Alberta Passenger Rail Master Plan

This is the collection of my thoughts about the proposed/in-progress Alberta Passenger Rail Master Plan.

Personal Background (of note, France)

In terms of personal background, I’ve lived three years in France. France has a suburb public transit system, at all of the local, regional, and national levels. Modern high speed¹ train systems (like the TGV and the Eurostar) are a French invention and the high speed system is robust, ubiquitous (for intercity travel), and well-tested. So the idea that a system like this might come to Alberta was a delightful idea to me! But I also realize that the French system works because it is a system built up over decades.

Another huge thing France had going for it as that as it built out its high speed network, France had never stopped using passenger trains, and so there were still all the inner city train stations were still there². French high speed trains were explicitly designed to be able to travel on “regular” rails to make use of these stations (and to cover any other gaps in the high speed rail network).

France also does a good job of connecting the different “modes” of public transit: long distance train travel, regional train travel, commuter rail, subways, and (city, local, and long distance) buses. So often when I travel in America, I end up renting a car in part because one of those connections is missing.

A third thing France has going for it is it continues to build inner-city rail systems, and so there’s the expertise and the costs are contained enough that even “smaller” regional centers³ can have metro systems.

History of Rail in Alberta

In many ways, Alberta is a province made by rail. The Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) came through Calgary in the 1880’s with the goal of opening up the Canadian prairies to farming, and the creation of the Province⁴ was another step in furthering that goal, but only really possible because the railway was already there. Many towns in Alberta are only there because that’s where the railway ran, relocating a few miles if the railway decided to pass nearby. One of Edmonton’s first major civic projects was to get a railroad crossing of the North Saskatchewan River, partly in fear of being eclipsed by Strathcona on the south bank which already had a railroad connection.

But passenger rail has been largely missing from Alberta for two generations at this point, with Edmonton-Calgary service stopping in 1978. There remains some residual passenger service from Via Rail passing through Edmonton on its way from Toronto to Vancouver (with another stop in Jasper)⁵, but Calgary has no rail service at all!

Various plans for high speed rail between Edmonton and Calgary have been put forth since before rail service stopped (in ‘78), but nothing has stuck. In reading those historical reports, the private reports tend to be highly supportive of the project, but buried in the fine print tends to be a request for government support. The government reports tend to reach the “no” conclusion, and then couch it in bureaucratese. As a result, the last ~50 years have produced nothing more than reports and dreams and deferrals.

Two of the most recent reports include a report written by AECOM for a high speed Edmonton-Calgary line⁶ and a report for a private group was looking to build a line from the Calgary airport to Banff. Although not confirmed officially, I think these reports are at least partially responsible for pushing the Province to do this system study now.

In high-speed rail circles, the Edmonton-Calgary line is sometimes held us as a near perfect project: 300km apart (so far to drive but short to fly), relatively flat, and big enough anchors centres, but nothing has happened yet.

The Request for Proposal — Spring 2024

So about a year ago, the Province starting talking about developing a passenger masterplan for rail. I was immediately excited, as I would love to have the French experience of relatively frictionless train travel here⁷. So I started looking into to see if I could put together a team to submit a bid⁸. In the end, I couldn’t find the right team, but I it gave me lots of time to think about what the resulting report might look like.

Population of Ten Million

One thing I got asked several times was, What’s different this time? I think the answer is that the Province’s proposal calls to assume a provincial population of 10 million, or roughly double today’s numbers⁹; with this many people, the Province and its infrastructure demands look remarkably different.

Today, both Edmonton and Calgary are both cities of about a million, so we’re talking about adding five more “cities” that size to the Province. If the Province wanted to, it could direct that growth to certain spots: e.g. pushing Calgary (or Edmonton) to a city of 6 million, or pushing someplace like Red Deer, Lethbridge, or Fort MacMurray to a million each. The advantage of being proactive at that scale is you could build a French-style city or suburb (built around public transit) from scratch. Housing, both availability and cost, is already becoming more and more a concern¹⁰, and this could be a way to get further in front of it.

Assuming the Province is less proactive and everywhere just sort of grew proportional to current sizes, there still would be lots of new infrastructure needing attention. In particular, one of the arguments against building a high-speed rail connection between Edmonton and Calgary is the cost of grade separation¹¹, but two cities of twice today’s population probably need to be looking at a route parallel highway route to the QE2, which would also need grade-separation, which makes the grade separation cost not an “extra” for the rail line.

Intercity, Commuter, and Light Rail

The proposal talked about three types of rail systems: intercity, commuter, and light rail.

Intercity

The intercity component was exciting in that it talked about more than Edmonton and Calgary (and Banff), which have been the focus of basically all other reports to date.

The Province specifically called out wanting to connect Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Calgary, the “Rocky Mountain Parks”¹², Red Deer, Edmonton, Grande Prairie¹³, and Fort McMurray.

Commuter

The commuter rail portion was doubly exciting! This is the first time I’ve seen mention of the idea in regards to Alberta’s cities, but it seems like an obvious thing to build. As the cities get bigger and bigger, I expect that it will become more and more expected, and make a larger and larger difference. Going back to housing, it has the potential to allow people to live in cheaper, further out suburbs but still commute to the city center for work.

The commuter systems also offers the possibilities of using this part of the system to reserve right-of-way into the city cores, to get people used to riding trains on a regular basis, to be something that can be built and used now, but also to change city form. Suburbs have often formed a nodes of easy transportation (e.g. streetcar stops, freeways exits), and so this allows the possibility to create new suburbs, but cheaper than the existing inner cities (due to distance) but built around train riding.

Light Rail

The proposal doesn’t actually call for any new light rail (LRTs or “metros”) to be built, but explicitly calls out the need to interface with the existing systems in Edmonton and Calgary.

What’s Missing

One thing missing from the proposal is the requirement that the new rail lines be high speed¹. I suppose that it make sense for “regular” speed service be implemented if high speed service is otherwise impossible, but I would prefer that any new lines be built to high speed standards (grades, curves, etc) so that they don’t have to be built a second time to move to high speed service (although I would allow for grade separation¹¹ to be done later).

Also, if speeds are high enough, it opens up possibilities like living in Red Deer and working in either Calgary or Edmonton¹⁴.

Unclear in the proposal is what is meant by the “Rocky Mountain Parks”. Banff is implied, but are Canmore and/or Kanakaskis meant at well? How about Jasper¹⁵? Do we extend this to Waterton? Do we include Rocky Mountains House (or Nordegg or even Saskatchewan Crossing) as a new/improved gateway to the Mountains in an effort to take pressure off of Banff?

The largest centres within the province not on the map are Lloydminster¹⁶, Camrose, and Cold Lake, all at about ten to fifteen thousand people in population.

There is also no talk of going outside the Province, likely because if the rail system stays within the province, it can be provincially regulated, but if it goes across province borders, it becomes nationally regulated. From a “geopolitical” view, some of these connections may be worthwhile, as making Edmonton (or Calgary) the transportation hub lends a soft power that may be worthwhile beyond the raw passenger flows. Considering the options:

• Going east to Saskatoon and Regina (and maybe as fast as Winnipeg) would be relatively easy as is flat and open. But none of these are particularly large centers.
• Going south to Shelby, Montana would allow a connection to Amtracks, and thus onward to either Seattle or Chicago. But without going further south and ignoring connecting traffic, Shelby itself (population: 3,000) is expected to provide no local traffic to speak of. But connecting Montana’s larger centres (Great Falls, Butte, Helena) south of Calgary may be useful for the soft connections.
• Going west would point to Vancouver. This is the largest centre by far on this list. However, it’s not particularly close and you have three mountains ranges to cross (i.e. it’s not a simple route). Thought it would absolutely tickle me if they decided to build across the Howse Pass, west of Rocky Mountain House.
• Going north, eventually you end up at Hay River and then Yellowknife. These are small centres and far away, but Edmonton is already the default option to “go south” and it would be useful to maintain that. The route would also potentially pass by several other small centres in northern Alberta¹⁷ that can sometimes to hard to service.

Public Open House — March 2025

As part of the process, the company developing the plan held a series of public open houses in early 2025, which I attended¹⁸.

Timelines for Building

As the project has moved forward, they are now looking at developing 15, 30, and 60 year network plans. So while possible connections are mentioned, it probably requires some caution as they may only end up on the 60 year plan, which could easily become the “never” (or at least the “not in my lifetime”) plan. But I think even the 60 year plan has some value, because it will be used to preserve right-of-way, and any element of it could be pulled forward if a region starts growing faster than expected.

Consultation with Industry Experts

They made a big deal of holding a Forum with a bunch of international high speed train operators¹⁹. The people I talked to at the Open House were particularly interested in the experience in Saudi Arabia, as they are one of the few places to stand up a greenfield passenger rail system in the modern era.

However, I was disappointed to see that none of the SNCF²⁰, RATP²¹, TfL²² or any Chinese operators as listed as having attended²³.

Changes to the Intercity Network

The intercity network presented proposed adding the Crowsnest Pass, Lloydminster, Camrose, Drumheller, and Jasper. By my count, that means every center in the province with a population more than ~10,000 is being considered²⁴.

Changes to the Commuter Network

The biggest change to the commuter networks was the proposal that Red Deer get one, with a line to Sylvan Lake (west of Red Deer) and another (perhaps along the Edmonton-Calgary line) to Blackfalds and Lacombe.

The Edmonton and Calgary networks were actually laid out.

Edmonton was generally as expected, but I was surprised to see Wetaskiwin listed as a “commuter” stop. I suppose they expect to build the Edmonton-Calgary line (generally) though Wetaskiwin, so to run commuter trains there too is a relatively simple addition. But by shear population (and distance), it seems odd not to also include Camrose. Also missing was any mention of Bremner²⁵, which makes me feel like they’re planning for the province of today and not seriously thinking about how the province will change after the proposed population growth or what impact the train system can or could have on that growth.

The Calgary network was also as expected, including commuter towns in Airdrie, Chestermere, Strathmore, Okotoks, High River, and Cochrane. Of note, Banff appears not to be considered “commuting distance”.

One piece that interesting is that the combined Edmonton and Red Deer commuter networks would leave only a rather small gap between Lacombe and Wetaskiwin²⁶ to connect the two larger centres.

The Future

So now we wait, and see what happens; the report is supposed to be out by the end of this summer (2025)²⁷. I will be particularly interested in answers to the following questions:

• will Calgary get a commuter network before Edmonton?
• will they push for the Edmonton “downtown” station on the north side of the river²⁸?
• will they advocate for “true” high speed for intercity travel?
• will anything beyond the Edmonton-Calgary and Calgary-Banff lines end up on their 15 year (“starter”) plan?

Also, if anyone would like to hire me to work on this project or one like it, I’d be delighted!