 This video is sponsored by Rocketman. Check out the link in the video description or keep listening to learn more. Deutsche Bahn and SNCF are among the most respected passenger rail operators in the world, as the national rail operators of Germany and France respectively. There are also the two largest railway companies in the world in terms of revenue, so perhaps the most interesting development you may not have heard about in the transit world right now, especially in North America, is that these two companies are battling it out for one of the largest transit projects in the world here. So in today's video, I'm going to tell you more about this massive project, what it might look like depending on who actually wins, and my thoughts on who the favorite to win might actually be, as well as the surprising partnerships the companies have made. Let's dive in. If you're not already, consider following me on Twitter, Instagram, and yes, TikTok, for more news, pictures, and short explainer videos that don't make sense on YouTube. SNCF and Deutsche Bahn are vying for Toronto's Go RER project or Go expansion, as it's now known. Not a great name. And no matter how many videos I make about this project, it is the most underreported transit project in the world, bar none. And I want to make it clear that the benefits aren't really just for Toronto. While the network will be built in Toronto, the truth is that this is a step forward for North American rail. As more operators come into the North American market and more vendors, more options will exist for other cities in North America who might be looking to modernize their regional rail networks. I want to give you a short list of all of the potential places that I think could consider modernizing their regional rail in North America tomorrow if they wanted to, and who could benefit from the new equipment and operational expertise that are going to be available in North America now, thanks to the fact that this massive Go project is bringing these international companies who are going to bring their preferred technologies and operations over as well. Obviously, Caltrain in San Francisco is modernizing, but MetroLink also needs to modernize, and owning a lot of its tracks, it can. Boston also has a major project to modernize its commuter rail, the proper regional rail, but it's another example of a city that could really benefit from modern European style practices. At the same time, obviously European operational expertise would be incredibly valuable in, say, New York and New Jersey, as well as other places in the Northeast, including Philadelphia and Washington DC. There are other places across the United States that might look more like Toronto, with diesel rail networks that could be turned into higher performance, higher quality electric transit solutions. These include systems like Brightline across Florida, TriRail in Miami, the system around Dallas-Fort Worth, including Trinity Railway Express, Texrail, the eventual Silver Line, some of the railways in Austin, MetroLink as I mentioned before, the frontrunner in Salt Lake City, Denver's system, if it ever wants to expand and use different trains. There is so much potential, and again, a lot of it isn't just in trains, it's in things like maintenance equipment and different types of technologies for electrification and the like that don't exist in North America right now because we just don't have the critical mass we would need to import that stuff from Europe. Now back on Toronto RER, the project is massive. It's on the same scale as a project like the Grand Paris Express or Crossrail in the UK, both videos which I've talked about in previous demystified episodes. Despite this, even major news outlets, even those within Canada, have basically not reported on this project at all, besides some minor elements of it. Probably because it's unlike anything North America has ever seen in terms of transit, and if we're honest, not that many people understand what the system will look like in the future. A massive multi-hundred kilometer diesel towed commuter railway with some all-day service is being turned into what would look like a modern European regional rail network. The scale of the difference here is really unprecedented, and I think in 10 years or so we're going to be amazed where Toronto is compared to the rest of North America. When all of this is said and done, it will have been a couple decades in the making. And that just shows you the size of the project. The size of the project attracted some of the world's greatest railway operators and planners. Those include MTR from Hong Kong, operate the MTR network, RATP, the Paris Metro and RER operator, as well as SNCF and Deutsche Bahn. Now, before I tell you how things have turned out, a quick message from our sponsor. Now, if you're fortunate enough to be located in a Canadian city and you're watching this channel, chances are you're taking public transit. Streetcars, buses and maybe even subway trains. With the Canadian winter in full force, I made sure to save my local bus stop and subway station and Rocketman so that I can check when my next transit vehicle is coming before even walking out of the door. I also use Rocketman to stay informed with real-time transit delays and alerts right in the app, and I can even find out exactly where my bus is with live vehicle locations for a seamless travel experience on transit. Join me in using Rocketman today. Check out the link in the description and download Rocketman for free on both iOS and Android. The crazy thing about RER, which is my preferred name for the network, even if it is more of an S-Bahn type thing, is that we've been building it for more than 10 years already. A decade ago, most of Toronto's regional rail lines consisted of single track, a ton of grade crossings, low-quality infrastructure and incredibly low-quality stations. And over the years, we've added track, done tons of grade separations, including some major rail rail grade separations, some of this stuff is still ongoing, as well as modernizing stations. And a lot of this has been core to the stuff I've been covering on my YouTube channel. This project is massive, and I think looking back in 10, 20 years, a lot of people will think it's incredible that they missed that this was going on. Now at this point, most of the key grade separations, station improvement projects, and corridor expansions from one to four to six tracks have already happened, though some are still ongoing. The contract being fought over by the European rail giants is called ENCOR, or ENCORDOR. And what it's for is the trains, the operations and maintaining the trains, the planning of the service that the trains will operate, which should be combined with the trains because the service and the trains are kind of inherently linked, hard to operate a fast service without fast trains, as well as the reconfiguration of the central station in Toronto, Union Station, as well as some random infrastructure bibs and bobs all over the place, and of course electrification. This alone is one of the largest transit projects in the world, even with all of the previous projects which have been completed, many of which would probably qualify as mega projects in their own right. To give you a sense of the financial scale of this project, it's massive, which is evidenced by the fact that only SNCF and Deutsche Bonn are still even in the running for it, being the largest of the companies that were interested. They're also of course the companies with the greatest global reach. They, along with teams of companies working with them in areas like rolling stock manufacture and construction, are the ones vying to operate and design Toronto's future regional rail. What's so amazing about the fact that one of these companies is going to be taking over the RER project is they're both incredibly experienced operating high quality rail systems, and they're basically going to be taking over the reins, shaping the operations and planning for regional rail in Toronto going forward. Toronto already has one of the best regional rail systems in North America, and yes, I know it's a low bar, but Toronto has done a decent amount. We have multiple lines with 15 minute all day service, at least when things are normal, and most lines operate all day with a regular frequency. But with one of these networks at the helm, I don't think Toronto needs to just be among the best in North America, but it can start to be among the best in the world. Toronto as a city in North America is already lauded for its good public transit, and yes, Toronto has good transit for all of its failings. And having a high quality European style regional rail network, it's going to separate Toronto from basically every other city in North America, and help it develop its economy and further improve its quality of life. I don't think it's unrealistic to suggest the future of regional rail in Toronto will be similar in quality to cities like Copenhagen or Stockholm, which have great networks. But with all of that said, there's an interesting wild card here, and it's who will actually be making the trains. Well, you might expect that Alstom would partner with SNCF, the French national rail operator, given that Alstom is a major French company, and that Siemens would partner with Deutsche Bahn, again being a major German company, and both of these companies having worked with their respective rolling stock manufacturers to construct, for example, high speed trains for the TGV and ICE networks, the teams were actually flipped. So Alstom was working with Deutsche Bahn, and Siemens was working with Alstom. But in a strange last minute move, Siemens actually was removed as the rolling stock partner, working with SNCF, and replaced with Hitachi. Now I know I talk a lot about trains on this channel, and sometimes it feels a bit rail fanny. But the truth is that high quality trains are so important to operating a high quality service. If you don't have the right trains, you can't operate a good service, and good trains are part of what makes a transit experience a good one for passengers as well. Now currently, the team with SNCF and Hitachi is known as On Transit, while the team with Deutsche Bahn and Alstom is known as On Express. And if you're wondering why Hitachi replaced Siemens, here's my speculation. Siemens has rail manufacturing in North America, but their plant is in California, and it is incredibly busy, making orders for via rail for example, as well as Amtrak, and tons of other transit agencies. So perhaps Siemens felt that it would be difficult to expand capacity in that site, and this is going to be a massive order, and so logistically it might have been quite complicated. By comparison, Alstom obviously has a ton of facilities across Canada, thanks to their acquisition of Bombardier, as well as in the northeastern United States. And Hitachi has the potential to either pick up one of these facilities that might be divested from Alstom, since Alstom is probably going to sell some of the assets they did buy from Bombardier, and Hitachi probably also has more reason to try to break into the North American market. Since they're smaller than Alstom and Siemens, and unlike Siemens in particular, they don't have a large presence in North America, with their main orders being for Miami for example. So the question is, with these teams, what should we expect? What's their operating experience, and what might the trains actually be like? Well looking at what On Transit has to offer, SNCF obviously has a ton of regional rail operating experience, particularly with the TER networks across France and the Paris RER. Though it should be noted that central sections of the RERs, as well as A and B, are operated by RATP, the Paris Metro operator who was previously in the running, but is no longer. In terms of rail vehicles, Hitachi obviously has a ton of experience, particularly in Japan and Europe, through Hitachi Rail Italy, previously on Saldo Bereta. Now looking at recent stations built in Toronto, it seems the plans are to stay with low floor for a future expansion, which means that we're probably going to be seeing bi-level EMUs, which we kind of have always expected. And that means that from Hitachi the new Caravaggio models, which have been deployed in Italy, are probably what we'd be seeing. And I will say that while I'm not sure if I love or don't love the design of these trains, the angular design probably would fit in fairly well with our existing GO train fleet. I will say too that the interiors are slightly unconventional because they have some longitudinal seating on the upper floors with these big seats. They're quite unique, but I think they would be great and would look right at home on Toronto's rail network. Switching gears to OnExpress, Deutsche Bahn obviously has a ton of regional rail operating experience. And I'd argue that the S-Bahn networks in Germany, many of which Deutsche Bahn operates, probably look more like what the future state of Toronto's regional rail looks like than a lot of the systems in France. At the same time, the Deutsche Bahn National Network has a more blended service pattern than the SNCF National Network, which makes me think that Deutsche Bahn might be a little better adapted to deal with things like freight trains and VIA services, which have different operating patterns than GO trains have. Looking at All-Stem for their rolling stock, there are a lot of different regional rail options from the Crédia line, and I have to say, All-Stem has beautiful train designs. They're definitely curvier than the designs you see from Siemens, who tends to like more squared off designs, but I love them. Now of course, since All-Stem did acquire Bombardier, the Twin-Dex is a potential design, though it is also possible that Hitachi buys it, if All-Stem divests it, and the Twin-Dex could operate in Toronto that way. Possibly more likely the Crédia duplex model, which is a bi-level Crédia, duplex is also used for the TGV trains, is deployed in a number of places, including in France, though I think my favorite form of the Crédia duplex is the one operated in Sweden on SJ. These trains just look super cool, and they're obviously going to be well tested in cold weather, which is pretty important for Toronto. It's freezing outside right now. Now who's likely to win? Well as I mentioned before, I think Deutsche Bahn probably has more experience operating networks like we expect Toronto to look like, with a variety of mixed service patterns and longer distance trains using the same tracks, as well as more blended service, and a lot more rails going through the core. At the same time, All-Stem is obviously the shoo-in to manufacture trains for a Canadian rail project, given they absorbed Bombardier, who has rail manufacturing facilities across Ontario and Quebec, and that All-Stem's North American headquarters is now in Quebec as well. I think having local manufacturing capabilities is really important because for an order of this scale, there will probably be significant pressure to manufacture at least part of the trains locally, and so that makes things a little easier for All-Stem. This is going to be a big train order internationally, so it makes sense. That said, the truth of the matter though is that Toronto doesn't lose either way, because the regional rail expertise of SNCF or Deutsche Bahn would be fantastic to have here, and honestly I'm going to be ecstatic no matter who wins, because at the end of the day, we're not that far away from having modern European-style regional rail right here in Canada, and that's incredibly exciting. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.