It is completely mind boggling to me that proposing a simple rail system that would end up looking like this across Canada is generally met with claims of impossibility and impracticality.

[chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca]

It is completely mind boggling to me that proposing a simple rail system that would end up looking like this across Canada is generally met with claims of impossibility and impracticality.

(This is a transcontinental freight train in Austria heading to Italy and/or Slovenia and possibly beyond)
#rail #canada
h/t @andreaswiedenhoff
https://rail.chat/@andreaswiedenhoff/113697624793354114

[t_mkdf@ruhr.social]

@chris @andreaswiedenhoff let's just say our population density is a wee bit higher over here than Canada's.

[chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca]

@t_mkdf @andreaswiedenhoff
And yet we still manage to support a vibrant airline industry across the country. We used to have a vibrant bus and rail system when we had half the population so this feels like an increasingly red, red herring.

[chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca]

@t_mkdf @andreaswiedenhoff
To whit: Canada in 1974 pop. 22 million vs
Canada in 2024 pop. 40 million.

These are maps of the networks for CPRail and Greyhound buses in 1974.

Both CPRail and Greyhound have ceased to exist in terms of passenger service and have not been replaced.

VIARail and CNRail also had significant passenger services, VIA primarily, but CNRail no longer has any and VIA is a shadow of its former self.

For freight, CP has shed all but the main routes between major cities as has CN and both have pursued mergers with American lines to increase their market share.

It’s not population density, it’s unfettered, deregulated, super-capitalism that killed land-based travel in Canada.
Greyhound source: https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/images/hrcorpreports/pdfs/6/635329.pdf
CP source: https://www.trains.com/trn/railroads/maps/canadian-pacific-in-1974/

[jfmezei@mstdn.ca]

@chris @andreaswiedenhoff Canada and the USA may be stuck in the 1950s but for one "good" reason: Both have adopted the same standards for trains and couplers so that a freight car in Prince Rupert can travel on multiple freight railways to Florida. Hard to evolve such standards.

Europe are only now starting to work on standardized automated couplers. A german freight train can travel to Italy as a unit, but those german freight cars can't be coupled onto Italian train.

[chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca]

@jfmezei @andreaswiedenhoff the irony is, we had better passenger service in the 1950s.

[marius_gs@mastodon.social]

@chris @andreaswiedenhoff

Canada's oil & gas, and road construction industries, private bus companies have scores of lobbyists standing by, ready to generate fake news stories to make Canadians believe this. The lobbyists jump into action every time a Canadian, or provincial government, or citizens group makes this type of proposal. Look at our passenger rail system. The lobbyists have been doing their corporate clients' bidding effectively since the end of the Second World War.

#canada

[chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca]

@marius_gs @andreaswiedenhoff yup

[bujold@dice.camp]

@chris @t_mkdf @andreaswiedenhoff Also let's not forget, on top of that, how uneven that population density is. More than half the country lives in an almost perfectly straight linear region with a population density on par with Spain. Great spot to put a high speed train if you ask me, but alas, I'm told Yukon has a ton of empty space so, QED, checkmate transit advocates, on to the next highway project