VIA Rail

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by J81

Good point. I was thinking though that VIA could still run the Canadian from Montreal to Toronto and then west if it was required to consolidate long distance services from MTL.

What is the problem you are trying to fix here? If it‘s just that long-haul equipment will have to shuttle between Toronto and MMC, then that is no reason to extend the Canadian half-empty to Montreal twice per week.

Regarding the Venture fleet though, i have heard that Siemens has a clause in the contract that forbids VIA from using any other equipment ( ie-HEP, LRC ) in conjunction with Venture trainsets for 15 years except in emergency situations.

We‘ve seen Venture consists numerous times jayed with a legacy fleet trainset either leading or trailing at one of the regular (50/60 or 52/62) or irregular (e.g., York Sub diversions) jay-trains. Dragging empty legacy equipment might be a different story, but you can always take an F40 and make an equipment move.

Given the current situation with the crossing supplement imposed by CN, as well as the quality and control issues, it looks as though the Venture fleet procurement has gone off the rails. Pun intended.

Bathtub curve. I‘ll save you the hazzle of having to look it up yourself:

A product is said to follow the bathtub curve if in the early life of a product, the failure rate decreases as defective products are identified and discarded, and early sources of potential failure such as manufacturing defects or damage during transit are detected. In the mid-life of a product the failure rate is constant. In the later life of the product, the failure rate increases due to wearout. Many electronic consumer product life cycles follow the bathtub curve.

It‘s normal to have teething problems at the begining, though these ones are exacerbated by the „shunting“ situation (which has nothing to do with Siemens itself) and the spare part shortage (which is within Siemens‘ control and thus presumably subject to contract penalties)…