Rivers Edge | 20m | 6s | GBS | NORR

General rating of project

  • Great

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Good

    Votes: 30 73.2%

  • So So

    Votes: 9 22.0%

  • Not Very good

    Votes: 1 2.4%

  • Terrible

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • Total voters
    41
CBBarnett said:
I agree, being near the tracks isn't much of an issue from a nuisance perspective and can easily be mitigated and typically you'd get used to it.

This comment doesn't apply to this development alone, but that recent train crash chemical spill in the US got me thinking about it again - in the long-term, is there any legitimate strategy is to reduce the risk of derailment in the city centre?

As far as I know, Calgary's the largest city in Canada with a heavy freight rail main line straight through the centre, next largest is probably Winnipeg? Both Montreal and Vancouver have port facilities and access lines nearby, but I don't think they often see much speed or volatile loads coming directly through the urban core - most of the most dangerous stuff goes to specific terminals spread elsewhere in their region.

We have discussed on this forum previously about geographical constraints to moving the CP corridor itself - there really isn't any good options for moving heavy trains into and out of the Bow Valley other than the existing right-of-way. Would be a wild, multi-billion kind of megaproject that doesn't seem particularly realistic anytime soon.

But time goes on. If growth continues, Calgary will be 2 million people, maybe 3 million one day. A few hundred thousand people might eventual live right in the core very close to the corridor. The CP corridor isn't likely to get less busy anytime soon either. That's a lot of growing risk in the event of a derailment, even if it's not very likely. Seems like a black swan type of risk event - the risk never seems high enough to do anything about it compared to the cost, however if something rare did happen the results could be very dangerous and extremely costly.

Would be curious to hear from people who have more insight into this than me. I really don't know how risky it is, nor what types of chemicals and train loads are present in the Bow Valley CP corridor, nor how we should/could really even think or approach mitigating this risk.
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I would think that CP would be motivated to reduce its liability risk around a major derailment, and improve operational performance through bypassing the Calgary bottleneck.

That being said, I can't think of an obvious location to exit the Bow Valley west of Calgary. Further west would require switchbacks or a tunnel to get through Scott Lake Hill. Closer to the city would require bank cuts, tunnels and bridges to rise out of the valley. Once out of the valley, bypassing north would add additional trackage vs. bypassing south. Land acquisition and terrain would be easier to the north.

A future dam west of Calgary will require some rail line relocation. Maybe that would be an opportunity to move the line out of the valley. I would expect all options to cost into the billions. Calgary is where it is for a reason.
 
Why not just take the tracks NE out of Cochrane rather than to the SW through the Bow Valley? You could avoid the city centre and head north out of the rail yards on the east side of the city and then turn west.

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CalgaryTiger said:
Why not just take the tracks NE out of Cochrane rather than to the SW through the Bow Valley?

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Whichever way they take, they'll have to come out of the river valley which won't be easy, but can be done. Personally I would go with bypassing Calgary to the NE as you mentioned, rather than the by southwest. I can just imagine all the pushback that would come from it. I feel like this will never happen unless there is a major incident involving toxic or flammable chemicals.
 
Alex_YYC said:
Moving the CP mainline out of the city would be a game changer for Calgary.
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This subject seems to come up on the forum every couple of years or so. We all agree that it would be the preferred outcome. However, the reality is that there would be a massive cost to do so that the either the city/ province would have to foot the entire bill. CP will not contribute a dime unless there are tangible benefits for them to reroute. With other mega projects (i.e public transit etc) taking up money and priority, I don't see anything left for a project like this.
 
JonnyCanuck said:
This subject seems to come up on the forum every couple of years or so. We all agree that it would be the preferred outcome. However, the reality is that there would be a massive cost to do so that the either the city/ province would have to foot the entire bill. CP will not contribute a dime unless there are tangible benefits for them to reroute. With other mega projects (i.e public transit etc) taking up money and priority, I don't see anything left for a project like this.
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The route through Calgary must slow down trains. At some point, CP will out grow its Alyth and Ogden yards and an obvious replacement location would be east of the city. Alyth likely has redevelopment potential, but the remediation costs are likely to be huge.
 
The route through Beddington was really the only feasible alternative but that ship has sailed long ago. CP actually evaluated this back in the 60s but rejected it in favour of the ill-fated proposal to re-route the tracks alongside the river:
First, a complete bypass of the city was considered. Under this alternative, the main line would follow the CPR’s Edmonton line and be diverted north of the city in the Beddington area. The diverted line would follow Beddington and Big Hill Creeks and rejoin the main line near Cochrane. The other two alternatives called for the main line to diverge just east of 9th Street East and follow either the north or south bank of the Bow River, rejoining the main line near 14th Street West. Of these latter two options, the one recommended was a two-mile diversion along the south bank of the Bow River....Although the Beddington diversion, at $7.5 million, was nowhere near the most expensive alternative, it was rejected because, in the engineers’ opinion, it would cost the company more in the long run since steepness of grade in some areas was the equivalent cost of adding a few miles to the transcontinental main line.
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A good read for any history dorks interested in this topic, Max Foran's excellent book on the CPR in Calgary
 
1875 said:
crazy 150yrs ago it was possible to build a railway across the country and these days diverting it 100kms around a city is unfeasible
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Would the diversion even need to be 100 km? I would imagine more like 70, and even 50 at the most optimistic.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Canada needs some ‘nation-building’ projects… even 1 would be the first in 2 generations. Moving freight lines out of the major cities, building the Mid-Canada Corridor (TransCanada 2), and regular rail service across the west would be a good start (at least one east and west departure daily on all lines, 5x minimum on Calgary - Edmonton). All three would also help a lot with either real or perceived western alienation as well. Of course this is outlandishly costly, especially the subsidiary costs of maintaining rail service across the vast expanse of grass that is the Prairies, but in the long run it is worth it to keep the federation happy and united.

The country should also be factoring in the fact that we are likely to be the primary destination for climate refugees indefinitely, starting from the 2030s. The federal and provincial governments should be coming up with a national settlement plan like the Americans had in the 1800s perhaps? I dunno, sounds far fetched, but it’s something to think about.
 
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Calgcouver said:
Its been reasonably tough to find trades lately, especially for multi family. Lots of the trades that have previously only done single family and it feels like you have to train them to do multi projects. We’re seeing a bigger shift towards multi family and it’ll take a while for trades to catch up I think, with the biggest issue being competent framers
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I was wondering if that was a reason, every multi family project in the city is moving at a snails pace.
I thought maybe there were a couple of hundred construction people in the city and all the sites were secretly sharing them at different lol
 
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