VIA Rail

[1overcosc]

^ Kingston is well connected to Ottawa and the GTA by both VIA and private bus companies. The demise of Greyhound and deregulation has actually improved things a lot here. We have actual competition for Toronto and Ottawa service which has lowered fares; as well, many buses now make stops in downtown Kingston whereas before the intercity buses generally only left from the bus terminal by the 401 at the fringe of the city.

But there are zero options to travel to any of the nearby areas without a car. You can get to Toronto easily enough but good luck trying to get to Harrowsmith or Gananoque.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

^ Kingston is well connected to Ottawa and the GTA by both VIA and private bus companies. The demise of Greyhound and deregulation has actually improved things a lot here. We have actual competition for Toronto and Ottawa service which has lowered fares; as well, many buses now make stops in downtown Kingston whereas before the intercity buses generally only left from the bus terminal by the 401 at the fringe of the city.

But there are zero options to travel to any of the nearby areas without a car. You can get to Toronto easily enough but good luck trying to get to Harrowsmith or Gananoque.

Kingston is just lucky because it happens to be the largest city on the route between Toronto and Ottawa and Toronto and Montreal. These are the only routes where deregulation has led to private operators actually competing with one another, or a scenario where the free market delivers advantages. Everywhere else that had Greyhound service is either faced with no service or worse service*

*Good examples: Peterborough lost a 8x/daily express Ptbo-Toronto service that made the trip in 1:45; Kitchener lost a practically hourly express service to Toronto that could make the trip in just over an hour.

[swimmer_spe]

Sorry for missing out in all the fun this week, I was out in Northern ON with no cell service, but I could have used the Budd.

Originally Posted by roger1818

For that reason, HSR (which would likely bypass all of those intermediary communities) is likely less viable in NS/NB than HrSR, which will make more frequent stops while still remaining reasonably fast.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=high+spee...BhAAGBYYHsICCBAAGIoFGIYD&sclient=gws-wiz

"A distance of 50 km is often considered a minimum, leaving enough for trains to accelerate and reach cruising speed that makes the advantages of high-speed rail relevant."

One could expect an intermediate station between Truro and Halifax likely at the airport. Being only 100km, Maybe it is not as fast as it could be, and have a few more stops. However, a good regional bus service that funnels into the stations could be all that is needed to have 1 or 2 intermediate stops.

Originally Posted by ssiguy

If private companies can't even make a go of it in Western Canada, how in God's name are they going to support rail service? They can't even support Regina to Saskatoon.

The ONLY place that rail could be financially viable is the Calgary/Edmonton corridor. Vancouver could maybe support HSR to Seattle/Portland but the section in Canada itself is very small so it is really an American decision.

There is a reason governments supply services.One of those reasons is due to the fact that it cannot be reasonably done through the private sector. That is why any mention of private passenger rail in AB is almost laughable.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

One could expect an intermediate station between Truro and Halifax likely at the airport. Being only 100km, Maybe it is not as fast as it could be, and have a few more stops. However, a good regional bus service that funnels into the stations could be all that is needed to have 1 or 2 intermediate stops.

I don't think HSR will be built in the foreseeable future, but if it were built I think HSR with too few stops and bus connections could be worse than slower (still potentially much faster than what already exists) rail with optimal stops. I also think that in practice commuter rail and related investments around metro Halifax including the airport would be a major driver for the whole route and that definitely needs stops closer together than 50 km. Some of the stops that would make sense are old VIA stops that got dropped (some old commuter rail stops dating back to 1900 or earlier), like Rockingham or Bedford. If it happened, a near term goal could be to have a few commuter trips per day and one round trip to Truro per day. VIA used to do that daily Truro trip in the 2000's.

On the flip side it sounds like they are going ahead with ferry service to Bedford which will reduce the impetus for commuter rail. But I don't think this kills the idea. The ferry serves a different route and the ferry and rail could feed into each other. It's a good thing to have a strongly connected transit network, but a lot of people think in terms of a given place either having service or not.

[Nouvellecosse]

Rail in the Maritimes would just need trip speeds that are competitive with driving when one includes the stops. Competitive meaning no more than perhaps 10% slower, but preferably a little faster. The official speed limit is 110km/h on the main highways but if you stick to that speed you'll be passed constantly. In reality around 130km/h is probably most typical. but when you consider the time to get in and out of downtown the average probably drops a bit. So let's say an average of 120km/h. So that train would need a cruising speed higher than that to account for its stops and the more meandering nature of the tracks compared to the road. The tracks are probably around 10% longer (tho I haven't measured the full route) so that would require an average speed of around 132km/h, and if you had intermediate stops around every 50km there'd be about three between Hfx and Moncton. Perhaps the airport, Truro, and Amherst/Sackville. If it stopped for 7.5 min each and lost another 7.5 min in slowing down and speeding up for each, you'd need to make up 45 minutes.

If you averaged 120km/m on the 265km road route it would take about 2 hrs and 13 minutes. Add an extra 10% to the route length makes it about 292km and lose around 45 min from stops means you'd need to average 200.2km/h between stops to achieve the same trip speed as the road. Not that no one would use it without competitive trip speeds as there are currently people use use the bus and it takes a scheduled 85% longer due to its stops (including off-highway jogs). But there's only 1 round trip per day meaning that it doesn't serve that many people. Probably only captive riders. You'd need to provide a lot more than extra leg room to attract greater ridership, and you'd need much greater ridership to justify the cost of increased rail vs bus on existing highway. Especially considering that the train is currently even slower than the bus so you'd need investment just to bring it up to par let alone compete with driving.

[someone123]

7.5 minutes sounds like a really long stop. I think this would be more like a GO train. The stopping time is around 1 minute plus acceleration/deceleration. Unlike buses, the stops would be on the route.

If you look at the Google traffic map around rush hour in Halifax you see mostly orange and red around the core and some bottlenecks can take a long time to get through; cars and buses both get stuck in this. I think this will get much worse in the future as the city is growing but there isn't any major plan to address congestion. People don't really want road building at all, which is fine but it's not clear what the alternative plan is.

I think somebody posted about bike lanes that Halifax builds tactical improvements on the time scale that a lot of cities build entire networks. I think this is true in most areas, not just active transportation. Last year the population grew by 4.5%. Any major transportation plan would be for a city of 600-700k that has approximately the infrastructure Halifax does right now, and much worse congestion. Likely something like 45 minute travel times to get to Bedford along roads at rush hour (12-15 km trip) with rush hour expanding beyond the current period. They probably have modeling of this in the ferry and commuter rail proposals.

[Djeffery]

It takes a lot longer to take VIA to downtown Toronto from London than it takes to drive, and yet London is one of the top VIA stations. I don't think you need to be equal or faster than the car to get people onto the train. Now, I don't know that there is the same disincentive to take a car to either end of the Moncton-Halifax route as there is on the London-Toronto route, but you also aren't targeting only car drivers to take the train either.

[someone123]

It always feels a bit weird to me in that everybody I know strongly prefers trains to buses but it doesn't seem to factor into debates much. I don't just mean that people are rail enthusiasts. It's much more pleasant to spend time on a commuter rail style train including while doing remote work.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

It takes a lot longer to take VIA to downtown Toronto from London than it takes to drive, and yet London is one of the top VIA stations. I don't think you need to be equal or faster than the car to get people onto the train. Now, I don't know that there is the same disincentive to take a car to either end of the Moncton-Halifax route as there is on the London-Toronto route, but you also aren't targeting only car drivers to take the train either.

Parking in central Toronto is tougher and pricier and there are probably more people who don't have cars along the corridor. Plus even at times that aren't normally congestion, traffic still isn't very predictable. That said, having one of the top stops in a country with under-performing rail service isn't a huge accomplishment. Especially considering that London, by far the smaller of the two cities, is still larger than the Maritime's largest.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

7.5 minutes sounds like a really long stop. I think this would be more like a GO train. The stopping time is around 1 minute plus acceleration/deceleration. Unlike buses, the stops would be on the route.

If you look at the Google traffic map around rush hour in Halifax you see mostly orange and red around the core and some bottlenecks can take a long time to get through; cars and buses both get stuck in this. I think this will get much worse in the future as the city is growing but there isn't any major plan to address congestion. People don't really want road building at all, which is fine but it's not clear what the alternative plan is.

My comparison was the current bus service. Currently intermediate bus stops are scheduled at 10 minutes, but in my experience they almost always take longer. I don't remember exactly how long intermediate train stops currently are since I haven't taken it for a long time but I don't remember them being Go train quick. But perhaps improved rail service would be better.

Part of that is there is luggage and parcels to load and unload, plus with the longer trip overall journey times the driver tends to get off, have a potty/smoke break, etc. whereas with GO trains, many entire trips aren't much longer than just Halifax to Truro.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't think HSR will be built in the foreseeable future, but if it were built I think HSR with too few stops and bus connections could be worse than slower (still potentially much faster than what already exists) rail with optimal stops. I also think that in practice commuter rail and related investments around metro Halifax including the airport would be a major driver for the whole route and that definitely needs stops closer together than 50 km. Some of the stops that would make sense are old VIA stops that got dropped (some old commuter rail stops dating back to 1900 or earlier), like Rockingham or Bedford. If it happened, a near term goal could be to have a few commuter trips per day and one round trip to Truro per day. VIA used to do that daily Truro trip in the 2000's.

On the flip side it sounds like they are going ahead with ferry service to Bedford which will reduce the impetus for commuter rail. But I don't think this kills the idea. The ferry serves a different route and the ferry and rail could feed into each other. It's a good thing to have a strongly connected transit network, but a lot of people think in terms of a given place either having service or not.

Commuter service is different than Regional service or intercity service. They may be able use the same rails, but their speeds and and stations may be different. As far as when that area gets more than what it has now is anyone's guess.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Rail in the Maritimes would just need trip speeds that are competitive with driving when one includes the stops. Competitive meaning no more than perhaps 10% slower, but preferably a little faster. The official speed limit is 110km/h on the main highways but if you stick to that speed you'll be passed constantly. In reality around 130km/h is probably most typical. but when you consider the time to get in and out of downtown the average probably drops a bit. So let's say an average of 120km/h. So that train would need a cruising speed higher than that to account for its stops and the more meandering nature of the tracks compared to the road. The tracks are probably around 10% longer (tho I haven't measured the full route) so that would require an average speed of around 132km/h, and if you had intermediate stops around every 50km there'd be about three between Hfx and Moncton. Perhaps the airport, Truro, and Amherst/Sackville. If it stopped for 7.5 min each and lost another 7.5 min in slowing down and speeding up for each, you'd need to make up 45 minutes.

If you averaged 120km/m on the 265km road route it would take about 2 hrs and 13 minutes. Add an extra 10% to the route length makes it about 292km and lose around 45 min from stops means you'd need to average 200.2km/h between stops to achieve the same trip speed as the road. Not that no one would use it without competitive trip speeds as there are currently people use use the bus and it takes a scheduled 85% longer due to its stops (including off-highway jogs). But there's only 1 round trip per day meaning that it doesn't serve that many people. Probably only captive riders. You'd need to provide a lot more than extra leg room to attract greater ridership, and you'd need much greater ridership to justify the cost of increased rail vs bus on existing highway. Especially considering that the train is currently even slower than the bus so you'd need investment just to bring it up to par let alone compete with driving.

90 mph is about 140km/hr. If the trains can get up to that speed and hold it for a reasonable amount of time, it would be able to compete with the drivers.

Originally Posted by Djeffery

It takes a lot longer to take VIA to downtown Toronto from London than it takes to drive, and yet London is one of the top VIA stations. I don't think you need to be equal or faster than the car to get people onto the train. Now, I don't know that there is the same disincentive to take a car to either end of the Moncton-Halifax route as there is on the London-Toronto route, but you also aren't targeting only car drivers to take the train either.

Parking is a big factor. So is just getting around Toronto. That is why if the Canadian was a daily and could be reasonably on time, I'd take it most visits to Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal that I do throughout the year. A bus is not a good thing to compete with a car, but a train can, even if it is slower.

[ssiguy]

By the fall there will be over 15 daily return buses from Toronto to London and over 20 on weekends and more service from private bus companies is coming. The demand is there but the VIA service isn't.

VIA is simply too slow and unpredictable. It could arrive in an hour late and you just sit there while if you were on the bus, your trip would be nearly half done.

[MonctonRad]

The most obvious regional intercity rail service in the Maritimes is Halifax/Moncton/Saint John. The distance is about 400 km.

The minimum number of stops along the way would be:
1) - Halifax
2) - Enfield (with bus connection to YHZ).
3) - Truro
4) - Amherst
5) - Sackville (Mount Allison University)
6) - Moncton
7) - Sussex
8) - Saint John

Six of these stops would be intermediate stops, so the distance between stops would average 66 km, which would allow for the trainset to operate at maximal speed along the majority of it's journey.

[Truenorth00]

Average stop spacing of over 50 kph is a really good setup. With actual infrastructure investment, even running at 110 mph (to stay under grade separation requirements), the 400 km trip with all stops could be done in about 3 hrs. If NB and NS were ambitious, this would be a really good project. And they could refocus Maritime Bus to be integrated with such a service.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

By the fall there will be over 15 daily return buses from Toronto to London and over 20 on weekends and more service from private bus companies is coming. The demand is there but the VIA service isn't.

VIA is simply too slow and unpredictable. It could arrive in an hour late and you just sit there while if you were on the bus, your trip would be nearly half done.

The problem is not Via. The problem is the railroads that own the lines.Solve that and Via could be reliable.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The most obvious regional intercity rail service in the Maritimes is Halifax/Moncton/Saint John. The distance is about 400 km.

The minimum number of stops along the way would be:
1) - Halifax
2) - Enfield (with bus connection to YHZ).
3) - Truro
4) - Amherst
5) - Sackville (Mount Allison University)
6) - Moncton
7) - Sussex
8) - Saint John

Six of these stops would be intermediate stops, so the distance between stops would average 66 km, which would allow for the trainset to operate at maximal speed along the majority of it's journey.

For context, this is the current stop for the Ocean.
Halifax, NS
Truro, NS
Springhill Jct., NS Stops on request.
Amherst, NS
Sackville, NB
Moncton, NB

You are really only adding one stop.

[Urban_Sky]

If there is so much latent demand between Halifax, Moncton and Saint John, how come that Maritime bus can only fill a single bus per day and no other operator seems eager to enter these markets? Same goes for Winnipeg-Regina, which only attracts a single bus per week(!)…

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

If there is so much latent demand between Halifax, Moncton and Saint John, how come that Maritime bus can only fill a single bus per day and no other operator seems eager to enter these markets? Same goes for Winnipeg-Regina, which only attracts a single bus per week(!)…

Ok....

There are several buses between Sudbury and Toronto, and several buses between Toronto and North Bay. And only one will see a daily train.... While bus service may be a good start for seeing what demand exists for rail service, it is not the only metric. Another thing to look at would be "low hanging fruit" and adding service between Saint John and Halifax would be a low hanging fruit for intercity service expansion.

[Nouvellecosse]

There actually were more daily trips prior to covid but they slashed the schedules when the lock downs and travel restrictions hit. In fact, they slashed it even more than the current daily schedule as it only ran a few times/week for awhile. Not sure when or if it will fully return though.

The thing about mass transport ridership - at least intercity - is that ridership potential isn't necessarily linear nor is it as simple as pure latent demand. If it were linear, there would be a proportionate ridership increase for every incremental increase in service quality or quantity. But sometimes there can be a "threshold" effect in which the service doesn't start to be useful to people or compete well with alternatives until certain conditions are in place (reaches a certain speed, frequency, price, etc). This is what I was referencing when discussing speed competitiveness.

And if it were as simple as pure latent demand, there would be people already waiting to use a new service as soon as it's introduced. But in reality, when a service doesn't exist people have to adapt to that fact. They either find alternatives like driving, or they arrange their lives such that they don't need the service (moving, not taking a particular job, etc.) So sometimes people need time to adapt to a new service. Once they realize they can save money, gain convenience, or increase their mobility they adapt their lives to take advantage of it. Sell their car after they start using the service while the car is down for repairs. Or move to a place that wouldn't have been convenient before. Before they made such a change, it's hard to say the demand was "latent" since people were just living their lives without thinking or caring about the absence of the service. And it can take many months or years for them to adapt to it. It's similar to how passenger rail in the Maritimes was extremely busy when I was a kid with trains running many times a day. The traffic shifted to the highways slowly over decades as a result of massive investments in roads, increases in car ownership/use, and disinvestment in railways.

So there isn't latent demand or much short term ridership potential. But we know there is potential for longer term ridership growth because it already existed back when the Maritimes had hundreds of thousands of fewer people. And back then there was significantly more bus service as well. So it's that long term regional transportation trajectory in question here. Not immediate transportation needs.

[J81]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

It takes a lot longer to take VIA to downtown Toronto from London than it takes to drive, and yet London is one of the top VIA stations. I don't think you need to be equal or faster than the car to get people onto the train. Now, I don't know that there is the same disincentive to take a car to either end of the Moncton-Halifax route as there is on the London-Toronto route, but you also aren't targeting only car drivers to take the train either.

You can drive from downtown London to downtown Toronto in 2hrs?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by J81

You can drive from downtown London to downtown Toronto in 2hrs?

The light traffic baseline is about 30 minutes faster by car. That varies massively by traffic.