Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Tue Jul 02, 2019 1:56 pm
Huh? Any xenophobia going on is south of the border. North of the border there are customs agreements in place for a couple of the daylight LD's, aren't there? And an extension of the Vermonter back into the Montrealer is in the works, albeit slowly it seems. Don't the Adirondack and Maple Leaf have arrangements?
My possibly mistaken understanding is that other than the Toronto (Maple Leaf) train the goal is to have all cross border trains clear US customs at the origin station in Canada (the so called pre-clearance that the US likes for cross-border flights as well). This works for the trains out of Montreal and Vancouver, but not really Toronto given the need for additional stops between Toronto and the border (that and I don't think you could put in place an isolated platform at Toronto Union).
Given that assumption, starting any new cross border service where customs/immigration is handled at the physical border is unlikely to happen unless there is a significant change in attitude.
Thus any Toronto - Detroit service will need to have the issue thought out, and it would be relatively easy to fence off and monitor the line between the tunnel and MCS to allow for checks to take place at MCS.