Article content continued

The consortium of foreign investors has given itself 120 days to determine if the project is solid enough to begin a full feasibility study.

“To move forward on a project of this size we need backup information. What’s the population? What’s the condition of the tracks? What are the agreements with the track owners? There’s a whole lot of things that need to be in place,” Ali said.

“We are also skeptical. It’s a very good project, technically. Connecting all the communities is well and good … (but) It’s a long shot. It won’t happen overnight. It has a lot of challenges.”

Moose — the name comes from Mobility Ottawa Outaouais: Systems and Enterprises — is the baby of Joseph Potvin, a 58-year-old economist who views the unused rail lines as an untapped resource. In 2011, he sat down with four friends to brainstorm.

“We looked at a map of existing railways and said here’s what we have. What can we come up with?”

Potvin’s vision is for the system — 400 kilometres of tracks and 50 stations — to be completely privately funded. Commuter rail increases property values, the theory goes, and a portion of that increased value would be used to finance the railway. It’s a modern version of how railways used to be financed, he said, with towns paying the railway company to build a station and provide access. Raising the money privately sidesteps much of the red tape involved in running a railroad in the National Capital Region with its multiple levels of government and jurisdictions.