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University of Alberta opening railway research center
As the University of Alberta establishes a railway research centre, the tracks through downtown Edmonton should be restored. If high speed trains were to adequately serve Edmonton, they will need access to downtown. ‘The Canadian’ would have a station downtown instead of the remote location by the airport. Passenger trains have the advantage of serving city centres which makes them convenient.
Glad to note a new centre has been formed. The Alberta centre is not the first. Actually, there was a railway research centre, the Canadian Institute of Guided Ground Transport, at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, during the 1970s and 1980s co-sponsored by CNR, CPR, Transport Canada and Queen’s University. It coordinated research ranging from track structures, electrification, human factors, maglev, high speed rail and was reason the Urban Transportation Development Co. (now part of Bombardier) with its design offices and test track was located in Kingson. Several graduates of the Institute moved into senior positions in the railways (such as CPR), government railway policy offices and supplier companies. When the railways withdrew their membership, there has been two decades of ‘nothing’.