VIA Rail

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

I think the decision has to be answered from different perspectives: From the government’s (or even more: the taxpayer’s) perspective, the acquisition of the Renaissance fleet might not have been a worthwhile investment, but from VIA’s perspective, it was the only way to acquire a “new” fleet, as the government would not have been willing to pay for a truly new fleet and if you see that 160 cars and 40 locomotives for the Corridor cost the federal government close to a $1 billion, then spending $130 million for 139 “almost new” cars might appear like a bargain. In my personal appreciation, if it wasn’t for the Renaissance fleet, VIA would not have been able to grow its business on the Corridor and the Canadian, which allowed to improve VIA’s KPIs to the point where replacing its obsolete (Corridor) fleet became politically feasible. The achievement of the Renaissance fleet was therefore to provide badly needed extra capacity, which allowed to outgrow the risk of VIA’s operations being phased out together with its obsolete fleet…

Very true. It is easy to look back and say VIA should have bought new cars, but that really wasn't an option. Given the two options of nothing or the Renaissance fleet, the latter was the better option.

To be fair: the “Nightstar” project was abandoned because the competitive environment had changed dramatically with the entry of low-cost carriers like Ryanair, EasyJet and the like, which rapidly became larger than most national flagship carriers. The closest equivalent in North America would be Southwest, but there is we are far away from hopping across the continent for 40 Euros ($60) including taxes and fees…

The Nightstar was supposed to serve medium distances, like Manchester or Birmingham to Amsterdam or Frankfurt, not routes like London-Brussels, which were obviously too short (in distance and travel time) to be viable markets…

It is very difficult to compare Europe with North America. They have shorter distances, higher population densities and faster trains. So while we can use them as a model of what can be done, we can't conversely say that what works for them will work for use and conversely say what doesn't work for them also won't work for us.

Once the new Corridor fleet has been delivered, the window of opportunity will be open to purchase a new Sleeper fleet which is compatible with Siemens’ cars and locomotives…

I was thinking the same thing. The window of opportunity will be extended if HFR is approved and thus VIA exercises its option to buy 12 extra trainsets.

The article was correct (and night trains doomed) until recently, but the “Fridays for future” movement has caused an unexpected rise in interest for night train travel across Europe: https://www.web24.news/a/2020/02/why-night-trains-are-making-a-comeback.html

Certainly an interesting article. The author's calculations for carbon emissions are off though. Using the tool eco passenger, the one way (double them for round trip) Carbon emissions are:

• Train 72.7* kg CO2
• Car 89.9** kg CO2
• Plane 125.1*** kg CO2

* assuming average load factor
** assuming average 1.5 Passengers (European average utilization)
*** assuming average utilization ratio but not including high altitude effects or transportation to/from the airport.

The train is still an improvement, but not as stark an improvement as the author wanted to convey.

There will need to be new Sleeper fleet for the Canadian and Churchill anyways at some point and ordering a few extra cars for the Ocean won’t make much of a difference.

True. The Churchill doesn't need much equipment, but the Canadian certainly does. Having said that, as primarily a scenic train, I would expect the Canadian will have significantly different requirements to other routes (dome cars, high dining, and luxury accommodations). If Amtrak were to ever order replacements for their Superliners, VIA might want to piggy back on that for the Canadian.

As I’ve shown previously, the Ocean recovers approximately half of its variable costs, which means that its incremental costs are split evenly between its users and the taxpayer (which is also typical for transit networks across the world)…

And that is with Renaissance equipment. As I have said before, with more efficient equipment, the cost recovery ratio will get better.

My personal prediction is that HFR may have become less attractive for private funding (due to the economic downturn), but more attractive for public funding (due to the need to revive the economy with ready-to-build projects)…

I was thinking the same thing. Once things get back to normal, the government will want to do things to stimulate the economy, and will be looking for projects that are shovel ready. The question is if HFR will be shovel ready in time.