High-speed rail line is long overdue

Re Wynne tries to reignite unrequited love affair with high-speed rail, Walkom,

May 22 Thomas Walkom raises valid issues with Ontario’s latest highspeed rail announcement, but in his summary of Canada’s dabbling with high-speed rail in the past, he misses the biggest problem: Canada has repeatedly tried to get high-speed-rail service on the cheap and failed.

Walkom mentions the Turbo, which achieved the Canadian speed record of 225 km/h in 1976 and was very reliable in its last years of service. But the Turbo was the wrong train for our tracks. It was a high-speed train running on jointed rail (also known as “clickety-clack track”) on an alignment that was laid in 1856.

The Turbo, and later the Bombardier LRC (Light, Rapid, Comfortable), were attempts to have high-speed rail without a penny invested in track infrastructure. Yes, the Turbo could travel at 225 km/h but, on its run to Montreal, it was forced to negotiate extremely tight curves and more than 300 road crossings, limiting its speed to 153 km/h in service. And Walkom correctly points out the Turbo — just like passenger trains today — had to share tracks with slow and heavy freight trains.

There have been so many studies of high-speed rail in Canada that it’s a shame you can’t build the tracks out of paper. We have the population density and travel patterns to support high-speed rail between Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and London. If only we could stop studying it and start building it. Jason Shron, author of TurboTrain: A Journey, Markham

So Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne wants $21 billion (minimum!) spent creating this rail line. I guess she hasn’t heard that tens of thousands of people in Ontario are living in broken-down and infested subsidized housing. It also seems she and her party are unaware that thousands are on a waiting list for decent housing. Please, Ms. Wynne, let’s get our priorities straight. John Morton, Toronto