For whatever reason, my Calgary Sun column didn’t make it onto our website, so here it is for your reading pleasure.

Ricky Leong
Sun Media
It’s budget day in Canada and it’s expected to be one of the gloomiest budget speeches we’ve heard in a little while.
Its contents have been leaked to the public over the last few days. It was revealed yesterday some $7 billion would be poured into infrastructure projects, much of which is slated for already-approved provincial and municipal projects and so-called green infrastructure.
As we wait for the specifics of this massive — perhaps reckless? — spending to be sorted out, perhaps it’s time to re-examine that holy grail of Alberta infrastructure projects: The Calgary-Edmonton high-speed train.
For the last few decades, studies have been commissioned to evaluate the viability of linking Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton by train.
They all tout the benefits of a high-speed train — downtown-to-downtown service, lots of room for passengers, productive use of time and fast and frequent service.
They note this corridor is populous and densely populated. They state the service would be profitable, given a properly priced, convenient product.
As attractive as such an ambitious project might be, and as much as I love the concept, this is perhaps too much, too soon.
The train used to stop here. Via Rail service from Calgary to Edmonton was discontinued in the mid-1980s and service to Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto ended in 1990.
For some 20 years, our medium- and long-distance ground transportation options have been limited to standard or luxury bus services, or just simply driving our own vehicle.
I never rode those Calgary-Edmonton trains. From reading passenger accounts from that time, the service was doomed by equipment prone to breakdowns, relatively slow running (at best, it was no faster than driving) and endless level-crossing accidents.
Therein lies the problem. A whole generation of Calgarians has grown up without having seen a regularly scheduled intercity passenger train pass through here.
Those who do remember the train probably have a poor opinion of it. The customer base must be rebuilt from scratch.
Building a new high-speed rail service would require a lot of funding. As much as governments appear to want to spend these days, some measure of private financing would be required for a project of this nature — just the kind of financing that’s so difficult to obtain as a result of the credit crunch.
More useful, to start, would be basic train service, using common conventional equipment capable of rolling at 160 km/h. (Most high-speed proposals call for 300 km/h service, with electrified equipment.)
The popularity of moderately fast trains can’t be underestimated.
Via’s Quebec-Windsor corridor trains are well used, even though they go no faster than 160 km/h.
 In the U.S., Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor trains have enjoyed ridership gains since the introduction of
200-km/h service between Boston and Washington, D.C., at the beginning of this decade.
Turning our focus back to Alberta, we could build along existing rail rights-of-way while eliminating all railway crossings and re-aligning curves where necessary. This would keep train speeds high and costs low. It would also allow for smaller towns along the route to have train service, forming a backbone upon which we can graft true high-speed rail later.
Economic stimulus or not, Calgary and Edmonton need to be linked by rail again.
 But just as a child is taught to walk before he’s taught to run, we should consider modest steps to rebuild intercity passenger rail service in southern Alberta before we take the plunge for true high-speed rail.
ricky.leong@sunmedia.ca