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Via lost $93-million in 2018 on its busiest route - the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto service.Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press

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Canadian high-speed passenger rail service: All aboard?

This morning, in my mind’s eye, I am in Peterborough, standing on the platform, feeling hopeful, and waiting for the high-frequency train to come through (What’s That Coming Down The Track? – editorial, July 30). In the midst of the climate crisis, I don’t want more flights between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, nor do I want more subsidized highways.

I want convenient, reliable passenger rail travel, and would be more than happy to pay my taxes for such service. Bring on the trains. My bags are packed.

Elaine Bruer, Peterborough, Ont.

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VIA Rail is a paying guest on tracks of the majority U.S.-owned CN rail. The priority given to CN freight trains makes travel on VIA lines inconvenient and deficit-prone.

Delays of 30 minutes or more between Toronto and Montreal may not be uncommon, but it can get much worse. On a recent trip from Jasper to Prince Rupert, our train arrived five hours late at its overnight stop in Prince George, and at its final destination. It sat on sidings to let freight trains pass, forcing 40 mostly international tourists to travel in the dark through the scenic coastal mountains ahead of Prince Rupert. The conductor said that in 12 years on the route, he recalled only one day when the train arrived on time.

High-speed trains around the world offer fast, comfortable and predictable connections between downtown cores. The 348 kilometres from Paris to London take 2 hours and 16 minutes. A German study projects that of the €86-billion the German government plans to co-invest in its rail service over the next 10 years, each billion will attract €1.1-billion to €2-billion in additional “crowding in” investments.

Why not move CN freight traffic to the Peterborough route and build a modern rail system along the central Canadian corridor?

Bernd Baldus, Toronto

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We tend to fantasize about rail travel after experiencing its comfort and effectiveness in Europe. Canada is a different environment. Too few people and too few cities to link together.

Years ago, on a CBC show, Jack Pickersgill was taking calls lamenting the closing of the Caribou train, colloquially referred to as the Newfie Bullet. Finally, having had enough of the whiners, he told one caller there is a reliable, comfortable transportation service: It’s called a bus.

We already have modern, well maintained highways, no capital costs needed, other than perhaps more speedy, comfortable buses.

Martin C. Pick, Cavan, Ont.

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If we were to abandon the passenger-rail option, could the current infrastructure absorb the 4.5 million-plus annual additional trips that travellers made?

Look to Germany, where short-haul flights are being replaced very effectively with high-speed trains. Where the German government is investing billions in rail travel, I guess we can only make do …

Bill Burns, London, Ont.

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A major reason why Canadians might want to encourage taking the train is that the carbon footprint of rail travel is much less than that of air travel. A few years ago, an independent study commissioned by Eurostar found that taking the train from London to Paris instead of flying cut CO2 emissions per passenger by as much as 90 per cent.

That kind of cut alone should justify encouraging rail travel, even if it has to be subsidized.

Alan McCullough, Ottawa

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Anything except high speed and electric is already out of date. Bring in the Chinese, French or Japanese to show us how to do it and run the project. They have the know-how. We don’t.

David Selley, Toronto

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Since VIA Rail Canada was formed as a Crown Corporation in 1977, VIA routes have been reduced, either in large-scale culls or in dribs and drabs.

Canada’s vast passenger rail network of the 20th century has been whittled down to a bare skeleton, and VIA management is to be commended for maintaining a cohesive network and relevant transportation service in the face of overwhelmingly negative odds.

No passenger rail service in North America recovers its costs, so the financial constraints on VIA means it has been effectively straitjacketed from adding new routes for decades.

Corridors like Edmonton-Calgary and Calgary-Vancouver, which are ideal candidates for year-round, scheduled passenger-rail services, are thus restricted to freight trains and seasonal trains.

VIA’s High Frequency Rail plan is Canada’s first opportunity to build a new intercity passenger rail line in almost a century and, it is to be hoped, will lead to the addition of new services and routes elsewhere in the country.

Jason Shron, Markham, Ont.

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For reasons unknown to me, our governments made choices a few decades ago that favoured air and car travel over train travel, unlike many other developed countries and even emerging ones such as China. The result was slow VIA passenger trains that need to pull off the line to let trains carrying goods go by.

We can finally catch up to the world a bit and reduce carbon emissions by doing what we should have done years ago. Passengers will return to rail if the travel time is reduced, the trains are on time, and the carbon-footprint savings are mentioned.

Paul Brennan, Ottawa

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Our governments – that is, we the taxpayers – have spent billions building airports and expressways. For nearly half a century, we’ve spent little of significance on rail.

Perhaps most egregiously, with railway profits now dependent on freight, VIA’s passenger trains are regularly stopped to give right-of-way to freight trains. No wonder passenger numbers plummeted.

Now that we know the serious carbon footprint of planes, cars, trucks and buses, we have an obligation to our children and grandchildren to plan more for the long term.

A Toronto-Montreal dedicated track and modern rolling stock is not merely a nice idea, as your editorialists seem to think. We must prepare for transportation that has a lower environmental footprint. That means investing in infrastructure to get travellers into electric trains. Now.

Shed the TGV dreams. Intercity trains running at 200 km/h are the bread and butter of, for example, German Rail. The important thing is dedicated tracks.

Ila Bossons, Toronto

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Our national railway was a strong factor in building this great country. A new high-speed, electric rail infrastructure would reinvigorate our sense of national purpose, and be the cornerstone of a green-energy strategy for Canada.

High-speed electric trains from Toronto to Montreal would be a start, followed by westward expansion to Windsor. In the east, Kingston could be a hub connector (as promised to the city by VIA), linking service to Ottawa and Quebec City.

From there, expansion would connect other major cities in Canada to build a truly pan-Canadian, high-speed electric rail network and give all Canadians a renewed national purpose.

L.E. Burrows, Kingston

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