To be better informed during Trump-45 I had a subscription to the New York Times. I cancelled it after a year or so because I was just reading opinion columns. On a Canadian news aggregator, there are always ten new Canadian opinion pieces on display - generally on Canadian politics - written by the same opinion shapers day after day. How exhausting and sad it must be to regularly assert that the truth is to be found in your opinion. Like everybody, I have one - but I usually sit on it.
There have always been people who care and who have been effective at VIA Rail - at all levels. Indeed Rolly Martin was one of them. However, there were things about VIA which he never could have fixed because of the lack of modern equipment.
Like support for Ukraine, VIA has always received 'not enough, just in time'. Often I have wondered if VIA Directors and Executives over the decades have always had an appropriate single-minded focus on improving passenger rail service in Canada.
... Hopefully the Alto project will continue to operate at arm's length from VIA. VIA personnel already have enough issues to keep them really busy.
 |
| Evening westbounds at Kingston in 1981. It's hard for you to believe, my son, but 45 years ago VIA Rail passengers sometimes became stranded! |
The Future of Passenger Rail in the Past
Decades ago, conventional wisdom held that Canadian intercity passenger rail services were destined for extinction because sensible people would choose the personal convenience of autos driven on our new superhighways, or the speed of aircraft. Only people who were 'above' taking the bus took the train.
The banishment of Ottawa's downtown railway station in the 1960s and the drive'n'fly location of the Montreal-Mirabel International Airport illustrate the failure to shrewdly interpret what the future holds. After half a century, in spite of VIA's many failures, and the failures of the host railway(s), there is still a demand for intercity passenger trains.
This is not the past when main line passenger trains were 10-15 cars long (1100 tons) and freight trains were 50-100 cars long (4000 tons). In that era, the trucks of cute little 40-ton railcars hammered and hunted against the rails, followed by a small army always ready to tighten bolts, line, jack and shim.
This is not the past when the operators of a single company ranked all of the trains on their rails - either as most-favoured trains of numbered classes, or expected them to help themselves over the road as extra trains.
Rattling Down the Main Like a Janky South Park Animation
Flanged wheels running on steel rails is a remarkable technology for carrying any number of heavy loads efficiently on a low-friction surface ... or light loads very fast on a perfectly aligned surface.
The Canadian National Railway has become just another railroad in the American model (opines this 'typically greedy' beneficial shareholder). For it to behave differently would be a liability. It is the wily Fred Trump to homeless VIA's mandated tenancy across Canada. However, CN's rails are no longer optimized for VIA's flanged wheels, particularly on the patchwork of lines which VIA styles as The Corridor.
Today, when passenger and freight trains share the tracks, the mathematical odds are generally excellent for the safety of passengers. However, the physics will not be forgiving if lumber or propane loads ever make contact with a passenger train. Every transportation system has its risks, but why do we accept this as 'normal'?
With great regularity, as they traverse CN's old Grand Trunk stone bridges, cuts and fills, VIA's trains are constantly at the mercy of motorists who don't understand level crossing safety, trespassers, people in mental distress ... and the ups and downs of massive distributed power consists we wish the two Georges and Rudolf could come back to life to see.
 |
| from: UCRS Newsletter, December 1968. Welcome to Kingston! |
HaltoAlto!
I have been following the news reports of the Alto public information sessions being held in a couple of rural locations. These sessions are probably being held to discover geographical points of resistance, to inform, and to condition local public opinion. There are ample on-line avenues for input as well.
I think most people are understandably unhappy about any new transportation corridor which may approach their property. Someone asked: Why can't more trains be put on the existing lines and be speeded up a little? Sorry, we can't give you answers - this is just an information session.
One suave Alto PR rep suggested that he likes to think of this transportation project as 'bringing people together'. Though he probably does not mean with the torches and pitchforks which are brought to some rural information sessions.
At least two local councils near Kingston reactively voted against a new rail corridor in their jurisdictions. If a line is to serve Kingston - let it do so through the City of Kingston! With such logic it is hard to argue.
 |
| from: tec0kf; 鉄道史資料保存団. archive.org |
 |
| from: tec0kf; 鉄道史資料保存団. archive.org |
What Is Down the Track?
Like many Boomers and Joneses I have made the sage pronouncement that I won't be around to ride on the completed Alto system. The applause which followed surprised me.
Canadians once fought gallantly in, worked to help win, observed, ignored, or were placed in Interior Housing Centres because of, World War Two. But history is never over. Only history books neatly bookend time.
Over 700,000 Canadians who had been immersed in the events of World War Two never found out how it ended ... simply because their time was up and they died before it ended.
Nonetheless, while alive, they still worked toward the future they believed in, as if their descendants depended on them.
It spectacularly fails to make us 'Great Again' in the eyes of some people. However, some of us see the planning of transportation systems to decrease carbon emissions, where reasonable, as one of many things we can do for our descendants.
 |
| Coalie, Mascot of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Destined for the Ashpit of History. |
What Is Coming Down the Pike, and Out of the Blue?... in 20 to 40 years.
Most Canadians are reasonable people who understand climate science. Many are taking action on their own to decrease their impact on the environment. Even with electric road vehicles, imagining our present habits continuing into the future is a pretty normal thing to do.
People 'will always' drive their cars between Montreal and Toronto. People who have more money than time will continue to fly between eastern Canadian cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
However, it is hard to imagine where the additional highways will be built to connect Montreal and Toronto. How enjoyable will it be to use the highways of the future? What are the future projections for truck traffic?
Rough estimates suggest an increase of 50% on current volumes of auto and truck traffic in the next 20 years ... Of course, there are many variables which could influence outcomes in the future.
I regret that I won't be around to see self-driving trucks, and self-driving cars, self-driving their way on the 401 through Toronto during the first snowstorm of the year.
Will flying continue to be the pleasant, convenient, reliable and cheap exercise that it currently is?
Will the angry people at Alto information sessions, or the knee-jerking HaltoAlto! municipalities, happily embrace the wider corridors taken for new highways (like the 407), and the inevitable new power lines, any more than they welcome a relatively narrow Alto line?
Currently, about 7% of Ontario farmland (about 750,000 acres, 3000 square kilometres) is used to grow corn, to ferment for ethanol, to burn in cars. People may complain about a new electric rail corridor taking up farmland. However, if ICE vehicle demand for ethanol is decreased, some farmland can be returned to the purpose of producing food.
 |
| from: UCRS Newsletter, December 1968. |
Have We Ever Done This Before?
We've had proper controlled access highways since the 1960s. Almost no one would dream of operating a snowmobile on Highway 401 or walk on it as a short cut.
We've never had a proper high-speed intercity railway system which was designed solely for passenger service. While the LRC equipment was designed to make electrification possible, almost all modern Canadian passenger locomotives have lugged on-board generating systems to power their traction motors.
During Air Canada strikes in the 1980s, 20-car passenger trains were run when necessary. Railway technology is scalable and track-capacity-efficient in a way which aircraft and highway vehicles are not.
... We've forgotten about this characteristic because VIA barely has enough spare equipment to run a Grey Cup special. There are other constraints. Want to run extra passenger trains to meet demand? ... work it out with landlord 'Fred Trump'.
A proper high-speed passenger rail system has the capacity to move large numbers of people as required.
To counter the circuitous Alto route: If CN ever chooses to install concrete ties and maintain its Kingston Subdivision track structure, VIA Montreal-Toronto trains could still have the option of at least rivalling Alto travelling times.
Alto is predicting 'about' a 3 hour travelling time on their Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto route.
Sixty-one (61) years ago, Japan's 1965 Shinkansen could travel Montreal to Toronto (straight line) in 3 hours 10 minutes.
A compelling case could have been made for a direct Alto route between Montreal and Toronto.
Air Canada has become just another air carrier in the American model. For it to behave differently would be a liability.
Air Canada is a member of the Cadence Consortium which is now behind Alto. Flying between Montreal and Toronto only takes about 1 hour 30 minutes.
Many older readers will remember the high regard many Canadians had for Canadian National Railways and Air Canada when they were still Crown corporations.
 |
| from: Brockville Railfan, YouTube, 19 February 2026. I double-checked - the switch heaters are off and are not refracting light. Those are the rails. |
Like many, in recent years I've had a bellyful of flowery political rhetoric which yields no results.
I may never use this new high-speed passenger rail system. I think it is a reasonable investment in an asset which will benefit Canadians in the future. It will also decrease the impact of transportation on the environment.
And we - as people with an interest in, and knowledge about, railway technology - should exert steady pressure on those responsible for creating the Alto system. They should be designing a system which will still be considered a valuable transportation asset 50 years after it opens.