completely captures the direct intra-regional air...

Amtrak Avelia Liberty Railway Gazette - The first of 28 Avelia Liberty trainsets being assembled by Alstom to operate Amtrak’s Acela Express services has been outshopped at the manufacturer’s Hornell plant, ahead of the start of test running. They will eventually run on their North East Cooridor. This will support a maximum design speed of 300 km/h, although they will initially be limited to 255 km/h when operating on the existing NEC infrastructure. #highspeedrail #amtrak

In a previous post we showed the passenger rail comparisons between Toronto-Montreal and Seville-Madrid Spain. ( french )  Now we would like to show you a short video from the Seville rail station of what we could have one day in Canada.

Paige Mallot, President of the advocacy organization Cascadia Rail recently made a presentation  at RAILVOLUTION 2019 in Vancouver promoting the Vancouver to Portland high speed rail line. As reported before in High Speed Rail Canada, the Ultra High Speed Rail Study has been completed and posted on our website to view. Here is a link to the presentation made by Paige at the conference. Paige Mallot Talks High Speed Rail

Enjoy this one minute video of the Tohoku Shinkansen High Speed Rail Line in Japan by Luis Rodriguez at http://japonismo.com

This is an excellent article on the subject high speed rail exporting and the countries Japan and China. From the East Asia Forum website. Read it HERE .

High Speed Rail Canada has added the latest study that suggests their definitely is interest in having high speed rail between Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. The Ultra-High-Speed Ground Transportation Business Case Analysis was done by WSP Consulting of Seattle and their sub consulting firms. According to Jay Inslee, the Governor of Washington State, This Business Case Analysis is the result of a year of collaboration between the states of Washington and Oregon, the province of British Columbia, and Microsoft, and builds on a 2017-2018 feasibility study. It provides even greater confidence that an ultra-high-speed ground transportation system in the Pacific Northwest is worth the investment. 

The Canadian federal government, Infrastructure Bank and VIA Rail all set to spend $4 billion on a passenger rail system that will never be high speed rail. It will not be built grade separated so true  high speeds cannot be achieved. Yet in other parts of the world, educational institutions are training their youth for a future in the high speed rail industry In England the National High Speed Rail College in Birmingham and Doncaster are producing a new generation of highly-skilled professionals to lead Britain’s future high speed rail workforce. According to their website, the college has been set up to provide training and work experience to learners aged 18 and above in all aspects of what makes a modern railway. That’s not just engineering and wearing hard hats anymore either, we’re talking about creating great passenger experiences, innovation and design as well. We want to create a new generation of employees, from loads of different backgrounds and with the skills to ...

VIA Rail passenger car -photo copyright Paul Langan One thing is constant in Canada - we never really move forward to having a truly modern passenger rail system. Periodically the government invests in rolling stock for VIA Rail but then it is back to the ‘same old, same old’.  That is: slow trains, high fare prices, and the absence of safety requirements that are mandatory in other countries. The federal government has recently given money ($1billion plus) to VIA Rail to update their aging fleet of passenger rail vehicles. Just like the previous 2002-2003 federal government VIA Rail Renaissance Funding, this funding is heralded as modernizing VIA Rail service.  It remains to be seen if Canada can ever have a modern passenger rail system. The federal infrastructure bank is ready to invest in big infrastructure programs. Should they invest in VIA Rail’s flawed High Frequency Rail (HFR) plan? HFR (High Frequency Rail) I have written extensively about this plan by V...

Turbotrains, Jettrains and Beyond: High Speed Rail in Canada  Urban Forum Ottawa, will have host a presentation by High Speed Rail Canada founder Paul Langan on January 17th, 2019. WireService.ca Media Release (01/07/2019 ) -  High Speed Rail Canada, as part of their mandate to educate the Canadian public,give public presentations about high speed rail as it relates to Canada. Urban Forum Ottawa is hosting the event. They host lecture series on topics that would be of interest to professionals in their organization and the public. Here are the details of the event. PRESENTATION: Turbotrains, Jettrains and Beyond: High Speed Rail in Canada DATE: Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 7:00pm LOCATION: Champlain Room, Ottawa City Hall, Heritage Building, Second Floor,  110 Laurier Ave. West COST : Free WEB LINK : http://urbanforum.ca/blog/announcements/upcoming-lectures/ Paul Langan founder of High Speed Rail Canada states, “ I am excited to come to...

New evidence suggest Canada's first and only high speed train went even faster than previous known in test runs. Amazing TurboTrain photo by John Stewart  What a shock to us at High Speed Rail Canada. We thought we knew everything about the CN Turbo Trains that used to run in Canada from 1968-1982. It is a well known fact that the TurboTrain reached a well documented record speed of 226 km/h in 1976 speed runs. This record will stand even after VIA Rail spends $1 billion on new trains from Siemens. Please see previous blog POST for photo of certificate given to those on the historic run. Recently we were reviewing our TurboTrain Footage on our Youtube page and found this amazing fact. On Part 1 of the three part documentary 1970 film on the Turbotrain by CN, it states at 6:08 into the video that, "These features helped Turbo to achieve speeds of up to 170 mph on test runs" . (273 km/h) The key words in the statement above regarding the speed is " of u...

Guest Blog by  By James Cobban, The implementation of High-Speed Rail in Canada is necessarily subject to politics.  Canada is the most decentralized federal state in the world. This has had a major impact on inter-provincial trade, which is still shackled by prohibitions such as restrictions on carrying alcoholic beverages across provincial borders despite Section 121 of Canada's Constitution Act, 1867, which says, “All Articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into each of the other Provinces.”   Also Canada is the only country in the world which does not have a national highway system, an accidental result of the fact that in 1867 all long distance travel was by railway and roads were only used to get people to and from the railroad. For the deployment of High-Speed Rail in Canada the central issue is that there is only one route where   economic factors clear...

from the Daily Mail, UK . - Workers are constructing a huge high-speed railway bridge over another high-speed railway bridge which remain open.  To complete the challenging engineering feat, workers built two bridge sections at an angle and then swinging them into position.  The two girders, each weighing 7,000 tonnes and measuring 128 metres (419 feet) long, rotated 19.5 degrees counter-clockwise simultaneously before connecting.