47 Replies to “Seems Doable”

    1. Actually, given Calgarians’ choice of mayor and support of odious public policies, I’d say there might as well be a difference between that now leftist city and the rest of the province (except Edmonton).

      1. We use Dominion voting machines for municipal (soon provincial) elections in Alberta.

        It’s more like a selection.

        1. Dominion voting machines? So the Chinese selected both mayors? Whoo! I was beginning to think Canadians were that stupid.

  2. TransPod By pod people for pod people.

    Don’t ask what Klaus is serving in the dining pod.

    1. I seem to recall that for a hyperloop system to work properly it needs to be sealed in a vacuum.
      If your pod springs a leak your DOA.

  3. While sounding super good, it is super pipe dream.
    There is not enough money in the world to do this.
    Especially between Calgary and Alberta, almost impossible.
    No?

  4. Expecting those wind turbines to produce that electricity needed too?
    Along with the Solar Panels at night as well?

  6. Trains? In Alberta? There used to be trains between Edmonton and Calgary – a bus on tracks – but every week some farmer would pull in front of it. When Edmonton had the downtown airport lots of people used fly to Calgary. Now that you have to drive to Leduc and wait at least an hour for your flight, you might as well drive a couple more hours to Calgary and have a car when you get there.

    It would have to be on deep pilings because of this Alberta thing called frost heaves – enough to launch a fast train. I am guessing that with the billions Edmonton spends on it’s dog and pony show trains, the economics would be brutal and they would be crying for government subsidy. Via loses a shitload of money running on tracks they are borrowing. In 2020 Via received 668 million from the government to haul 1 million passengers. Blow it up when they blow up CBC.

    1. “Now that you have to […] wait at least an hour for your flight, you might as well drive a couple more hours […] and have a car when you get there.”

      That is the problem with mass transit between cities in Canada. If it’s fast (flying) the security will kill you before the cost sinks in. If it’s medium (train) the wait, cost, and inconvenience when you reach your destination isn’t worth it. If it’s cheap (bus) you don’t save time, so why not drive and have a car when you get there.

      1. This is precisely why they plan to ban useable relatively inexpensive IC cars. They have consistently failed to make public transit workable for most. So they must ban cars for plebes outright.

      2. “Now that you have to […] wait at least an hour for your flight, you might as well drive a couple more hours […] and have a car when you get there.”

        Why DS’ plan for rail to/from Banff/Calgary will fail miserably. No transport to speak of at Banff’s end.

    2. It’s worse than that. My flight to Vancouver this summer took seven hours from checking in at YYC to driving out of YVR in a rental car. You can drive it in ten hours.

    1. Listed are some issues:

      Mag-lev rail is already insanely expensive and often economically unviable in its own right. Next-gen mag-lev systems that need to be kept in vacuum tubes for hundreds of miles will be a lot more expensive
      Evacuating air from 300 km of tubes is difficult and energy-intensive
      Leaks, tube breaches, seismic activity, malfunctions or terrorist acts could have absolutely catastrophic results
      Even the slightest deviation from a straight line at 1,000 km/h could throw passengers and cargo around

  12. This has government vision/boondoggle written all over it. Start small with a link between Edmonton and Leduc funded with private investment. If you can make that work we’ll talk about the rest.

  13. “TransPod says it’s raised US$550 million in funding . . .”

    . . . which is going to mysteriously disappear and has nothing to do with the principal’s new mansion in St. Croix.

    1. $550 million is what Edmonton spends for a few km of low tech on the ground track for their trains. I’m guessing 300 km of high tech track would be tens of billions. To repeat, in 2020 Via burned $668 million from the government to haul a million passengers. Each ticket they sell costs taxpayers $668. Passenger trains in Canada are pure horse crap. It would be way cheaper to build roads to the few isolated communities that actually rely on rail.

  20. Perhaps they will actually build it, and on its maiden voyage, stuff it full of politicians and technocrat investors, let it hit 600mph, and a vacuum seal blows.
    The lamentation of their peoplekind would be epic.

  21. How about making a route that goes as fast as a bullet train first.
    See if our governments can’t screw it up and do it again.

    1. Hey! We have a bullet train in CA! And when the FIRST leg between San Jose and Modesto is completed in 2055 … the “high speed train” will reach speeds of up to 80mph between stations!! Wow! Such high tech capabilities.

      And Dianne Feinstein’s family business is getting $Billions in taxpayer funds. Swimming pools and Napa Valley estates.

  22. Deleted tweet.

    Calgary to Alberta has me intrigued. It might be a philosophical railroad. I figured we have moved far left enough to be located somewhere in the Laurentians and this spiritual rail would help us return to our true ‘us’.

    Bedsides, we have to be coming up on 50 years of Calgary Edmonton high speed boondoggles, let’s not bother making them even pretend to real anymore, just write cheques.

  23. Monorail,monorail,monorail.
    But what a license to steal.
    I too love the slip..Calgary to Alberta..way too true.
    Calgary?
    Ancient word for “Future Ghost Town”.

    1. Yes, it’s a wonderful turn of phrase. It’s like the popular meme, “Prove to me that your proposal is a boondoggle without actually telling me it’s a boondoggle.”

    2. “Calgary?
      Ancient word for “Future Ghost Town”.”

      Never been there, but I’ve heard and read stories about their downtown parking situation (and the hundreds of empty office spaces because of it). For a couple of years here in Vancouver (back in the 90’s?..or the 2000’s?) the city planning geniuses actually vetoed the construction of parking spaces while still allowing new office and residential buildings…they must have moved to Calgary after they were fired.

  24. It’s a stupid idea. Nobody even rides busses anymore (for some obvious reasons). Of course, if you are trying to wean people off of their freedom wagons then I guess you have to give them “alternatives”.

  25. The real solution for high speed travel between Calgary and Edmonton (which I presume was the actual intent of the post) is a toll autobahn with a 200km/h speed limit and a highway patrol enforcing drive-right etc. But that would actually work and so will never be implemented. Passenger rail, high speed or otherwise, was a transitional technology but no one wants to admit it.

  26. Oh, the irony! The same people who have stopped every attempt to build a new oil or gas pipeline in Canada, are now all excited about building a huge new hyperloop – which is a fancy word for what is basically a big fat pipeline to ship people, except using technology which doesn’t exist yet. It’s exactly the kind of thing that Zoolander and his merry band of incompetents will jump on faster than a fat kid on a jelly doughnut.

  27. Hyperloop technology could never move enough people, fast enough (# people per hour) to be economically viable except at very high prices. The problem is not the speed of the “pod”, but the time it takes to load and unload passengers at the stations at each end (it CANNOT stop in Red Deer). You can’t have a pod sitting there loading and unloading people with another one bearing down at high speed – too risky. So that space BETWEEN pods will need to be larger, meaning fewer pods per hour and fewer passengers per hour.

    This is why traditional trains need to be LONG to be viable. Hyperloop technology is malinvestment.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation