Its unbelievable that we have a freight operator that is actually asking us to use their right of way for public transit and were not doing it! Usually its the other way around in most places! Ottawa is truly backwards.
@@mikemitchell948Nobody is talking about freight trains using light rail tracks. We are talking about running light passenger trains over heavy rail tracks…
The problem is that the number of people commuting from Arnprior to Ottawa is so small you'd need a 100% mode share to fill a train. The next major population centre isn't until Carp
Your Shameless plug on Miles in Transit brougth me here...very cool and informative video...Made me feel like I was watching a "How its made" VHS while in school on slow snow day that didnt close the schools. lol
This is a fantastic idea. I like how much detail you put into it, and with the parameters you suggested, it honestly seems very feasible and simple to do. I hope you will draft up a written proposal on this and submit it to governing bodies/advocate in general for it.
Really cool concept! Given how sprawled the NCR is, a commuter network would definitely help get people to and from the downtown, leaving the LRT corridor to serve more local trips. Do you think there is room to extend service into Gatineau and create a truly regional network? The Line 2 corridor that the Rapibus parallels comes to mind.
@@j_geau Thank you and Absolutely! Extending via the rapibus corridor would be great, but it'd likely involve the reconstruction of both the William commanda bridge as well as that single lane bridge that rapibus crosses the river over. It's possible for sure, but not immediately feasible.
I had a somewhat similar idea as well. Glad to see I'm not the only person hoping this exists someday! But in my version, the GO Train was "Gatineau-Ottawa" and had a third commuter line that crossed the Ottawa River and went out to Buckingham. I think I still have the mock-up maps lying around a hard drive somewhere, lol.
@@Moosey11 The city has been blocking this concept for years, they don't want to make cheaper housing in Quebec an appealing option with a new transit system.
I agree, another thing about this project is that it could be built smaller on the cheap, and thus wouldn't need to involve a public-private partnership, and could just be funded by the province/city through infrastructure ontario instead. public-private partnerships were a big reason as to why line 1 construction/timeline/etc were so terrible, the private business building the line didn't want to communicate with the public. Line 2/4 construction has somewhat improved on this front, with there being many opportunities for public engagement in the project, despite line 2/4 also being a public-private partnership.
The irony is that we weren't 100 years behind 100 years ago. Since then almost all local and intercity passenger rail lines have been shut down in favour of roads, but now that trend is reversing.
A fresh approach by a young person. Excellent ! You have to know that to build this level of convenience you have to deal with so many levels of government that makes it near impossible. All the infrastructure for a complete rail network was there in the early 1960s. It was all torn up and we now have a completely bungled system. There is very little hope for any public convenience. The public have been soured by the very thought of rail travel. I love your enthusiasm and hate my cynicism. Only the future will tell. All the best to you.
Yes! this is exactly what Ottawa needs to do. Get frequent and fast commuter services running now. Even if it is not done with FLIRT rolling stock it must be done with some sort of DMU, it is the perfect rolling stock for this sort of service. very interesting about the city owned freight spur as well. fantastic video
Thank you! Fun fact, the line was actually owned by Canadian national not much more than 5 years ago, when CN wanted to discontinue the track, due to it only serving one business and taking about 6 hours round trip. But Nylene saw it as critical to their operations, so they bought the tracks, as well as the city seeing it as a potential future transit corridor, so they bought the ROW. They're both technically under the ownership of "Arnprior and Nepean Railway", but its *really* hard to find info on that. I think it's a similar situation to the "capital railway", who technically own the tracks for line 2/4, while being under some form of municipal control.
The Ottawa version of the FLIRT is a DMU. I really hope they electrify lines 2 and 4 so maybe they could just use the existing DMUs on the new lines and use new EMUs on lines 2 and 4. One downside of the existing trains is that they're optimised for local service with lots of doors and not that many seats. Their top speed is also only 120 km/h whereas the speed limit on the Via lines is 160 km/h
The big problem with this video can easily be demonstrated by looking at the existing GO train network, with the prime example being the Stouffville Line and Uxbridge. The Stouffville Line currently terminates at the Village of Lincolnville at the York/Durham border, but the tracks currently extend all the way to downtown Uxbridge - a town of about 20k people. GO does in fact own these tracks, however there's no real short term plan to extend service to Uxbridge mainly because GO doesn't think its worth it to add service hours to such a small town, when the existing GO busses are more than good enough. So if Metrolinx thinks that a simple 17km extension to a town of 20k people isn't worth pursuing, how can we justify booting up a brand new regional rail service to get to towns that aren't even half as large, and don't even break the 5 digit barrier? The only town served by GO train has a population comparable to Smith's Falls and Arnprior would be Acton, which is only served by GO trains because its on the way to the much larger cities of Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo, the latter of which is home to a growing tech sector, and one of the world's leading STEM universities. As for Casselman, it has a smaller population than Rockwood, a city on the Kitchener Line that doesn't have a station because Metrolinx thought it was too small to even bother building an infill station for, yet your proposal has 2 lines going all the way there. The reality is that the only form of regional rail that makes sense in Ottawa is one that's basically only limited to the city limits. A line that might actually happen for instance would be a significantly shortened variant of your Arnprior line proposal, where it only goes as far as Kanata North. This would actually be a useful line that would likely have a positive ROI, and would be small enough that it could make use of the additional space available at Walkley Yard. I would also amend the plan to go up to Bayview Station instead since that's in the medium term a much better place to terminate suburban trains, especially with all of the new development in the area such as the new Senators Arena, Dow's Lake Hospital, and the massive amount of new high density housing in the area, plus its much closer to Downtown Ottawa than Tremblay is. You could argue that the single tracking of the trillium line limits the viability of the route, but honestly the segment between Mooney's and Bayview will have to be double tracked sooner than later since with all of the aforementioned developments, there is no way that 80m trains every 12m will be anywhere near enough to cope with the demand.
I totally agree, There's currently a rail-trail that goes from bells corners all the way into Carleton place, There's no rails, but it would be a good contender for a rebuilt commuter rail line.
I think that route could be better imo, but it wouldn’t serve Barrhaven. After Bells Corners, there’d be stops in Kanata and Stittsville, and then have it go through a tunnel before stopping at Carleton Place, and then it’d follow the rail trail south to Smiths Falls, and then the tracks to Perth.
@@yukairaWhile the Trans Canada Trail in Bridlewood and Stittsville is an amazing potential connection to Carleton Place (CP), there would probably be heavy NIMBY resistance against it like there was for the Montreal East REM proposal. The current path from Bells Corners to Stittsville is a mixed use pathway which is used a lot by leisure bikers and local students. Part of what makes the path so great for biking is its flat level (from its rail days) and complete separation from the road. In the Stittsville portion at least, it also acts similar to a park since there are small signs about a bit of the Stittsville township history and it's a local habitat to fireflies. Ground level rail might make it difficult for people to access the multi use pathway, elevated wouldn't dampen train noise well, and sub level would be costly. So maybe it might be better to avoid the west suburbs with a CP connection and branch out from Fallowfield instead to meet Stanley Corners to CP. Phase 3 of the LRT maybe might (rumoured) stop in Stittsville at Hazeldean and Robert Grant. So, if we dream far enough, line 3 could be later extended to Stanley Corners to intersect with the CP line. Kanata/Stittsville to Trainyards isn't really a too popular route anyways since that route basically just follows the 88 which is getting split anyways at Baseline.
Unfortunately, the rail lines were removed and they have become popular for recreational use. There would be reluctance to convert them back, even with all the advantages a rail connection would bring.
Great concept but leaving the Ottawa area of Orleans out of it would make it a hard sell. Shortly after amalgamation when Fallowfield station was opened a small group of us were asking about the possibility of a commuter train using that line to get to Ottawa Station. We had hoped it would morph into a train "ring road" from Smith Falls to somewhere south of Orleans allowing people to get to connections to downtown Ottawa easily. It fell on deaf ears. Given the current boondoggle that our current Ottawa LRT is and the decreases in commuter traffic with work at home being popular your concept may be a hard sell but it is the right thing to do.
And we could cross the bridge in to Gatineau and put service north through Hull, into Gatineau and Aylmer, or we follow the Hull, Chelsea and Wakefiled steam line! Likely have to get the Federal or QC gov't involved...
That’s interesting. On my fantasy map I hady Arnprior/Dunrobin spurs feed into the VIA approach to VIA Ottawa and through run onto a retracked Russell-Prescott rail trail all the way to Navan. I had the Smith Falls line set up identical to yours but instead envisioned it using ACE’s soon-to-be retired SC44s & Series IX & Series VI BiLevels, with the Arnprior/Dunrobin - Navan using FLIRTs more akin to TexRail with less doors & washrooms onboard.
The CP Carleton Place sub was offered to the city of Ottawa for one dollar. Councils response , what we we want that for ? I have personally clock 105 mph on that track, it was in excellent condition. I took the last CP train out of Ottawa on the Prescott sub in 97. At 40 mph I was 20 minutes to Bedell ( south of Kemptville ). To ever have viable rail transit in Ottawa you need to keep politicians away from planning and purchasing. Also hire competent rail construction companies.
I feel the only reason we don't have this is lack of political will here, and that we basically don't exist to Queen's Park lol - this is what our mayor should be pushing for when we discuss Ottawa's crazy large land area compared to other cities in Canada
I feel that re aquiring some of the old rail corridors would also help, the line put to Carleton Place and then north/south would be an excellent way to access more populations. Many of the corridors have room to return the rails and still have a recreational trail on them. A toronto/ottawa connection using the lines would open up some really interesting opportunities too.
I heartily support the idea of a regional rail service since it can encourage a much more sustainable growth pattern for the city. If I can buy an affordable house for my family in Smith Falls or Arnprior and use commuter rail 3 days per week, that can be a very attractive proposition. I believe that the Ottawa area would offer a much better quality of life in 60-75 years if there are a half-dozen peripheral towns of 50,000 than if those 300,000 people are appended to the current suburban areas.
This is a really great video. As someone who moved from Downtown Ottawa out to Smiths Falls, one of the reasons was the Via rail as a way to get downtown without driving. This should be the future for Ottawa.
Before investing in a GO train for Ottawa, why not GO buses? The private commuter busses that you mentioned are sponsored by the rural communities that they serve, yet in the GTHA, Queen’s Park pays for that subsidy. It’s a case of the dual standard that is oh so common in this province.
Commuter Rail lines should also be developed in tandem with the fed's and province in developing affordable housing developments at some of the smaller communities too. Win-win for everyone if you can link affordable housing and mass transit on any level...
This would be amazing! I'm not super familiar with the Ottawa area but I always found it odd that the national capital doesn't have its own commuter rail network. Can't wait to see if you develop this concept further! It's too long for a commuter line, but I think there also really should be some discussion about restoring the tracks of the former OVR Chalk River Sub which used to run between Smiths Falls and North Bay via Carleton Place, Arnprior, Pembroke, and Petawawa. It could connect to this network in Arnprior and provide an opportunity for intercity service in the Ottawa Valley as well as trains from Ottawa and Montreal to places in Northern Ontario like Sudbury. It could also allow freight to bypass Southern Ontario if there's enough capacity for both passenger and freight trains.
It’s unfortunate the track through the Ottawa Valley was ripped out. It could have provided rail service to Arnprior, Renfrew, Cobden, Pembroke, Petawawa, Deep River, and North Bay. There are a lot of commuters and super commuters from this area. Another line could run to the Pontiac, serving the towns of Shawville, Campbell’s Bay, and Fort Coulonge.
BEMU Commuter Rail networks should be created for all of Canada's Mid 3/Second-Tier cities i.e. Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary. Apparently the Alberta government will release a tentative plan next summer outlining some basic network plans but nothing concrete. I want actual trains on lines running ASAP especially with Edmonton and Ottawa being the fastest growing major cities in the nation...
There has been a lot of controversy expanding outside of the city. They bought the only interprovincial rail bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau and then disconnected it in 2016. They pulled money set aside for it and instead built two bike paths (one over the rail bridge) and rebuilt the station to make reconnecting the line tricky. There are also issues having light rail trains sharing a line with freight traffic. "Moose rail" has been trying to make a similar system to GO Transit for 12 years and they have been blocked every step of the way. There is a fundamental conflict of interest when your own transit system expands to the point where it mostly benefits other cities so I don't see such a thing happening anytime soon, as much as it would be beneficial to local citizens.
In Ontario, Metrolinx is a provincial organisation and can span cities with less problem than the TTC for instance that is a City of Toronto entity. There are ways around this with OC-Transpo billing outside cities for provision of transit such as commuiter trais or buses. But that requires those outside cities be willing to pay. In Montréal area, Rigaud decided they didn't want to pay anymore, so train service was suspended and tracks now formally abandonned and paved over.
8:40 - there's a slight mistake - the upgrade of the Trillium line never achieved 8 minute frequency - it ended up being about 12 minutes. Even when it reopens in January after the 4 year shutdown and extension - it's still only going to be 12 minutes. The city didn't want to commit to the expense of adding another segment of tunnel under the Rideau Canal - or expanding the cutting to the north of that area. Although double tracking hasn't been ruled out - I get the impression that they're prefer to just keep lengthening the trains until they have no other choice.
Thank you! It's been so long since I've ridden the old line 2 trains, it must have been my rose-tinted glasses. A 2nd Dow's lake tunnel / Double track cutting would definitely allow them to run 5min freq or even better.
Great idea, hopefully this kind of opportunity gets more traction. Especially with the HFR/HSR project eventually coming in, now would be the time to start looking at this to try and plan in some options for integration. The hard part is going to be integration with rules/regulations and signalling systems, so if can get integration now instead of waiting will be way easier. Definitely think the FLIRT would be the way to go, and would have other advantages, such as opening option for Ottawa to buy more with a volume discount(especially if both systems looked at electrification in the future), and increasing parts availability. If we’re talking dream systems though, I’d probably have the Arnprior line go through the Walkley interlock and meet Trillium at Greenboro instead, then looping around to the Via station from the west. If we’re could get more frequent service, say 15 min service at least on the stretch from Kanata north to Via, you could have it serve a ton of communities, make connections to 3 OTrain lines and provide redundancy for any failure on either Confed of Trillium in the core that caused delay at rush hour.
It would be useful to find out how much demand there would be for such a service to commute into Ottawa. If such service was offered it might provide incentive to expand the population of the small towns
To be complete though it would need to cross the river into Gatineau and beyond. Two major challenges of course, first being that it crosses a provincial border and interprovincial co-operation is not exactly a thing, second being that there are no existing useful corridors to fulfil that. You should look at a rail map of Oslo, which is about the same size as Ottawa. Their rail system is huge for the the size of the city
There are actually 2 feasible corridors for Gatineau as well, but I wanted to get the video out before new year's. Where line 2 ends, at Bayview station, the William Commanda bridge, currently a pedestrian bridge, extends into Gatineau with abandoned tracks that lead into the Rapibus corridor, with a spur into Wakefield Via Chelsea, but the tracks were ripped up. Both corridors would be feasible options for an extension of the service.
@@yukaira Interesting. Full disclosure, I live in Toronto, but I take an interest in public transport in all Canadian cities. I am somewhat familiar with Ottawa, been there many times, but I still rely a lot on maps so it's good to get feedback from an actual resident. On another note, if you're interested in seeing Oslo's system as a comparator for Ottawa. you might enjoy this video: ua-cam.com/video/tHQ5fOJkI-g/v-deo.html
@@Dexter037S4 For a city its size, Wellington's system is pretty big. Auckland has a nice one too. Oddly enough, I don't think that there's any passenger rail service between the two cities.
@@davidreichert9392 there is, but it's very limited and not even daily, so clearly more aimed at rail tourists than commuters and as a real means of transportation. Kiwi Rail operates its Northern Explorer between NZ's second and first cities 3 times a week, and it takes more than 10 hours for just 681 km...
Ive actually had this exact idea several years ago. I was toying wirh the idea of buying the old line 2 trains, as the city still had them for sale when i had the idea. (IIRC, they were fhe bombardier diesel-electric trains, which were the original trains for the line when it opened in 2001). Also, I'm now living in casselman, and if this did come to fruition, the station here should be relocated slightly. The station is so close to a major intersection, that VIA rail actually blocks 2 major roads (if you look up the tracks & station, youll see it cuts diagonally only about 100' from the intersection and roads). Friend of mine lives right near there, and watches the train block traffic for sometimes 10-15 minutes, moving forward and backwards to let people on and off the train at the station, depending on whatever variables... but imagine leaving for work in the morning, and being stuck on the wrong half of the tracks for over 10 minutes, which creates a load of traffic, leading to well more than a 10 minute delay... but I'm near highway so I'm not that bothered 😂
I'm not fixing the spelling errors 😅 so no one tell me it's wrong lol, youtube app doesn't let autocorrect work on comments unless it's a reply for some reason...
Some great ideas and good points. I think Ottawa must buck this idea that all rail infrastructure must cost billions and billions of dollars to build and take decades. It really does not have to be this way and with the right, Ottawa appropriate, choices on platform design and track upgrades we can have a very functional commuter service. I think you have nailed the cheapest and easiest designs for two line that can be done very effectively and show the Ottaw-agon that that with the Stadler Flirt and Kiss trainsets so much more is possible. I have a few changes/improvements going forward for what you have laid out. I wish I had had any video making skills to make a reply video but all I have is map making skills and have laid out my ideas in map form. My first modification would be to have the Arnprior station to be a very basic single track, temporary station at Reid Ave. This is the case as I think that this line can and should in future be connected through to the old CPR line and actually cross the Madawaska river to end the line in downtown Arnprior, at John and William Streets. This would do so much to increase the value and opportunities for tight knit urban development and walkability for downtown Arnprior and allow for the possibility for future expansion of inter city trains into the Ottawa Valley. But for the station in arnprior, it would be seen as feasible and possible to do this downtown station if it were coupled with mixed use development on the under used spaces and on the station property, similar to a lot of the Brightline stations in the USA. My second modification would be to actually provide more stations along the corridor between Bells Corners and Prince of Wales. Stations at Greenbank, Woodroffe Ave, and Merrivale Rd. I would also add a dual track station at the Prince of Wales location you specified but also at Walkley around Arnott Park. A third and major change would be a re-route of this line and the *line to Richmond* into a revamped and expanded Bayview terminus. A third platform can be added at Bayview and maybe even more next to City Centre or even adjacent to Albert Street(Unfortunately this land is slated for condos). Bayview would operate as the Western terminus and "main station" for all trains west and South west of the city. This would include trains with destinations to Arnprior, Richmond, and Smiths Falls/Perth. Through trains could in future operate to PQ, but of course this comes with its whole other set of hurdles. Forth change would be to operate the Richmond line to Smiths falls only for as long as it takes so re-instate the track of the old CP corridor between Earl Armstrong Road and the Bedell Diamond south of Kemptville. This would allow services to run from Bayview to Smiths Falls/Perth with stops at Mitch Owens Road, Osgoode, Kemptville, and Merrickville. This would provide the best possible service between towns along the Rideau river, allowing customers to go between towns with relative ease. Once in service the Richmond Line would end in Richmond hamlet and would service stops at Strandheard Drive, Greenbank, Fallowfeild, Merrivale/MacFarlane, and Prince of Wales. Now all this South and West service into bayview would probably require one major upgrade which is perhaps unpalatable to most, which would be the expansion of the Dows Lake tunnel to dual track service from mooneys bay to Bayview. This is perhaps the most expensive part and would take a fair bit of political and civic willpower to get done. In the mean time services of all these options would have to be routed through the south end and existing VIA corridor to Ottawa Train Station. As for the East end services to Alexandria/Casselman would run from the Ottawa Train station permanently. I also have another plan for a commuter rail line out of Ottawa Train Station that would terminate in Rockland but would service south Orleans via the existing Hydro Cut and basically mostly farmers fields but this would be another massive investment but would be another perfect fit for the Stadler Flirts. Anyways, this would be my plan essentially in stages for an Ottawa commuter network.
To be honest, If they are going to go ''the full monty'' using existing rail, let's use real GO equipment. There are tons of GO rolling stock sitting around waiting for who-knows-what. Just drive on the 401 EB by Whitby, there's a whole siding full of OOS cars awaiting disposition (either refurb or outright disposal). In my opinion, GO already owns more than enough equipment to seed a startup, be it Ottawa, or even to get the Northlander going again. Why does ONR need a whole bunch of brand-new trains to be put into service that may flounder? Run some short GO trains up there. If it is going to be GO, it's all Provincially owned equipment. GO trains are warm spacious, have bathrooms in each car, what more do they need, friggin' kitchens to microwave and re-animate pre-processed food? Okay, add on a dining car, ONR already has those. Well, not a dining car, I really meant like a snack bar car. No more kitchens on wheels. And I would like to see the old CPR (former Prescott and Ottawa) line re-opened, at least as far out as Kemptville or Oxford Mills, and start hauling commuters in and out that way, too. Heck, why not re-open the old Wakefield.Maniwaki line (former CPR as well) .... ooops, that's in Quebec, not part of the GO Transit territory. Plus, they gave away the old Prince Of Wales Bridge, it is no longer a rail bridge.
Great video I feel the the only thing i’ll change is to add a stop at Billings Bridge to prevent overcrowding on Line 1, Unlike in Toronto, Ottawa station is not in downtown so basically everyone that works in downtown, must transfer to other transit, with most of the downtown buses passing by Billings, there will be significantly less people being forced to transfer to the tiny line 1 trains. That will be a good bandaid solution until there is enough political willpower to build a crossrail style ROW through Sandy hill/uottawa towards around old Ottawa station/Rideau matching the ultimate convenience that affluent suburban commuters expect of commuters rail.
Exceedingly well thought out and detailed video. It would be great to see the same kind of awareness raised like other, similar Ottawa-based transit content as of late. This is a grand idea and could very likely work!
Au niveau régional, Il y aurait la possibilité d'étendre le service vers Gatineau en utilisant les voies de la QGRY et en rénovant le pont de la rivière des Outaouais.
Absolument, mais cela impliquerait de reconstruire le pont William Commanda. Le QGRY a abandonné tout rail après Masson, mais le corridor du Rapibus a été construit avec du rail à ses côtés.
The use of VIA lines and stations greatly reduces the costs. With 1 hour or even 1/2 hour frequency there should be no problems sharing the lines with VIA, with appropriate passing sections.
great video, its cool to see a video like this about where I live, i really do hope that one day ottawa is more connected, living on the west end feels like living in a different city.
Good video! I've had similar thoughts, but there are a few complications. Firstly is whatever the heck is going on with VIA HFR. They too would like that VIA corridor and Tremblay Station. The current station likely would not fit the capacity requirements and would need some expansion. I would also recommend more stops in-city, especially west. Greenbank, Woodroffe, and Merivale are all pretty well-connected and have walking-distance destinations. A station right on federal junction might complicate operations somewhat, and it's away from most stuff. It may or may not be worth adding a station between Merivale and Heron. Mostly single-family there with few connections, so not much room for ridership. A station at Mooney's Bay should strike a balance between walking distances to the Line 2 stop and Heron BRT. The connection to that transitway without having to walk through Heron X Bronson X Data Centre (or worse, backtracking through Tremblay and Hurdman) would be extremely useful. There's a big missed opportunity on the part of OC Transpo at the future Moodie station. They've plonked the maintenance centre between the Arnprior line and the end of passenger service, which makes a connecting station there difficult. Stations east of Tremblay are not easy because they're either too close to bother or not as useful. The rail line defines where greenbelt begins, and most of the area along the west side of it is low density industrial and similar. Maybe something between the wye and walkley would work, but that'd need a bit more study. Practically speaking, to get this started, Kanata to Tremblay would be a good base. Arnprior and lower-density places would be next once things are working, then maybe Casselman. Unsure if tiny places like Kinburn and Carlsbad springs are big enough to justify a train stop, but if it can be kept super simple, whatever. You could probably ask half the population of the town if they wanted it or not in person in a day. As for going to Smith's Falls, maybe. The track is excellent, but the vehicles would have to be capable of 100mph+ in order to avoid conflict - not an easy ask. VIA is already at CPKC's limit with trains per day gumming up Smith's Falls yard, so Perth is just not happening.
@@tiernanstrains Wow, thank you for such a detailed comment! It was hard to strike a balance of speed and station density, because I would consider a GO-train as higher order transit, but I agree with your points. Federal JCT. would likely need to be rebuilt/realigned to work with a station there, but if via wants to send lots of trains a day through it, it'd need to be doubletracked anyway, which would necessitate a rebuild. I'd say that if Mooney's bay wasn't literally just rebuilt, id say, move it closer to the other rail line/heron brt, the stop being basically on heron is largely a relic of the original otrain being built on the cheap. For towns too small i wanted to mention considering some sort of flag-stop system, but couldnt find a way to fit in in, and while those are common in Europe, they arent as common here. Ottawa station would probably need a rebuild if it was meant to handle both regional and intercity trains, which would be a good opportunity to reconnect the neighborhood which is kinda split by the rail line and station there.
This entire script actually grew from an idea of "Just take some FLIRTs, and drive them to kanata" A passenger-only flyover/station relocation in smiths falls might make sense, it would definitley improve both pass. and freight operations
@@yukaira Any particular reason for a stop at Fed JCT over Merivale? That area right below Colonnade is quite busy, and Colonnade itself is well-served by busy routes. I don't remember what the plan currently is with the HFR alignment, but I expect double track at the minimum. Also of note: Google Maps denotes areas along the Arnprior line as "Something Station" and similar. I don't know for sure, but there may be precedent/history for passenger service here.
I would also say that once we're getting into things like rebuilding Mooney's Bay (which TransitNEXT only just finished lmao) and a flyover at SMTF, we aren't talking low budget pilot project à la OG Trillium Line anymore.
@@tiernanstrains The main reason was spacing, if there was a real study on making this a reality, and not just a railfan dream, merivale would probably win, but merivale itself is pretty car infested (though, hunt club/POW is, too) there is precedent of psgr service, but it's been *long* discontinued, the railway used to continue far past arnprior, but has been converted into a rail-trail.
Fascinating. There used to be a track that went from Ottawa, thru Anderson golf course, next to Piperville, to Embrun & Crysler, Ontario and even Newington and Cornwall, Ontario. The rail has been removed, some of it is now maintained rails to trails, and some of it is just unmaintained trail. I've covered long sections of it in a Jeep in the 2000s. Rail between Crysler & Ottawa, passing thru Embrun would've been a great asset today. Crysler is seeing a lot of new housing on its North side from commuters to Ottawa. Either way, this is a very fascinating video & proposal, but I also can't help but prefer the WFH model that was a proven model during COVID. Let people save all that commute time for their family.
Ford has also proposed rail service from Ottawa up to North Bay as bus service is no longer available as it used to be with Voyageur & Greyhound. It'll be good for those from Petawawa, Pembroke, Renfrew, Arnprior to have access to the capital.
I've hear of the plan to reinstate the Northlander train service from Toronto to North Bay, but hadn't heard anything about reinstating the CP's old section of transcontinental line from Ottawa to North Bay. Do you have an link to info on that?
Cool video! The only thing I would change is use bombardier BBLs and a modern high acceleration locomotive. I’m working on my engineering degree and eventually working for a rolling stock company, and I’ve been designing EMU-performant locomotives, so who knows maybe mine could be used lol
The Bi-Levels are Hawker Siddeley cars. Hawker Siddeley/CCF merged with UTDC owned by Ont Govt. Ont govt sold it to Lavalin. Lavalin went bankrupt sold UTCD back to Ontario (and rest of Lavalin bought ny SNC). Ontario Government sold it to Bombardier. The huge advantage of the Bi Levels is the were approved prior to the USA FRA going for the "all steel" rules to protect Budd, a steel company whose trains were stuck in the 1950s. The LRC was also grandfathers prior to those rules but Amtrak ended up rejecting it diuue to initial unreliaability. These rules were finally relaaxed in 2018, but the "all steel" mentality perseveres in North America. With the liquidation of Bombardier, the "transportation" division went to Alstom. While Alstom have incorporated the heavy steel "multi level" models sold to NJ Transit (and EXO in montréal and a couple of others), they have not yeat designated the Bi Levels made in Thunderbay of aluminium as being part of their product offering. the "Buy American" policies make it very hard for ThunderBay to build commuter trains to be sold to USA. So I am not sure if this has a future or not. (The LaPocatière Bombardier plant (Now Alstom) is on Québec government welfare with subsidies to keep it open with employees twiddling their thumbs, while Alstom is investing heavily to expand their Hornell NY plant (and not even send new orders to their Plattsburg plant inherited from Bombardier).
Should have never taken the tracks out through the Ottawa Valley, GO Transit could have run all the way to Petawawa to Ottawa - Lots of bedroom community demand there.
Hard agree. Imagine the potential to have commuter service to Stittsville, Carleton Place, Almonte, Pembroke, and even North Bay, if Canadian Pacific didn’t rip up the former Carleton Place and Chalk River Subdivisions.
I can see the attraction of using DMUs but I think existing GO bilevels would be preferable for a starter service, since there would be fewer regulatory concerns about operating during the same track time as VIA. If VIA was contracted to operate the service, some of the F40PH locomotives not currently intended for refurbishing through 2035 could be sent through refurb and have their HEP generators changed to output 575 volts, and cycled to/from Montreal for major maintenance. This would be a low cost on ramp which could be replaced by Exo-style Chargers and new rolling stock once demand is proven. What holds up this idea is the feds essentially freezing VIA development by decreeing that higher speed service be controlled by a separate company to VIA. Until their plans are known, and thus how much capacity between Casselman and Smiths Falls (existing track capacity and room to expand) that it would occupy, a commuter service would have to wait in line.
Yeah, the absolute gongshow that VIA HFR has been would definitely put the brakes on a service to smith's falls. Hopefully HFR would mean a proper 2-3 track corridor at 250+kmh from Brockville (Or at least smith's falls) to Coteaux. adding a siding for stopping trains would be ideal if both commuter and intercity services were to share a line. I linked Paige Saunders' video on improvements to that corridor in the cards, it's really good! check it out!
I love this concept... however I have concerns about the placement of the GO train within urban Ottawa. It makes total sense to continue the GO train along VIA track after a junction station with line 2. However, the transitway, which runs parallel with VIA track between Hurdman and Billings Bridge stations, is already due to be turned into rail when money permits (this was the idea for the transitway system when it was drawn up and built in the eighties, since the city couldn't yet afford rail. we've already seen the transition to rail with the confederation line, most of which is built on top of the former west-east transitway corridor). Should it be turned into rail, with Billings Bridge, Pleasant Park, Riverside, Smyth, Lycée Claudel stations parallel, it would be smart to draw up a new plan. Perhaps turning the transitway *into* the GO corridor, GO service departing from VIA track past the junction with line 2? (However, the transitway connects to Hurdman one station off from Tremblay/Ottawa Station... so that might not make that much sense practically). Or, making the GO Service non-stop to Ottawa Station past the junction (using VIA track all the way to Ottawa station)? Anyway, love your video and concept - I love this type of planning, especially when it comes to my home city.
The infrastructure for them to transition from the VIA track to the Transit Way would be challenging and would slow this type of train down due to some curves and frequent stops. Think the better concept would be for Line 4 to split from Line 2 at South Keys and take over the Transit Way to Hurdman.
I think the Transitway is fine and can coexist with regional rail. If anything, regional rail could compliment the transitway by offering express service to Tremblay if there was a rail station at Billings instead of the flyover. This would be cheaper as well.
While governments can fix this with on signature on a piece of paper, the mixing of "metro" with "train" is not allowed unless your "metro" submits to the 1950s american regulations on slow heavy trains. (this is the case with the Trillium line because it interconnects with the CN rail line with Walkley junction and diamond). There is also the issue that the current Hurdman station is not designed to have an interchange with a second line.
@@jfmezei makes sense. I also have realized that running an express train on a very local, frequently-stopped train line would not be a very good idea, after @mikejulien2330 ’s comment. I feel like the only thing stopping Hurdman from being reconstructed for 2 lines (line 1 and an extended line 4 like @mikejulien2330 said) would be money, and perhaps the reconstruction cost wouldn’t be very visible within the grander cost of converting the Transitway
I was so surprised with the surrounding Ottawa region to have one of the only VIA rail owned tracks in the system. Surprised it’s single tracked despite it would be such a big opportunity that other transit agencies wished they inherited. As much as I’d like to see both commuter rail and HSR service to Ottawa both they will be sharing tracks into Ottawa. I am surprised they don’t put high floor platforms, i know it will be a significant disruption, but they should plan to build crossovers and another platform. I agree with the passing sidings and double tracking though, like to see a two platform layout for an express track bypassing Non-Via Rail stations along the route while interchanges with VIA and GO (?) would have an separate island or side platforms. Not sure how big the trains might need to be compared to the bigger GTA regional services, but I was thinking maybe they could have a 3-4 Car UP Express like DMUs. Can carry like 80+ seated in each car and another 80~ standing. Plus no luggage racks so more seating or washrooms, plus those have large overhead bins anyways. Preferring a high floor so that they can have better accessibility and standardization floor heights. Already has commonality with GO/Metrolinx or maybe separate platforms if going OC Transpo’s FLIRT’s.
If you look at the high level platform they put into Ottawa Tremblay station, you don't want them to put such high level platform. VIA stupidly built it to freight standards, so you can't just open door and walk out, an attendad has to manually put a metal platform betwene train and the distant platform due to the huge gap. CN never needs to use that one track and there 3 othe tracks where a freight can pass. (at Union station they had recently kept 1 such track on southernmost edge for freight train, but the currecnt reconstruction sees it going away).
@@jfmezeiinteresting i wondered why Tremblay station only had one high floor and not all, delayed opening too. Honestly they should put most VIA Rail station tracks and platforms that doesn’t see freight to have level boarding. Like Pacific Central in Vancouver, they’re going to be served with high floor Amtrak and Via Rail trains anyways after no more Talgo sets. Via Concourse for Union should be a no brainer. Not a Via Rail station but Lucien L’Allier had a year long renovation adding canopies but not level boarding
@@TheRandCrews Platform 1 has no escalators/elevators to it, so easy to raise it. Raising the other platforms would involve redoing the stairs and elevator from tunnel to the new platform heights. This is the same for Union Station (and a huge missed opportunity during his renovations since they did have to close tracks while rebuilding the supports below as the dug down). As for Lucien l'allier, the new CRRC cars they bought are unable to use high level platforms, and the new platforms were slightly raised to match those cars. EXO also still has some bi-levels like Go-Train and those can't use high level platforms. The NJ Transit multilevels have hybrid vestibule doors that can open either to high level and low level platforms , on top of the high-level only doors in the mid level (giving 4 doors that can open on high level platforms - EXO chose not to pay for the hybrid doors so vestibule doors open only to low level platforms).
They tried this from London to Toronto and shut it down because nobody wanted a 4 hr train ride. I suspect this will be the case for this train as well.
Unlike Toronto 1) Ottawa train station is nowhere near downtown (it used to be just across the Chateau Laurier) 2) train tracks coming from Arnprior and Carleton Place were discretely removed many moons ago. Rockland is nowhere near existing tracks located to the south so the HWY 174will remain clogged during rush hour. So what would a Go Train achieve? Nothing
Very nice video! I also highly believe that a 4th line should be considered running to Gatineau and possibly Masson QC as the rail infrastructure from Bayview station still somewhat still exists leading up to Masson And there are currently no trains in general that run anywhere west of Masson QC. Which would make launching this service somewhat more feasible.
Thank you! There's definitely 2 major opportunities for a similar approach in Gatineau. There's an ex-tourist railway from Gatineau into Wakefield via Chelsea, but the tracks were ripped up in the 2010s. There's also the Rapibus corridor, which is already a BRT line, with tracks running alongside it. Rebuilding the Wakefield line would likely see good ridership, but a conversion of the Rapibus corridor to rail would likely be an even stronger contender ridership-wise. But both of those proposals would involve the reconstruction/rehabilitation of the William Commanda bridge, as well as potentially the bridge the Rapibus corridor uses to cross the Gatineau river.
There has been talk in the past to run commuter trains from Smiths Falls to Ottawa, but it seems to have been forgotten over the years. I like your presentation. The outside communities can take advantage of a more direct train service in an out of Ottawa. This would lower greenhouse gases and encourage growth in outer municipalities. I am wondering though how the funding of these services will be acquired? Does this mean that outer municipalities would be required to merge with Ottawa? This is something I would think most people outside of Ottawa wouldn't be too keen on doing. Part of the reason for moving out of the city is to not pay the high prices for city services that they don't use.
The idea of this would be that it would not be provided by OC transpo. It would be provided by GOTransit, the regional operator for the GTHA, and it would be paid for mostly by the province. As well as shifting the transit levy from the smaller towns from OCTranspo onto GOTransit. Ottawa city limits are already too large, I would argue that it should be broken up, not get larger.
Good luck. It's hard enough to get GO to serve Hamilton when they already had infrastructure going through it. (Looking at Confederation Station, still sitting basically unused due to them not properly connecting it to the downtown West Harbour station that would massively improve transit in the city...)
I mean ... One hour/train is pretty good by go standard. They are also connecting west Harbour to the mainline right now! As to go centre, it will proberly never see any more service because of cp.. Hell I won't be surpise if GO end service to go centre after go extension is done in qp years
@ One hourly train to and from Toronto that is about service connected to Toronto is what GO is all about. But service focused on connecting people to other metros in the Golden Horseshoe is something GO drags their feet on. It took ages to get a Hamilton-Brantford bus route, despite the high demand. Their train to London was oriented around getting to and from downtown Toronto at rush hour even though the Kitchener-London connection was the part that actually made sense. And they still don't run a bus between Kitchener (a metro of half a million) and Hamilton (a metro of over 800K). In GO's planning everything must serve Toronto.
@@fernbedek6302 isn't there a bus route (17?) running from Hamilton Go centre to UofWaterloo ? But I agree with you, go should not be just about getting people in and out of Toronto. However I don't quite agree with you on the kitchener-london only train. For one it would mean more people packing on the already packed Kitchener train, plus if the London train get delayed people will be stranded in Kitchener. I think Go need to strengthen their existing network like more train to Niagara region before consider reaching outward.
@ My point was that running a Kitchener-London train would make sense. Running a Toronto-London rush hour train (via Kitchener) did not make sense, but is what they did for a bit.
Additional trains should run between the Via Station and the Kanata Business Park, the most urban part of the service, with an additional stop at Merivale Road. There also needs to be an eventual stop for transfers with the Confederation Line at Highway 417. On top of this, Ottawa increasingly needs a provincially funded bus network serving satellite towns not connected by rail, including Arnprior, Almonte, Carleton Place, Smith's Falls, Kemptville, Greely, Metcalfe, Russell, Embrun, Casselman and Rockland. This would supplement a rail service. At present, OC Transpo cannot fund transit outside the city boundaries, while many of these towns outside of Ottawa are growing quickly.
I would totally agree, every 2nd or 3rd train extending into the rural areas would likely be an acceptable level of service. Originally, I wanted to touch on having a GO-Bus network to connect those long-since disconnected towns back into the city with public transit, but the video was already getting close to 10 minutes long. A regional network that connects at some of the rural towns to the farther-out OCTranspo stations such as Terry fox, (Tfox also has Intercity bus connections), St-laurent, Blair, Would definitely help reconnect the towns that lost their transit connections to ottawa since the pandemic.
I love this proposal. I am quite familiar with the tracks in question and have long thought the same myself. There was a group which I believe was called the "MOOSE Consortium". It was a private enterprise approach. It received zero support by the previous mayor and city staff as well as from unions. It would have utilized TOD to finance the construction and operation. They still have a website but I believe the group folded. It would have included lines kn both sides of the Ottawa River. Where are you?
Thank you! MOOSE was actually a HUGE inspiration for me to make this video, but I didnt particularly want to include it due to the fact that it went kinda nowhere, and I wanted the video to be more hopeful.
I'd really like to see a ring line or something that passes through Metcalfe, Russell, Embrun and any other outlier that wouldn't be served by repurposing existing track.
I feel like there needs to be a more frequent option collecting riders within south Kanata for the area between fernbank and hazeldean road. I don’t know if it’s still a thing but "I waited 45minutes for a local bus to eagleson" has always been the decades old lamentation
Absolutely, while "New ways to Bus" is certainly flawed, a big aim for that is to improve local connections. Improvements to the 88/68 bus, as well as the 16x buses should hopefully improve those services. I certainly feel your pain though! I used to commute to south kanata from nepean quite often...
Via has more than enough coverage on their current Brockville/ smith falls and Alexandria subs. Some of the other lines you mentioned could be useful though.
A few people have commented on this now! there's also a former railway that leads all the way to Wakefield via Gatineau & Chelsea, but the tracks have long since been ripped up. that would absolutely be a feasible line, particularly as a true rail connection into Gatineau from Ottawa, but it'd likely have to be completely rebuilt, as well as involve the reconstruction of the William Commanda bridge.
It is an interesting idea, I personally would prefer to see an expansion of the O-trains rather then a GO train style commuter only system added. It would be better to have constant public transportation services to the suburbs rather then a once a day commuter service in the GO train model.
I wonder if it would be worth looking at using the M&O spur and then using the hydro right of way (parallel to Brian Coburn) into Orleans rather than using VIA's Alexandria line. At least that way you can hit Orleans and Cumberland which have much larger populations. At that point if you want to get into Rockland you'd like have to build a new right of way.
That would definitely see lots of ridership! the main thesis of this video is that you could start a skeleton service pretty much overnight, because those tracks exist. expanding via that corridor would absolutely be feasible for a wider network, but would obviously have to be completely new-build.
@@yukaira Makes sense. If you want to push it a little bit more on your skeleton route maybe you can even add Hawkesbury via Glen Robertson and the Vankleek sub. That track however would need major upgrades. In a fantasy work maybe you add Cornwall via the old NY Central Ottawa sub and add Russell and Embrun as intermediary stops. You can only dream...
The hope is if this were at thing, it would be a springboard to start a true Ottawa valley / Gatineau regional rail service! I hope to live to see the day of that happening.
M&O line was donated to VIA rail when CP Rail abandonned it west of Rigaud. It was still used by The Canadians in the early days of VIA. VIA allowed CP to tear up the tracks for the value of the steel and never used it. *After* the HSR boodoggle was started, VIA donated the line to the municipalities for a bike path between Rigaud and Ottawa and It was to be certified to be part of Trans Canada trail this year or next.
What about cross river service to Gatineau? Why do Anglos always ignore a major portion of the National Capital Region. We have the lines already in place.
Maybe because they're talking about GO Trains run by Metrolinx (Ontario Government funded corporation). If there were some co-operation/funding from the Quebec government maybe something like that could happen. If there had been co-operation between Ontario & Quebec governments years ago maybe they could have saved the Montreal-Vaudreil-Rigaud-Vanleek Hill-Plantagenet-Ottawa line years ago. Since Rigaud declined to pay the doubled annual subsidy back in 2010 that's just a Montreal-Hudson stub now. That said, there is the Gatineau LRT (supposedly) on the way that would cross the Portage bridge and connect with Ottawa's Line 1.
I would add a new link to hawkesbury through Clarence Rockland, cornwal via the old new york line, and petawawa via the old calumet island corridor or north from carleton place through renfrew.
Would also point out that Ottawa is smaller in population, but geographically bigger than TO. So having this type of system would actually serve a lot of people and create a lot of densification/growth opportunities since that population is growing pretty quick.
In 1986, I biked across Canada. Going east, Transcanada rural road 17 ran to Kanata, after which it turned into a 417 highway. Coming from Montréal, trans Canada rural route 17 was cyclable to the Montréal rd exit after which it became big highway and merged with 417. Today, going west to Ottawa, the 17 became the 174 at Montréal Rd and continues to past Cumberland at the ottawa city limits. From the west, the 417 now extends west past Arnprior. So Ottawa is at a juncture where Vancouver was, decided wether to build transit or bulldoze land to build mroe highwasy and handle traffci in its core that isn't designed to handle such traffic. So deciding today to start some transit will help slow down growth of traffic and if it works well, will justify proper upgrades of tracks , stations etc.
I'm not sure! I can't find what the expansion ideas for the trillium line were in Bob chiarelli's time, but I wouldn't doubt that they researched this as an option.
I think this is a very interesting video. I was not that aware of the Arnprior line and think that is the most interesting. Vars, Carlsbad Springs and Limoges are not practical as there is very little population base there.
Thanks! I would generally agree with the assessment of Carlsbad and Limoges being too small, but Vars has a park and ride, as well as a connexion route. If the train were to go to Casselman, I think a stop in Vars would be worth it.
@@yukaira Only question I have, do you think these expanded commuter lines indirectly encourage sprawl? Also, you might be better positioned to answer but is there a push in the GTA to densify around the Go Stations? So many are just huge parking lots.
@@stephenjohnson2236 Well yes and no, while building a commuter rail line would induce demand for and make living further out more accessible, people have been doing that for ages, and just sticking it out with no transit service, or minimal service. I think shifting that demand from driving 45mins into town every day for work onto transit would have an overall good impact. GO is densifying around it's stations, but i dont think theyre doing so fast enough. I'd look more towards Montréal for lessons on densifying around transit corridors.
10/10 very good video would go my train again
@@thegamesweplayvm4265 im gonna go my train
@@yukaira are you trying to say ? Ever heard of google translate ?
Its unbelievable that we have a freight operator that is actually asking us to use their right of way for public transit and were not doing it! Usually its the other way around in most places! Ottawa is truly backwards.
The problem is that Ottawas train is a light rail system. the standard equipment of freight systems are too heavy for the current rails....
@@mikemitchell948Nobody is talking about freight trains using light rail tracks. We are talking about running light passenger trains over heavy rail tracks…
The problem is that the number of people commuting from Arnprior to Ottawa is so small you'd need a 100% mode share to fill a train. The next major population centre isn't until Carp
Your Shameless plug on Miles in Transit brougth me here...very cool and informative video...Made me feel like I was watching a "How its made" VHS while in school on slow snow day that didnt close the schools. lol
This is a fantastic idea. I like how much detail you put into it, and with the parameters you suggested, it honestly seems very feasible and simple to do. I hope you will draft up a written proposal on this and submit it to governing bodies/advocate in general for it.
Really cool concept! Given how sprawled the NCR is, a commuter network would definitely help get people to and from the downtown, leaving the LRT corridor to serve more local trips. Do you think there is room to extend service into Gatineau and create a truly regional network? The Line 2 corridor that the Rapibus parallels comes to mind.
@@j_geau Thank you and Absolutely! Extending via the rapibus corridor would be great, but it'd likely involve the reconstruction of both the William commanda bridge as well as that single lane bridge that rapibus crosses the river over. It's possible for sure, but not immediately feasible.
Great idea, I would love to see the southern leg eventually service Brockville as well some day.
Don't forget that it could be used to easily link these towns to the Ottawa airport. The Mooney's Bay transfer would likely be ideal.
I had a somewhat similar idea as well. Glad to see I'm not the only person hoping this exists someday! But in my version, the GO Train was "Gatineau-Ottawa" and had a third commuter line that crossed the Ottawa River and went out to Buckingham. I think I still have the mock-up maps lying around a hard drive somewhere, lol.
Same here with my mockup, going across to Thurso and Wakefield on the QC side.
@@Moosey11 The city has been blocking this concept for years, they don't want to make cheaper housing in Quebec an appealing option with a new transit system.
Brilliant ideas. I especially like the very economical thinking of minimal stations and using existing infrastructure.
Given Ottawa is more like six or seven towns spread out, this is desperately needed. And it'll take two decades and still get screwed up
I agree, another thing about this project is that it could be built smaller on the cheap, and thus wouldn't need to involve a public-private partnership, and could just be funded by the province/city through infrastructure ontario instead. public-private partnerships were a big reason as to why line 1 construction/timeline/etc were so terrible, the private business building the line didn't want to communicate with the public. Line 2/4 construction has somewhat improved on this front, with there being many opportunities for public engagement in the project, despite line 2/4 also being a public-private partnership.
@@yukaira I left Ottawa in 2016 and returned this year. When I left, the O was just being built. When I returned, it still wasn't open lol
Excellent idea, Canada is like 100 years behind European countries in terms of rail transit.
Canada's governance has always, and I mean always, been a bit like an awkward child.
The irony is that we weren't 100 years behind 100 years ago. Since then almost all local and intercity passenger rail lines have been shut down in favour of roads, but now that trend is reversing.
And 300 behind Asia!
A fresh approach by a young person. Excellent ! You have to know that to build this level of convenience you have to deal with so many levels of government that makes it near impossible. All the infrastructure for a complete rail network was there in the early 1960s. It was all torn up and we now have a completely bungled system. There is very little hope for any public convenience. The public have been soured by the very thought of rail travel. I love your enthusiasm and hate my cynicism. Only the future will tell. All the best to you.
Yes! this is exactly what Ottawa needs to do. Get frequent and fast commuter services running now. Even if it is not done with FLIRT rolling stock it must be done with some sort of DMU, it is the perfect rolling stock for this sort of service. very interesting about the city owned freight spur as well. fantastic video
Thank you! Fun fact, the line was actually owned by Canadian national not much more than 5 years ago, when CN wanted to discontinue the track, due to it only serving one business and taking about 6 hours round trip. But Nylene saw it as critical to their operations, so they bought the tracks, as well as the city seeing it as a potential future transit corridor, so they bought the ROW. They're both technically under the ownership of "Arnprior and Nepean Railway", but its *really* hard to find info on that. I think it's a similar situation to the "capital railway", who technically own the tracks for line 2/4, while being under some form of municipal control.
The Ottawa version of the FLIRT is a DMU. I really hope they electrify lines 2 and 4 so maybe they could just use the existing DMUs on the new lines and use new EMUs on lines 2 and 4. One downside of the existing trains is that they're optimised for local service with lots of doors and not that many seats. Their top speed is also only 120 km/h whereas the speed limit on the Via lines is 160 km/h
The big problem with this video can easily be demonstrated by looking at the existing GO train network, with the prime example being the Stouffville Line and Uxbridge. The Stouffville Line currently terminates at the Village of Lincolnville at the York/Durham border, but the tracks currently extend all the way to downtown Uxbridge - a town of about 20k people. GO does in fact own these tracks, however there's no real short term plan to extend service to Uxbridge mainly because GO doesn't think its worth it to add service hours to such a small town, when the existing GO busses are more than good enough. So if Metrolinx thinks that a simple 17km extension to a town of 20k people isn't worth pursuing, how can we justify booting up a brand new regional rail service to get to towns that aren't even half as large, and don't even break the 5 digit barrier? The only town served by GO train has a population comparable to Smith's Falls and Arnprior would be Acton, which is only served by GO trains because its on the way to the much larger cities of Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo, the latter of which is home to a growing tech sector, and one of the world's leading STEM universities. As for Casselman, it has a smaller population than Rockwood, a city on the Kitchener Line that doesn't have a station because Metrolinx thought it was too small to even bother building an infill station for, yet your proposal has 2 lines going all the way there.
The reality is that the only form of regional rail that makes sense in Ottawa is one that's basically only limited to the city limits. A line that might actually happen for instance would be a significantly shortened variant of your Arnprior line proposal, where it only goes as far as Kanata North. This would actually be a useful line that would likely have a positive ROI, and would be small enough that it could make use of the additional space available at Walkley Yard. I would also amend the plan to go up to Bayview Station instead since that's in the medium term a much better place to terminate suburban trains, especially with all of the new development in the area such as the new Senators Arena, Dow's Lake Hospital, and the massive amount of new high density housing in the area, plus its much closer to Downtown Ottawa than Tremblay is. You could argue that the single tracking of the trillium line limits the viability of the route, but honestly the segment between Mooney's and Bayview will have to be double tracked sooner than later since with all of the aforementioned developments, there is no way that 80m trains every 12m will be anywhere near enough to cope with the demand.
IMO Carleton place should be hooked up to any regional rail, as it is mainly a commuter town into Ottawa.
I totally agree, There's currently a rail-trail that goes from bells corners all the way into Carleton place, There's no rails, but it would be a good contender for a rebuilt commuter rail line.
I think that route could be better imo, but it wouldn’t serve Barrhaven. After Bells Corners, there’d be stops in Kanata and Stittsville, and then have it go through a tunnel before stopping at Carleton Place, and then it’d follow the rail trail south to Smiths Falls, and then the tracks to Perth.
Carleton Place is on the former CP transcontinental line between Ottawa and Sudbury and where the CP line from Smith Falls arrived in the Ottawa area.
@@yukairaWhile the Trans Canada Trail in Bridlewood and Stittsville is an amazing potential connection to Carleton Place (CP), there would probably be heavy NIMBY resistance against it like there was for the Montreal East REM proposal. The current path from Bells Corners to Stittsville is a mixed use pathway which is used a lot by leisure bikers and local students. Part of what makes the path so great for biking is its flat level (from its rail days) and complete separation from the road. In the Stittsville portion at least, it also acts similar to a park since there are small signs about a bit of the Stittsville township history and it's a local habitat to fireflies.
Ground level rail might make it difficult for people to access the multi use pathway, elevated wouldn't dampen train noise well, and sub level would be costly.
So maybe it might be better to avoid the west suburbs with a CP connection and branch out from Fallowfield instead to meet Stanley Corners to CP.
Phase 3 of the LRT maybe might (rumoured) stop in Stittsville at Hazeldean and Robert Grant. So, if we dream far enough, line 3 could be later extended to Stanley Corners to intersect with the CP line.
Kanata/Stittsville to Trainyards isn't really a too popular route anyways since that route basically just follows the 88 which is getting split anyways at Baseline.
Unfortunately, the rail lines were removed and they have become popular for recreational use. There would be reluctance to convert them back, even with all the advantages a rail connection would bring.
Brilliant.. I'd put a station at the Hwy 138 crossing. The commuters from Cornwall and surrounding area going to Ottawa everyday is crazy.
Great concept but leaving the Ottawa area of Orleans out of it would make it a hard sell.
Shortly after amalgamation when Fallowfield station was opened a small group of us were asking about the possibility of a commuter train using that line to get to Ottawa Station.
We had hoped it would morph into a train "ring road" from Smith Falls to somewhere south of Orleans allowing people to get to connections to downtown Ottawa easily. It fell on deaf ears.
Given the current boondoggle that our current Ottawa LRT is and the decreases in commuter traffic with work at home being popular your concept may be a hard sell but it is the right thing to do.
And we could cross the bridge in to Gatineau and put service north through Hull, into Gatineau and Aylmer, or we follow the Hull, Chelsea and Wakefiled steam line! Likely have to get the Federal or QC gov't involved...
That’s interesting. On my fantasy map I hady Arnprior/Dunrobin spurs feed into the VIA approach to VIA Ottawa and through run onto a retracked Russell-Prescott rail trail all the way to Navan. I had the Smith Falls line set up identical to yours but instead envisioned it using ACE’s soon-to-be retired SC44s & Series IX & Series VI BiLevels, with the Arnprior/Dunrobin - Navan using FLIRTs more akin to TexRail with less doors & washrooms onboard.
The CP Carleton Place sub was offered to the city of Ottawa for one dollar. Councils response , what we we want that for ? I have personally clock 105 mph on that track, it was in excellent condition. I took the last CP train out of Ottawa on the Prescott sub in 97. At 40 mph I was 20 minutes to Bedell ( south of Kemptville ). To ever have viable rail transit in Ottawa you need to keep politicians away from planning and purchasing. Also hire competent rail construction companies.
I came to Ottawa 25 years ago from Toronto. I always wondered why this wasn''t here already.
I feel the only reason we don't have this is lack of political will here, and that we basically don't exist to Queen's Park lol - this is what our mayor should be pushing for when we discuss Ottawa's crazy large land area compared to other cities in Canada
Honestly even if we bought 40 year old pacers from the UK as the rolling stock I'd still take it. Not to mention these sheer hilariousness of it.
@@dirty_mac we use ex-deutche bahn trains on line 2 and 4 currently... anything but pacers...
Still waiting for GO to come to Bowmanville in my lifetime let alone Ottawa
And that is delayed until 2027-28 I think
same here
We're not talking about extending Toronto's system to Ottawa, we are talking about a standalone system in Ottawa
I feel that re aquiring some of the old rail corridors would also help, the line put to Carleton Place and then north/south would be an excellent way to access more populations. Many of the corridors have room to return the rails and still have a recreational trail on them.
A toronto/ottawa connection using the lines would open up some really interesting opportunities too.
LRT then
I heartily support the idea of a regional rail service since it can encourage a much more sustainable growth pattern for the city. If I can buy an affordable house for my family in Smith Falls or Arnprior and use commuter rail 3 days per week, that can be a very attractive proposition.
I believe that the Ottawa area would offer a much better quality of life in 60-75 years if there are a half-dozen peripheral towns of 50,000 than if those 300,000 people are appended to the current suburban areas.
This would be a good boost to the Nepean transit desert issue as well as act as a suburb-suburb connection.
Yooo putting footnotes (like the numbers) in the sidebar is a very good idea
Thanks! I just never want to leave something in my videos uncredited.
This is a really great video. As someone who moved from Downtown Ottawa out to Smiths Falls, one of the reasons was the Via rail as a way to get downtown without driving.
This should be the future for Ottawa.
Before investing in a GO train for Ottawa, why not GO buses? The private commuter busses that you mentioned are sponsored by the rural communities that they serve, yet in the GTHA, Queen’s Park pays for that subsidy. It’s a case of the dual standard that is oh so common in this province.
Commuter Rail lines should also be developed in tandem with the fed's and province in developing affordable housing developments at some of the smaller communities too. Win-win for everyone if you can link affordable housing and mass transit on any level...
This would be amazing! I'm not super familiar with the Ottawa area but I always found it odd that the national capital doesn't have its own commuter rail network. Can't wait to see if you develop this concept further!
It's too long for a commuter line, but I think there also really should be some discussion about restoring the tracks of the former OVR Chalk River Sub which used to run between Smiths Falls and North Bay via Carleton Place, Arnprior, Pembroke, and Petawawa. It could connect to this network in Arnprior and provide an opportunity for intercity service in the Ottawa Valley as well as trains from Ottawa and Montreal to places in Northern Ontario like Sudbury. It could also allow freight to bypass Southern Ontario if there's enough capacity for both passenger and freight trains.
It’s unfortunate the track through the Ottawa Valley was ripped out. It could have provided rail service to Arnprior, Renfrew, Cobden, Pembroke, Petawawa, Deep River, and North Bay. There are a lot of commuters and super commuters from this area.
Another line could run to the Pontiac, serving the towns of Shawville, Campbell’s Bay, and Fort Coulonge.
BEMU Commuter Rail networks should be created for all of Canada's Mid 3/Second-Tier cities i.e. Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary. Apparently the Alberta government will release a tentative plan next summer outlining some basic network plans but nothing concrete. I want actual trains on lines running ASAP especially with Edmonton and Ottawa being the fastest growing major cities in the nation...
Great idea! Well thought out. It would certainly provide more housing options to people who work in Ottawa.
There has been a lot of controversy expanding outside of the city. They bought the only interprovincial rail bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau and then disconnected it in 2016. They pulled money set aside for it and instead built two bike paths (one over the rail bridge) and rebuilt the station to make reconnecting the line tricky. There are also issues having light rail trains sharing a line with freight traffic. "Moose rail" has been trying to make a similar system to GO Transit for 12 years and they have been blocked every step of the way. There is a fundamental conflict of interest when your own transit system expands to the point where it mostly benefits other cities so I don't see such a thing happening anytime soon, as much as it would be beneficial to local citizens.
In Ontario, Metrolinx is a provincial organisation and can span cities with less problem than the TTC for instance that is a City of Toronto entity. There are ways around this with OC-Transpo billing outside cities for provision of transit such as commuiter trais or buses. But that requires those outside cities be willing to pay. In Montréal area, Rigaud decided they didn't want to pay anymore, so train service was suspended and tracks now formally abandonned and paved over.
8:40 - there's a slight mistake - the upgrade of the Trillium line never achieved 8 minute frequency - it ended up being about 12 minutes. Even when it reopens in January after the 4 year shutdown and extension - it's still only going to be 12 minutes.
The city didn't want to commit to the expense of adding another segment of tunnel under the Rideau Canal - or expanding the cutting to the north of that area. Although double tracking hasn't been ruled out - I get the impression that they're prefer to just keep lengthening the trains until they have no other choice.
Thank you! It's been so long since I've ridden the old line 2 trains, it must have been my rose-tinted glasses. A 2nd Dow's lake tunnel / Double track cutting would definitely allow them to run 5min freq or even better.
Great idea ... But good luck they (Ontario Government ) have a hard time just adding full time GO service to the Milton Route .
Great idea, hopefully this kind of opportunity gets more traction. Especially with the HFR/HSR project eventually coming in, now would be the time to start looking at this to try and plan in some options for integration. The hard part is going to be integration with rules/regulations and signalling systems, so if can get integration now instead of waiting will be way easier.
Definitely think the FLIRT would be the way to go, and would have other advantages, such as opening option for Ottawa to buy more with a volume discount(especially if both systems looked at electrification in the future), and increasing parts availability.
If we’re talking dream systems though, I’d probably have the Arnprior line go through the Walkley interlock and meet Trillium at Greenboro instead, then looping around to the Via station from the west. If we’re could get more frequent service, say 15 min service at least on the stretch from Kanata north to Via, you could have it serve a ton of communities, make connections to 3 OTrain lines and provide redundancy for any failure on either Confed of Trillium in the core that caused delay at rush hour.
It would be useful to find out how much demand there would be for such a service to commute into Ottawa. If such service was offered it might provide incentive to expand the population of the small towns
To be complete though it would need to cross the river into Gatineau and beyond. Two major challenges of course, first being that it crosses a provincial border and interprovincial co-operation is not exactly a thing, second being that there are no existing useful corridors to fulfil that.
You should look at a rail map of Oslo, which is about the same size as Ottawa. Their rail system is huge for the the size of the city
There are actually 2 feasible corridors for Gatineau as well, but I wanted to get the video out before new year's. Where line 2 ends, at Bayview station, the William Commanda bridge, currently a pedestrian bridge, extends into Gatineau with abandoned tracks that lead into the Rapibus corridor, with a spur into Wakefield Via Chelsea, but the tracks were ripped up. Both corridors would be feasible options for an extension of the service.
And Wellington, NZ, which is half the population.
@@yukaira Interesting. Full disclosure, I live in Toronto, but I take an interest in public transport in all Canadian cities. I am somewhat familiar with Ottawa, been there many times, but I still rely a lot on maps so it's good to get feedback from an actual resident.
On another note, if you're interested in seeing Oslo's system as a comparator for Ottawa. you might enjoy this video:
ua-cam.com/video/tHQ5fOJkI-g/v-deo.html
@@Dexter037S4 For a city its size, Wellington's system is pretty big. Auckland has a nice one too. Oddly enough, I don't think that there's any passenger rail service between the two cities.
@@davidreichert9392 there is, but it's very limited and not even daily, so clearly more aimed at rail tourists than commuters and as a real means of transportation. Kiwi Rail operates its Northern Explorer between NZ's second and first cities 3 times a week, and it takes more than 10 hours for just 681 km...
Very well thought out. Maybe this might see the light of day. GO Transit in Ottawa. Liking it
This was really great! Also love ur taste in music
Thank you! I originally had youtube music library copyright-free music, but think the DNB is better
Ive actually had this exact idea several years ago. I was toying wirh the idea of buying the old line 2 trains, as the city still had them for sale when i had the idea. (IIRC, they were fhe bombardier diesel-electric trains, which were the original trains for the line when it opened in 2001).
Also, I'm now living in casselman, and if this did come to fruition, the station here should be relocated slightly. The station is so close to a major intersection, that VIA rail actually blocks 2 major roads (if you look up the tracks & station, youll see it cuts diagonally only about 100' from the intersection and roads). Friend of mine lives right near there, and watches the train block traffic for sometimes 10-15 minutes, moving forward and backwards to let people on and off the train at the station, depending on whatever variables... but imagine leaving for work in the morning, and being stuck on the wrong half of the tracks for over 10 minutes, which creates a load of traffic, leading to well more than a 10 minute delay... but I'm near highway so I'm not that bothered 😂
I'm not fixing the spelling errors 😅 so no one tell me it's wrong lol, youtube app doesn't let autocorrect work on comments unless it's a reply for some reason...
Some great ideas and good points. I think Ottawa must buck this idea that all rail infrastructure must cost billions and billions of dollars to build and take decades. It really does not have to be this way and with the right, Ottawa appropriate, choices on platform design and track upgrades we can have a very functional commuter service.
I think you have nailed the cheapest and easiest designs for two line that can be done very effectively and show the Ottaw-agon that that with the Stadler Flirt and Kiss trainsets so much more is possible. I have a few changes/improvements going forward for what you have laid out. I wish I had had any video making skills to make a reply video but all I have is map making skills and have laid out my ideas in map form.
My first modification would be to have the Arnprior station to be a very basic single track, temporary station at Reid Ave. This is the case as I think that this line can and should in future be connected through to the old CPR line and actually cross the Madawaska river to end the line in downtown Arnprior, at John and William Streets. This would do so much to increase the value and opportunities for tight knit urban development and walkability for downtown Arnprior and allow for the possibility for future expansion of inter city trains into the Ottawa Valley. But for the station in arnprior, it would be seen as feasible and possible to do this downtown station if it were coupled with mixed use development on the under used spaces and on the station property, similar to a lot of the Brightline stations in the USA.
My second modification would be to actually provide more stations along the corridor between Bells Corners and Prince of Wales. Stations at Greenbank, Woodroffe Ave, and Merrivale Rd. I would also add a dual track station at the Prince of Wales location you specified but also at Walkley around Arnott Park.
A third and major change would be a re-route of this line and the *line to Richmond* into a revamped and expanded Bayview terminus. A third platform can be added at Bayview and maybe even more next to City Centre or even adjacent to Albert Street(Unfortunately this land is slated for condos). Bayview would operate as the Western terminus and "main station" for all trains west and South west of the city. This would include trains with destinations to Arnprior, Richmond, and Smiths Falls/Perth. Through trains could in future operate to PQ, but of course this comes with its whole other set of hurdles.
Forth change would be to operate the Richmond line to Smiths falls only for as long as it takes so re-instate the track of the old CP corridor between Earl Armstrong Road and the Bedell Diamond south of Kemptville. This would allow services to run from Bayview to Smiths Falls/Perth with stops at Mitch Owens Road, Osgoode, Kemptville, and Merrickville. This would provide the best possible service between towns along the Rideau river, allowing customers to go between towns with relative ease. Once in service the Richmond Line would end in Richmond hamlet and would service stops at Strandheard Drive, Greenbank, Fallowfeild, Merrivale/MacFarlane, and Prince of Wales.
Now all this South and West service into bayview would probably require one major upgrade which is perhaps unpalatable to most, which would be the expansion of the Dows Lake tunnel to dual track service from mooneys bay to Bayview. This is perhaps the most expensive part and would take a fair bit of political and civic willpower to get done. In the mean time services of all these options would have to be routed through the south end and existing VIA corridor to Ottawa Train Station.
As for the East end services to Alexandria/Casselman would run from the Ottawa Train station permanently. I also have another plan for a commuter rail line out of Ottawa Train Station that would terminate in Rockland but would service south Orleans via the existing Hydro Cut and basically mostly farmers fields but this would be another massive investment but would be another perfect fit for the Stadler Flirts.
Anyways, this would be my plan essentially in stages for an Ottawa commuter network.
To be honest, If they are going to go ''the full monty'' using existing rail, let's use real GO equipment. There are tons of GO rolling stock sitting around waiting for who-knows-what. Just drive on the 401 EB by Whitby, there's a whole siding full of OOS cars awaiting disposition (either refurb or outright disposal). In my opinion, GO already owns more than enough equipment to seed a startup, be it Ottawa, or even to get the Northlander going again. Why does ONR need a whole bunch of brand-new trains to be put into service that may flounder? Run some short GO trains up there. If it is going to be GO, it's all Provincially owned equipment. GO trains are warm spacious, have bathrooms in each car, what more do they need, friggin' kitchens to microwave and re-animate pre-processed food? Okay, add on a dining car, ONR already has those. Well, not a dining car, I really meant like a snack bar car. No more kitchens on wheels.
And I would like to see the old CPR (former Prescott and Ottawa) line re-opened, at least as far out as Kemptville or Oxford Mills, and start hauling commuters in and out that way, too. Heck, why not re-open the old Wakefield.Maniwaki line (former CPR as well) .... ooops, that's in Quebec, not part of the GO Transit territory. Plus, they gave away the old Prince Of Wales Bridge, it is no longer a rail bridge.
Awesome summary. This needs to go viral. Would a Hawkesbury/Rockland line make sense as well?
Great video I feel the the only thing i’ll change is to add a stop at Billings Bridge to prevent overcrowding on Line 1, Unlike in Toronto, Ottawa station is not in downtown so basically everyone that works in downtown, must transfer to other transit, with most of the downtown buses passing by Billings, there will be significantly less people being forced to transfer to the tiny line 1 trains. That will be a good bandaid solution until there is enough political willpower to build a crossrail style ROW through Sandy hill/uottawa towards around old Ottawa station/Rideau matching the ultimate convenience that affluent suburban commuters expect of commuters rail.
Exceedingly well thought out and detailed video. It would be great to see the same kind of awareness raised like other, similar Ottawa-based transit content as of late. This is a grand idea and could very likely work!
Thank you! I'm glad to be able to spur discussion on new transit ideas for Ottawa :3
Au niveau régional, Il y aurait la possibilité d'étendre le service vers Gatineau en utilisant les voies de la QGRY et en rénovant le pont de la rivière des Outaouais.
Absolument, mais cela impliquerait de reconstruire le pont William Commanda. Le QGRY a abandonné tout rail après Masson, mais le corridor du Rapibus a été construit avec du rail à ses côtés.
The use of VIA lines and stations greatly reduces the costs. With 1 hour or even 1/2 hour frequency there should be no problems sharing the lines with VIA, with appropriate passing sections.
great video, its cool to see a video like this about where I live, i really do hope that one day ottawa is more connected, living on the west end feels like living in a different city.
5:29 you could have an O-Train station "just west" allowing for an LRT connection here
Good video! I've had similar thoughts, but there are a few complications.
Firstly is whatever the heck is going on with VIA HFR. They too would like that VIA corridor and Tremblay Station. The current station likely would not fit the capacity requirements and would need some expansion.
I would also recommend more stops in-city, especially west. Greenbank, Woodroffe, and Merivale are all pretty well-connected and have walking-distance destinations. A station right on federal junction might complicate operations somewhat, and it's away from most stuff.
It may or may not be worth adding a station between Merivale and Heron. Mostly single-family there with few connections, so not much room for ridership.
A station at Mooney's Bay should strike a balance between walking distances to the Line 2 stop and Heron BRT. The connection to that transitway without having to walk through Heron X Bronson X Data Centre (or worse, backtracking through Tremblay and Hurdman) would be extremely useful.
There's a big missed opportunity on the part of OC Transpo at the future Moodie station. They've plonked the maintenance centre between the Arnprior line and the end of passenger service, which makes a connecting station there difficult.
Stations east of Tremblay are not easy because they're either too close to bother or not as useful. The rail line defines where greenbelt begins, and most of the area along the west side of it is low density industrial and similar. Maybe something between the wye and walkley would work, but that'd need a bit more study.
Practically speaking, to get this started, Kanata to Tremblay would be a good base. Arnprior and lower-density places would be next once things are working, then maybe Casselman.
Unsure if tiny places like Kinburn and Carlsbad springs are big enough to justify a train stop, but if it can be kept super simple, whatever. You could probably ask half the population of the town if they wanted it or not in person in a day.
As for going to Smith's Falls, maybe. The track is excellent, but the vehicles would have to be capable of 100mph+ in order to avoid conflict - not an easy ask. VIA is already at CPKC's limit with trains per day gumming up Smith's Falls yard, so Perth is just not happening.
@@tiernanstrains Wow, thank you for such a detailed comment! It was hard to strike a balance of speed and station density, because I would consider a GO-train as higher order transit, but I agree with your points.
Federal JCT. would likely need to be rebuilt/realigned to work with a station there, but if via wants to send lots of trains a day through it, it'd need to be doubletracked anyway, which would necessitate a rebuild. I'd say that if Mooney's bay wasn't literally just rebuilt, id say, move it closer to the other rail line/heron brt, the stop being basically on heron is largely a relic of the original otrain being built on the cheap.
For towns too small i wanted to mention considering some sort of flag-stop system, but couldnt find a way to fit in in, and while those are common in Europe, they arent as common here.
Ottawa station would probably need a rebuild if it was meant to handle both regional and intercity trains, which would be a good opportunity to reconnect the neighborhood which is kinda split by the rail line and station there.
This entire script actually grew from an idea of "Just take some FLIRTs, and drive them to kanata"
A passenger-only flyover/station relocation in smiths falls might make sense, it would definitley improve both pass. and freight operations
@@yukaira Any particular reason for a stop at Fed JCT over Merivale? That area right below Colonnade is quite busy, and Colonnade itself is well-served by busy routes.
I don't remember what the plan currently is with the HFR alignment, but I expect double track at the minimum.
Also of note: Google Maps denotes areas along the Arnprior line as "Something Station" and similar. I don't know for sure, but there may be precedent/history for passenger service here.
I would also say that once we're getting into things like rebuilding Mooney's Bay (which TransitNEXT only just finished lmao) and a flyover at SMTF, we aren't talking low budget pilot project à la OG Trillium Line anymore.
@@tiernanstrains The main reason was spacing, if there was a real study on making this a reality, and not just a railfan dream, merivale would probably win, but merivale itself is pretty car infested (though, hunt club/POW is, too)
there is precedent of psgr service, but it's been *long* discontinued, the railway used to continue far past arnprior, but has been converted into a rail-trail.
Fascinating. There used to be a track that went from Ottawa, thru Anderson golf course, next to Piperville, to Embrun & Crysler, Ontario and even Newington and Cornwall, Ontario. The rail has been removed, some of it is now maintained rails to trails, and some of it is just unmaintained trail. I've covered long sections of it in a Jeep in the 2000s.
Rail between Crysler & Ottawa, passing thru Embrun would've been a great asset today. Crysler is seeing a lot of new housing on its North side from commuters to Ottawa.
Either way, this is a very fascinating video & proposal, but I also can't help but prefer the WFH model that was a proven model during COVID. Let people save all that commute time for their family.
This is really well done. Very thought out. Definitely can see you have some sort of engineering/planning background
Thank you! I actually have no formal education in either of those, completely self taught :3
Ford has also proposed rail service from Ottawa up to North Bay as bus service is no longer available as it used to be with Voyageur & Greyhound. It'll be good for those from Petawawa, Pembroke, Renfrew, Arnprior to have access to the capital.
I've hear of the plan to reinstate the Northlander train service from Toronto to North Bay, but hadn't heard anything about reinstating the CP's old section of transcontinental line from Ottawa to North Bay. Do you have an link to info on that?
Cool video!
The only thing I would change is use bombardier BBLs and a modern high acceleration locomotive. I’m working on my engineering degree and eventually working for a rolling stock company, and I’ve been designing EMU-performant locomotives, so who knows maybe mine could be used lol
The Bi-Levels are Hawker Siddeley cars. Hawker Siddeley/CCF merged with UTDC owned by Ont Govt. Ont govt sold it to Lavalin. Lavalin went bankrupt sold UTCD back to Ontario (and rest of Lavalin bought ny SNC). Ontario Government sold it to Bombardier. The huge advantage of the Bi Levels is the were approved prior to the USA FRA going for the "all steel" rules to protect Budd, a steel company whose trains were stuck in the 1950s. The LRC was also grandfathers prior to those rules but Amtrak ended up rejecting it diuue to initial unreliaability. These rules were finally relaaxed in 2018, but the "all steel" mentality perseveres in North America. With the liquidation of Bombardier, the "transportation" division went to Alstom. While Alstom have incorporated the heavy steel "multi level" models sold to NJ Transit (and EXO in montréal and a couple of others), they have not yeat designated the Bi Levels made in Thunderbay of aluminium as being part of their product offering. the "Buy American" policies make it very hard for ThunderBay to build commuter trains to be sold to USA. So I am not sure if this has a future or not. (The LaPocatière Bombardier plant (Now Alstom) is on Québec government welfare with subsidies to keep it open with employees twiddling their thumbs, while Alstom is investing heavily to expand their Hornell NY plant (and not even send new orders to their Plattsburg plant inherited from Bombardier).
still waiting for the go train to come to Bowmanville
Too bad we tore up all the useful tracks to build the trans canada trail maybe we can take some of it back...
Should have never taken the tracks out through the Ottawa Valley, GO Transit could have run all the way to Petawawa to Ottawa - Lots of bedroom community demand there.
Hard agree. Imagine the potential to have commuter service to Stittsville, Carleton Place, Almonte, Pembroke, and even North Bay, if Canadian Pacific didn’t rip up the former Carleton Place and Chalk River Subdivisions.
Desserving Casselman and Alexandria is also really smart to speed up current and future (HSR maybe🤞🏻) between Montréal and Ottawa.
I can see the attraction of using DMUs but I think existing GO bilevels would be preferable for a starter service, since there would be fewer regulatory concerns about operating during the same track time as VIA.
If VIA was contracted to operate the service, some of the F40PH locomotives not currently intended for refurbishing through 2035 could be sent through refurb and have their HEP generators changed to output 575 volts, and cycled to/from Montreal for major maintenance. This would be a low cost on ramp which could be replaced by Exo-style Chargers and new rolling stock once demand is proven.
What holds up this idea is the feds essentially freezing VIA development by decreeing that higher speed service be controlled by a separate company to VIA. Until their plans are known, and thus how much capacity between Casselman and Smiths Falls (existing track capacity and room to expand) that it would occupy, a commuter service would have to wait in line.
Yeah, the absolute gongshow that VIA HFR has been would definitely put the brakes on a service to smith's falls. Hopefully HFR would mean a proper 2-3 track corridor at 250+kmh from Brockville (Or at least smith's falls) to Coteaux. adding a siding for stopping trains would be ideal if both commuter and intercity services were to share a line. I linked Paige Saunders' video on improvements to that corridor in the cards, it's really good! check it out!
I love this concept... however I have concerns about the placement of the GO train within urban Ottawa. It makes total sense to continue the GO train along VIA track after a junction station with line 2. However, the transitway, which runs parallel with VIA track between Hurdman and Billings Bridge stations, is already due to be turned into rail when money permits (this was the idea for the transitway system when it was drawn up and built in the eighties, since the city couldn't yet afford rail. we've already seen the transition to rail with the confederation line, most of which is built on top of the former west-east transitway corridor). Should it be turned into rail, with Billings Bridge, Pleasant Park, Riverside, Smyth, Lycée Claudel stations parallel, it would be smart to draw up a new plan. Perhaps turning the transitway *into* the GO corridor, GO service departing from VIA track past the junction with line 2? (However, the transitway connects to Hurdman one station off from Tremblay/Ottawa Station... so that might not make that much sense practically). Or, making the GO Service non-stop to Ottawa Station past the junction (using VIA track all the way to Ottawa station)? Anyway, love your video and concept - I love this type of planning, especially when it comes to my home city.
The infrastructure for them to transition from the VIA track to the Transit Way would be challenging and would slow this type of train down due to some curves and frequent stops. Think the better concept would be for Line 4 to split from Line 2 at South Keys and take over the Transit Way to Hurdman.
I think the Transitway is fine and can coexist with regional rail. If anything, regional rail could compliment the transitway by offering express service to Tremblay if there was a rail station at Billings instead of the flyover. This would be cheaper as well.
While governments can fix this with on signature on a piece of paper, the mixing of "metro" with "train" is not allowed unless your "metro" submits to the 1950s american regulations on slow heavy trains. (this is the case with the Trillium line because it interconnects with the CN rail line with Walkley junction and diamond).
There is also the issue that the current Hurdman station is not designed to have an interchange with a second line.
@@octranspo_owl this would make sense
@@jfmezei makes sense. I also have realized that running an express train on a very local, frequently-stopped train line would not be a very good idea, after @mikejulien2330 ’s comment. I feel like the only thing stopping Hurdman from being reconstructed for 2 lines (line 1 and an extended line 4 like @mikejulien2330 said) would be money, and perhaps the reconstruction cost wouldn’t be very visible within the grander cost of converting the Transitway
I was so surprised with the surrounding Ottawa region to have one of the only VIA rail owned tracks in the system. Surprised it’s single tracked despite it would be such a big opportunity that other transit agencies wished they inherited.
As much as I’d like to see both commuter rail and HSR service to Ottawa both they will be sharing tracks into Ottawa. I am surprised they don’t put high floor platforms, i know it will be a significant disruption, but they should plan to build crossovers and another platform.
I agree with the passing sidings and double tracking though, like to see a two platform layout for an express track bypassing Non-Via Rail stations along the route while interchanges with VIA and GO (?) would have an separate island or side platforms.
Not sure how big the trains might need to be compared to the bigger GTA regional services, but I was thinking maybe they could have a 3-4 Car UP Express like DMUs. Can carry like 80+ seated in each car and another 80~ standing. Plus no luggage racks so more seating or washrooms, plus those have large overhead bins anyways. Preferring a high floor so that they can have better accessibility and standardization floor heights. Already has commonality with GO/Metrolinx or maybe separate platforms if going OC Transpo’s FLIRT’s.
If you look at the high level platform they put into Ottawa Tremblay station, you don't want them to put such high level platform. VIA stupidly built it to freight standards, so you can't just open door and walk out, an attendad has to manually put a metal platform betwene train and the distant platform due to the huge gap. CN never needs to use that one track and there 3 othe tracks where a freight can pass. (at Union station they had recently kept 1 such track on southernmost edge for freight train, but the currecnt reconstruction sees it going away).
@@jfmezeiinteresting i wondered why Tremblay station only had one high floor and not all, delayed opening too. Honestly they should put most VIA Rail station tracks and platforms that doesn’t see freight to have level boarding. Like Pacific Central in Vancouver, they’re going to be served with high floor Amtrak and Via Rail trains anyways after no more Talgo sets. Via Concourse for Union should be a no brainer. Not a Via Rail station but Lucien L’Allier had a year long renovation adding canopies but not level boarding
@@TheRandCrews Platform 1 has no escalators/elevators to it, so easy to raise it. Raising the other platforms would involve redoing the stairs and elevator from tunnel to the new platform heights. This is the same for Union Station (and a huge missed opportunity during his renovations since they did have to close tracks while rebuilding the supports below as the dug down). As for Lucien l'allier, the new CRRC cars they bought are unable to use high level platforms, and the new platforms were slightly raised to match those cars. EXO also still has some bi-levels like Go-Train and those can't use high level platforms.
The NJ Transit multilevels have hybrid vestibule doors that can open either to high level and low level platforms , on top of the high-level only doors in the mid level (giving 4 doors that can open on high level platforms - EXO chose not to pay for the hybrid doors so vestibule doors open only to low level platforms).
They tried this from London to Toronto and shut it down because nobody wanted a 4 hr train ride. I suspect this will be the case for this train as well.
Unlike Toronto 1) Ottawa train station is nowhere near downtown (it used to be just across the Chateau Laurier) 2) train tracks coming from Arnprior and Carleton Place were discretely removed many moons ago. Rockland is nowhere near existing tracks located to the south so the HWY 174will remain clogged during rush hour. So what would a Go Train achieve? Nothing
I like it! Another extension to consider is out to Pembroke/Petawawa.
Very nice video! I also highly believe that a 4th line should be considered running to Gatineau and possibly Masson QC as the rail infrastructure from Bayview station still somewhat still exists leading up to Masson And there are currently no trains in general that run anywhere west of Masson QC. Which would make launching this service somewhat more feasible.
Thank you! There's definitely 2 major opportunities for a similar approach in Gatineau. There's an ex-tourist railway from Gatineau into Wakefield via Chelsea, but the tracks were ripped up in the 2010s. There's also the Rapibus corridor, which is already a BRT line, with tracks running alongside it. Rebuilding the Wakefield line would likely see good ridership, but a conversion of the Rapibus corridor to rail would likely be an even stronger contender ridership-wise. But both of those proposals would involve the reconstruction/rehabilitation of the William Commanda bridge, as well as potentially the bridge the Rapibus corridor uses to cross the Gatineau river.
There has been talk in the past to run commuter trains from Smiths Falls to Ottawa, but it seems to have been forgotten over the years. I like your presentation. The outside communities can take advantage of a more direct train service in an out of Ottawa. This would lower greenhouse gases and encourage growth in outer municipalities. I am wondering though how the funding of these services will be acquired? Does this mean that outer municipalities would be required to merge with Ottawa? This is something I would think most people outside of Ottawa wouldn't be too keen on doing. Part of the reason for moving out of the city is to not pay the high prices for city services that they don't use.
The idea of this would be that it would not be provided by OC transpo. It would be provided by GOTransit, the regional operator for the GTHA, and it would be paid for mostly by the province. As well as shifting the transit levy from the smaller towns from OCTranspo onto GOTransit. Ottawa city limits are already too large, I would argue that it should be broken up, not get larger.
@@yukaira Well you know how The province does things
Great video and this actually would work.
Good luck. It's hard enough to get GO to serve Hamilton when they already had infrastructure going through it. (Looking at Confederation Station, still sitting basically unused due to them not properly connecting it to the downtown West Harbour station that would massively improve transit in the city...)
I mean ... One hour/train is pretty good by go standard. They are also connecting west Harbour to the mainline right now!
As to go centre, it will proberly never see any more service because of cp.. Hell I won't be surpise if GO end service to go centre after go extension is done in qp years
@ One hourly train to and from Toronto that is about service connected to Toronto is what GO is all about. But service focused on connecting people to other metros in the Golden Horseshoe is something GO drags their feet on. It took ages to get a Hamilton-Brantford bus route, despite the high demand. Their train to London was oriented around getting to and from downtown Toronto at rush hour even though the Kitchener-London connection was the part that actually made sense. And they still don't run a bus between Kitchener (a metro of half a million) and Hamilton (a metro of over 800K). In GO's planning everything must serve Toronto.
@@fernbedek6302 isn't there a bus route (17?) running from Hamilton Go centre to UofWaterloo ?
But I agree with you, go should not be just about getting people in and out of Toronto. However I don't quite agree with you on the kitchener-london only train. For one it would mean more people packing on the already packed Kitchener train, plus if the London train get delayed people will be stranded in Kitchener. I think Go need to strengthen their existing network like more train to Niagara region before consider reaching outward.
@ My point was that running a Kitchener-London train would make sense. Running a Toronto-London rush hour train (via Kitchener) did not make sense, but is what they did for a bit.
Additional trains should run between the Via Station and the Kanata Business Park, the most urban part of the service, with an additional stop at Merivale Road. There also needs to be an eventual stop for transfers with the Confederation Line at Highway 417. On top of this, Ottawa increasingly needs a provincially funded bus network serving satellite towns not connected by rail, including Arnprior, Almonte, Carleton Place, Smith's Falls, Kemptville, Greely, Metcalfe, Russell, Embrun, Casselman and Rockland. This would supplement a rail service. At present, OC Transpo cannot fund transit outside the city boundaries, while many of these towns outside of Ottawa are growing quickly.
I would totally agree, every 2nd or 3rd train extending into the rural areas would likely be an acceptable level of service. Originally, I wanted to touch on having a GO-Bus network to connect those long-since disconnected towns back into the city with public transit, but the video was already getting close to 10 minutes long. A regional network that connects at some of the rural towns to the farther-out OCTranspo stations such as Terry fox, (Tfox also has Intercity bus connections), St-laurent, Blair, Would definitely help reconnect the towns that lost their transit connections to ottawa since the pandemic.
I love this proposal. I am quite familiar with the tracks in question and have long thought the same myself.
There was a group which I believe was called the "MOOSE Consortium". It was a private enterprise approach. It received zero support by the previous mayor and city staff as well as from unions. It would have utilized TOD to finance the construction and operation.
They still have a website but I believe the group folded.
It would have included lines kn both sides of the Ottawa River.
Where are you?
Thank you! MOOSE was actually a HUGE inspiration for me to make this video, but I didnt particularly want to include it due to the fact that it went kinda nowhere, and I wanted the video to be more hopeful.
I'd really like to see a ring line or something that passes through Metcalfe, Russell, Embrun and any other outlier that wouldn't be served by repurposing existing track.
I feel like there needs to be a more frequent option collecting riders within south Kanata for the area between fernbank and hazeldean road. I don’t know if it’s still a thing but "I waited 45minutes for a local bus to eagleson" has always been the decades old lamentation
Absolutely, while "New ways to Bus" is certainly flawed, a big aim for that is to improve local connections. Improvements to the 88/68 bus, as well as the 16x buses should hopefully improve those services.
I certainly feel your pain though! I used to commute to south kanata from nepean quite often...
Dude they gotta do this 😩
Via has more than enough coverage on their current Brockville/ smith falls and Alexandria subs. Some of the other lines you mentioned could be useful though.
I live in Kanata North and work near the VIA Rail station adjacent to downtown. I'd love such a connection!
Great idea!
Just think a GO Train to Casino de Lac Leamy. Triple zero routlette!
Absolutely love the music for this video
What about connecting to Gatineau, Chelsea, Wakefield, Buckingam, Pontiac, Aylmer.
A few people have commented on this now! there's also a former railway that leads all the way to Wakefield via Gatineau & Chelsea, but the tracks have long since been ripped up. that would absolutely be a feasible line, particularly as a true rail connection into Gatineau from Ottawa, but it'd likely have to be completely rebuilt, as well as involve the reconstruction of the William Commanda bridge.
Excellent idea but there is too many conflicts of interest blocking the project. Look up "Moose Rail"'s news section to see why.
It is an interesting idea, I personally would prefer to see an expansion of the O-trains rather then a GO train style commuter only system added. It would be better to have constant public transportation services to the suburbs rather then a once a day commuter service in the GO train model.
I wonder if it would be worth looking at using the M&O spur and then using the hydro right of way (parallel to Brian Coburn) into Orleans rather than using VIA's Alexandria line. At least that way you can hit Orleans and Cumberland which have much larger populations. At that point if you want to get into Rockland you'd like have to build a new right of way.
That would definitely see lots of ridership! the main thesis of this video is that you could start a skeleton service pretty much overnight, because those tracks exist. expanding via that corridor would absolutely be feasible for a wider network, but would obviously have to be completely new-build.
@@yukaira Makes sense. If you want to push it a little bit more on your skeleton route maybe you can even add Hawkesbury via Glen Robertson and the Vankleek sub. That track however would need major upgrades. In a fantasy work maybe you add Cornwall via the old NY Central Ottawa sub and add Russell and Embrun as intermediary stops. You can only dream...
The hope is if this were at thing, it would be a springboard to start a true Ottawa valley / Gatineau regional rail service! I hope to live to see the day of that happening.
M&O line was donated to VIA rail when CP Rail abandonned it west of Rigaud. It was still used by The Canadians in the early days of VIA. VIA allowed CP to tear up the tracks for the value of the steel and never used it. *After* the HSR boodoggle was started, VIA donated the line to the municipalities for a bike path between Rigaud and Ottawa and It was to be certified to be part of Trans Canada trail this year or next.
this video is way too good wow
thank you!
Came here from Miles' video and the rwj cool transition made me cackle.
What about cross river service to Gatineau? Why do Anglos always ignore a major portion of the National Capital Region. We have the lines already in place.
Maybe because they're talking about GO Trains run by Metrolinx (Ontario Government funded corporation). If there were some co-operation/funding from the Quebec government maybe something like that could happen. If there had been co-operation between Ontario & Quebec governments years ago maybe they could have saved the Montreal-Vaudreil-Rigaud-Vanleek Hill-Plantagenet-Ottawa line years ago. Since Rigaud declined to pay the doubled annual subsidy back in 2010 that's just a Montreal-Hudson stub now. That said, there is the Gatineau LRT (supposedly) on the way that would cross the Portage bridge and connect with Ottawa's Line 1.
Kemptville Prescott and Morrisburg would be interesting too
I see beachburg subdivision I hit like
@@alexjhorner we love the beachburg sub on this channel
good idea
i love how you used a part from bus subway's and trains ep from s2 of Mighty Machines at 4:22
Nice video, thanks
I would add a new link to hawkesbury through Clarence Rockland, cornwal via the old new york line, and petawawa via the old calumet island corridor or north from carleton place through renfrew.
My only problem is; well, isn’t Ottawa like 4 times smaller than Toronto? Or did I miss something.
Today, Absolutely. But when GO made it's first train line, the GTA was only ~2m in population. Ottawa metro area is around 1.4m.
Would also point out that Ottawa is smaller in population, but geographically bigger than TO. So having this type of system would actually serve a lot of people and create a lot of densification/growth opportunities since that population is growing pretty quick.
In 1986, I biked across Canada. Going east, Transcanada rural road 17 ran to Kanata, after which it turned into a 417 highway. Coming from Montréal, trans Canada rural route 17 was cyclable to the Montréal rd exit after which it became big highway and merged with 417.
Today, going west to Ottawa, the 17 became the 174 at Montréal Rd and continues to past Cumberland at the ottawa city limits.
From the west, the 417 now extends west past Arnprior.
So Ottawa is at a juncture where Vancouver was, decided wether to build transit or bulldoze land to build mroe highwasy and handle traffci in its core that isn't designed to handle such traffic. So deciding today to start some transit will help slow down growth of traffic and if it works well, will justify proper upgrades of tracks , stations etc.
Wasn't this essentially the next stage of Bob Chiarelli's plan that got cancelled by Larry O'Brien in 2006?
I'm not sure! I can't find what the expansion ideas for the trillium line were in Bob chiarelli's time, but I wouldn't doubt that they researched this as an option.
I think this is a very interesting video. I was not that aware of the Arnprior line and think that is the most interesting. Vars, Carlsbad Springs and Limoges are not practical as there is very little population base there.
Thanks! I would generally agree with the assessment of Carlsbad and Limoges being too small, but Vars has a park and ride, as well as a connexion route. If the train were to go to Casselman, I think a stop in Vars would be worth it.
@@yukaira Only question I have, do you think these expanded commuter lines indirectly encourage sprawl? Also, you might be better positioned to answer but is there a push in the GTA to densify around the Go Stations? So many are just huge parking lots.
@@stephenjohnson2236 Well yes and no, while building a commuter rail line would induce demand for and make living further out more accessible, people have been doing that for ages, and just sticking it out with no transit service, or minimal service. I think shifting that demand from driving 45mins into town every day for work onto transit would have an overall good impact.
GO is densifying around it's stations, but i dont think theyre doing so fast enough. I'd look more towards Montréal for lessons on densifying around transit corridors.
@@yukaira One last thing, hope you make more videos in the new year. I greatly enjoyed your video about the 95.
Thank you! I've been having a lot of fun producing my funny little videos
It seems obvious really... great video.
@@alfredcoates7502 thank you!
Through RUN (past participle).
nice video!
thank you!