I agree with Daniel J. Christie that the whole idea of high-speed rail here is patently absurd - somehow 'high-speed' and 'Canada' doesn't quite gel! Anyway, why would we want to get anywhere fast?
Now a high speed link between TO and YYZ - that could work!
Alx: Because of space considerations, a number of points I made in my letter never made it into print. For instance, Monte Paulsen says (in the original article) that in 1968 CN's TurboTrain (of which I was one of the last engineers to qualify on)left Toronto's Union Station and and hour later struck a meat truck at a level crossing just outside of Kingston. Kingston is Mile 175 of the Kingston Subdivision, Toronto Mile 333. Thus, by my calculation, the Turbo would have had to have been travelling at 157 miles-per-hour from the moment the conductor yelled "All aboard!" to the moment of impact. But CN's own website says the one-time record speed of the Turbo was only 137 miles per hour -and I never ran it at betterthan the posted 100 miles per hour.
It's just one of several slips that brings into question the rest of the facts and figures in the original piece. My bottom-line contention is simple: Train buffs shouldn't be influencing hugely expensive public policy. Mr. Paulsen's work more properly belonged in TRAINS Magazine instead of a supposedly more-esoteric publication like The Walrus.
