Canadian Pre-Clearance

[bdawe]

While we're talking about the tangle of fantasy Canadian run through opportunities, here's ere the tracks are and who lives where.

As you can see, the discontinuous remains of the Canada Southern of NYC/Niagara Rainbow usage at the south end

[electricron]

interesting map in the previous post. Whereas Amtrak does run trains into Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, it's doing so because there are many passengers wishing to go to these Canadian cities, or go to America from these Canadian cities.
If Canadians wish to travel to Buffalo from south Ontario cities other than Toronto, or to Detroit, get VIA to provide the trains. There's no reason why Amtrak should if VIA won't.

[AgentSkelly]

A EuroStar-style train I think would work for a Chicago-Detroit-Windsor-London-Niagara Falls-NYP train; talking with my friends at US CBP in the past, for their interest they said you would need to divide the train in half; one side for US/Transit Passengers one side is the "transit passengers" that should be documented and accounted for while in transit. Now, CBSA on the other hand will probably require the transit passengers to at least fill out a declaration card for documentation purposes, but they can just note they are transit passengers same as when doing the same while flying. I would suggest putting two back to back cafe cars in the middle to seperate the both sides.

However with that said, I would like to see a connecting train from Detroit into Windsor thru Ontario to Toronto that would have CBSA pre-clearence in Detroit. which I know having CBSA on US soil is another pilot project in the works for some highway border crossings.

[Railjunkie]

Had a long chat while coming up from NYP yesterday with a brother engineer who goes to Montreal twice a week. I asked him how the pre clearance facility is going in Central station I believe track 23 is where they are going to put it. His reply was very slowly, even if it was to be going into effect today the facilities wouldnt be ready. Then again I do not believe the Canadian Goverment has ratified their portion of the treaty. He figures from what he has read north of the boarder maybe another 3 years. Enjoy your 1 hour and 40 min at the boarder, give or take.

As a side note he also added the CN runs whom ever is ready first their freight or us, Amtrak cant give a number for the time as its a crap shoot. Been on there with 200 and they are done in 40 minutes been on there in the middle of winter and it takes two hours. Plus the summer times has its heat restrictions added in which will never go away.

The Rouses Point subdivision is single track with passing sidings and completely dark territory until you reach Cannon. (I think thats right its been awhile). The last few miles in are CTC.

[AgentSkelly]

Had a long chat while coming up from NYP yesterday with a brother engineer who goes to Montreal twice a week. I asked him how the pre clearance facility is going in Central station I believe track 23 is where they are going to put it. His reply was very slowly, even if it was to be going into effect today the facilities wouldnt be ready. Then again I do not believe the Canadian Goverment has ratified their portion of the treaty. He figures from what he has read north of the boarder maybe another 3 years. Enjoy your 1 hour and 40 min at the boarder, give or take.

As a side note he also added the CN runs whom ever is ready first their freight or us, Amtrak cant give a number for the time as its a crap shoot. Been on there with 200 and they are done in 40 minutes been on there in the middle of winter and it takes two hours. Plus the summer times has its heat restrictions added in which will never go away.

The Rouses Point subdivision is single track with passing sidings and completely dark territory until you reach Cannon. (I think thats right its been awhile). The last few miles in are CTC.

Bill C-23 is the sister bill in Ottawa: https://openparliament.ca/bills/42-1/C-23/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; its right now in second reading and my guess it will probably be tabled and all that shorty. With that said, the US can go ahead and get conditonal approval to run pre-clearence trial at Central Station under CBSA and Surete du Quebec's conditonal authority at the station; US CBP as I understand already has a lease ready for space for their outpost and CBSA is ready too. Once its signed and done, its probably 1 year out.

[electricron]

A EuroStar-style train I think would work for a Chicago-Detroit-Windsor-London-Niagara Falls-NYP train; talking with my friends at US CBP in the past, for their interest they said you would need to divide the train in half; one side for US/Transit Passengers one side is the "transit passengers" that should be documented and accounted for while in transit. Now, CBSA on the other hand will probably require the transit passengers to at least fill out a declaration card for documentation purposes, but they can just note they are transit passengers same as when doing the same while flying. I would suggest putting two back to back cafe cars in the middle to seperate the both sides.

However with that said, I would like to see a connecting train from Detroit into Windsor thru Ontario to Toronto that would have CBSA pre-clearence in Detroit. which I know having CBSA on US soil is another pilot project in the works for some highway border crossings.

It's 959 rail miles between Chicago and New York City, it's 739 air miles. I haven't the slightest idea how far it would be going through Ontario, stopping in Toronto or bypassing Toronto. Eurostar trains maximum speeds are around 186 mph. At top speed, without stopping at even one intermediate station, it'll take over 5 hours to travel that far from Chicago to New York City. But Eurostar only average 106.6 mph between London and Paris, and at that speed it would take 9 hours to travel Chicago to New York City. Let me repeat that once again, 9 hours.

FYI, it's only 240 rail miles between London and Paris, and just 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Chicago to New York City is almost 4 times farther, and 4 times longer elapse times. No one in the western world runs a HSR train that far, no one!

[mtuandrew]

electricron: two things of note.

1. No one else in the western world has geography quite like we do in one country.
2. Take a look at the eastern world, and wha China thinks is appropriate use of a HSR system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing%E ... ed_Railway" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[electricron]

electricron: two things of note.

1. No one else in the western world has geography quite like we do in one country.
2. Take a look at the eastern world, and wha China thinks is appropriate use of a HSR system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing%E ... ed_Railway" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, the Eastern world is a different matteR! Some relative statistics to consider.
China
1,330,044,605 population
3,600,927 square miles
369 per square mile population density
United States
298,444,215 population
3,539,225 square miles (including Alaska)
84 per square mile population density
While the square miles is about the same nationally, I would like to point out that China has amost four times more people.

Let's compare to a few European and Asian countries
Japan
127,288,419 population
152,411 square miles
835 per square mile population density
France
64,094,658 population
210,668 square miles
304 per square mile population density
United Kingdom
60,609,153 population
93,278 square miles
650 per square mile population density
Germany
82,369,548 population
135,236 square miles
609 per square mile population density

Note how much lower the USA population density is compared to the other nations with HSR.

[trainviews]

electricron: two things of note.

1. No one else in the western world has geography quite like we do in one country.
2. Take a look at the eastern world, and wha China thinks is appropriate use of a HSR system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing%E ... ed_Railway" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, the Eastern world is a different matteR! Some relative statistics to consider.
China
1,330,044,605 population
3,600,927 square miles
369 per square mile population density
United States
298,444,215 population
3,539,225 square miles (including Alaska)
84 per square mile population density
While the square miles is about the same nationally, I would like to point out that China has amost four times more people.

Let's compare to a few European and Asian countries
Japan
127,288,419 population
152,411 square miles
835 per square mile population density
France
64,094,658 population
210,668 square miles
304 per square mile population density
United Kingdom
60,609,153 population
93,278 square miles
650 per square mile population density
Germany
82,369,548 population
135,236 square miles
609 per square mile population density

Note how much lower the USA population density is compared to the other nations with HSR.

Sweden - per Wikipedia
9.001.774 population
449.964 square km
20.0 per sq km (very roughly 60 per sq mile)

- and one of the higher modal shares for rail both persons and cargo...

Countries like Spain, Ireland and the other Scandinavians (minus Denmark) are also more or less in the ballpark of the US in population density, and all have well working passenger rail. Spain, Sweden and Finland all have considerable distances and at least some HSR.

So a selective list of population densities doesnt' say much. All of them have a pretty uneven distribution of people, including the US that have areas with very high densities. If anything the emptyness in between makes it easier to build new HSR between the population centers.

[BenH]

Here are some useful background documents on this topic:

International Rail Passenger Update
http://thetbwg.org/meetings/201504/Day% ... Update.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (PDF)
Transportation Border Working Group – Rail Session | March 2015

Cross Border Rail Passenger Service Progress Report
http://thetbwg.org/meetings/201304/pres ... /D1P7a.ppt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Powerpoint)
Transportation Border Working Group | April 2013
(includes an early architectural drawing, from 2009, of the planned preclearance facility in Montreal)

[NS VIA FAN]

Don't know US CBP (or whatever they were called at the time) handled this one:

For Christmas 1980......VIA ran extra sections of the Atlantic but instead of just operating between Halifax-Saint John-Montreal...they ran through to Toronto, crossing the United States (Maine) without passenger stops other than crew changes between McAdam NB and Kingston, ON.

The regular Atlantic....following closely behind made the six regular passenger stops in Maine.

[AgentSkelly]

Don't know US CBP (or whatever they were called at the time) handled this one:

For Christmas 1980......VIA ran extra sections of the Atlantic but instead of just operating between Halifax-Saint John-Montreal...they ran through to Toronto, crossing the United States (Maine) without passenger stops other than crew changes between McAdam NB and Kingston, ON.

The regular Atlantic....following closely behind made the six regular passenger stops in Maine.

The US Customs Service (while under the US Department of Treasury) probably didn't care as it did not make revenue stops while on US soil.

[Gilbert B Norman]

"The rest of the story" is the US Immigration and Naturalization Service under the Department of Justice.

Their mission was WHO came in, Customs was of those allowed, WHAT they brought in.

This two-step was wisely eliminated with the formation of Homeland Security in the aftermath of 9/11.

[electricron]

Note how much lower the USA population density is compared to the other nations with HSR.

Sweden - per Wikipedia
9.001.774 population
449.964 square km
20.0 per sq km (very roughly 60 per sq mile)

- and one of the higher modal shares for rail both persons and cargo...

Countries like Spain, Ireland and the other Scandinavians (minus Denmark) are also more or less in the ballpark of the US in population density, and all have well working passenger rail. Spain, Sweden and Finland all have considerable distances and at least some HSR.

So a selective list of population densities doesnt' say much. All of them have a pretty uneven distribution of people, including the US that have areas with very high densities. If anything the emptyness in between makes it easier to build new HSR between the population centers.

Ireland, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark don't have HSR. I'll admit Spain and Italy do. But my earlier list wasn't billed as an all encompassing list.
While it is true most HSR trains go fast in rural areas and slow down in urban areas, density is both good and bad for HSR.
My original argument was about distances between terminating cities for HSR, that outside the NEC America's larger cities are too far apart. I stated no country in the Western world run HSR trains that far. Then someone replied China does, a country from the East. That's when I replied with the density argument, limiting my list to countries with HSR. And it is a valid argument; China although as large in area as America, is far dense with a billion more souls. That's why there are more viable HSR.routes in China than there are in America.

Another point that we should include in this discussion is geography, especially mountain ranges HSR lines must travel through. Is it not surprising that few do? In Europe, all the earlier HSR lines have avoided mountain ranges. Thy armed just now building tunnels for HSR through the Alps. New York City to Chicago HSR route must solve the Appalachians. CHSR has delayed building its HSR tracks in its mountains to last.

So there are several valid reasons why NOT building a HSR line between Chicago and New York City amongst the first HSR lines in America. (1) Distance, (2) Geography, and (3) Density being three of them.

There's a much better chance to see the NEC extended further south along the eastern sea coast before seeing HSR penetrating the Applachians.

[AgentSkelly]

"The rest of the story" is the US Immigration and Naturalization Service under the Department of Justice.

Their mission was WHO came in, Customs was of those allowed, WHAT they brought in.

This two-step was wisely eliminated with the formation of Homeland Security in the aftermath of 9/11.

No doubt; consolidation of all front line field operation agencies was suggested I think far back as the Reagan era; I think the idea was to create the Federal Border Inspection Service that would of been under Department of State.