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)…

[J81]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

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.


[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.]


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


[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)…

Agreed. However, the shunting situation presented itself early on in testing and apparently got ignored until crossing supplement No 1 came out in October ( i believe? ). Add to that the lesson that VIA apparently didnt learn with the Ren fleet that trainsets that are bolted together are much more problematic in that when one coach is bad order, the whole train has to come out of service instead of just setting the B/O car out. Anyway, there are all sorts of nuances when integrating a new product and growing pains are inevitable, however some of this pain is self inflicted. Having said that, there are apparently 10-13 venture sets currently out of service due to various manufacturing issues that VIA cannot control.

50/60 and 52/62 get around that by being two different trains coupled together. Im referring to adding a couple LRC or HEP cars to the Venture sets to get them to 32 axles which would have been done already if they could contractually do it.

[StatelyElms]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

...

Of course, I imagine the NS and NB governments could go to the feds and to VIA Rail with a joint proposal of some kind, but, the negotiations amongst NB.NS, the federal government, VIA Rail and the CNR (which owns the trackage) would be tortuous, tedious and quite lengthy - almost to the point of making it not worthwhile.

...

Sorry, just tacking on to this, I believe NBSR (owned by Irving) owns the large Island Yard approaching downtown Saint John. So unless the theoretical route stops at the old Rothesay station (converted) or some random northern Saint John siding, it throws another wrench into the mix, unfortunately. Very frustrating.

[J81]

Originally Posted by StatelyElms

Sorry, just tacking on to this, I believe NBSR (owned by Irving) owns the large Island Yard approaching downtown Saint John. So unless the theoretical route stops at the old Rothesay station (converted) or some random northern Saint John siding, it throws another wrench into the mix, unfortunately. Very frustrating.

Irving leases Island yard from CN.

[StatelyElms]

Oh, thank you, I was unaware.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

Friendly reminder that no tracks exist anymore along the Ottawa river, so Toronto will have to remain the terminus for the Canadian. As for the need for equipment moves between Montreal and Toronto, the Venture trains will continue to serve the Kingston Subdivision and have American Couplers, which should allow for dragging one or two HEP cars at a time…

The track bed is still there. Just the tracks that have been removed. Ownership of the land could potentially be transferred to Via.

That may be a good thing. More track that is owned by Via where passenger rail has the priority is a positive.

Stepping back I think the real value Via could provide if they wanted to would be interline ticketing across the various passenger rail operators in Canada.

Pull Via, corridor, Go Transit, Northland, WestCoast express and new operators that show up into a common interlined ticketing system. Toss in potentially some of the bus operators that have shown up over the last year or two to replace greyhound.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by foolworm

It depends on what the relationship VIA has to Alto. If the latter inherits the HFR structure, then it is a subsidiary of VIA and there are no issues -- VIA still keeps the revenues but pays Cadence according to whatever terms of its contract are.

On the other hand, if Alto is separate from VIA then the latter's position just becomes that much worse, which is already the case with its steady deterioration over the years.

The HSR isn’t planned to serve several of the major Corridor stations outside Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal, notably London, Windsor and Kingston. Service would still be needed to connect Southwestern Ontario with Toronto, as well as Kingston to Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by casper

The track bed is still there. Just the tracks that have been removed. Ownership of the land could potentially be transferred to Via.

Correct.

That may be a good thing. More track that is owned by Via where passenger rail has the priority is a positive.

Correct, but only if you can actually provide a somewhat viable passenger rail service and I don‘t see what VIA could possibly achieve here whata bus operator like the ONTC couldn’t achieve at a much, much lower cost and with much more flexibility…

Stepping back I think the real value Via could provide if they wanted to would be interline ticketing across the various passenger rail operators in Canada.

Pull Via, corridor, Go Transit, Northland, WestCoast express and new operators that show up into a common interlined ticketing system. Toss in potentially some of the bus operators that have shown up over the last year or two to replace greyhound.

The much more pressing need is to provide stable connections between two operators, without which offering two tickets in the same transaction only raises expectations which are often unrealistic. In the current reality, interlining would only lead to even more passenger frustration…

[casper]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

Correct.


Correct, but only if you can actually provide a somewhat viable passenger rail service and I don‘t see what VIA could possibly achieve here whata bus operator like the ONTC couldn’t achieve at a much, much lower cost and with much more flexibility…

While I am certain Pembroke, Deep River and North Bay would love rail service I think that would be secondary. It would provide a Montreal connection for the Canadian service heading west. That avoids the lengthy detour through Toronto.

I don't think doing that can be justified based on local needs in the Ottawa valley. The population base just is not there for that.

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

The much more pressing need is to provide stable connections between two operators, without which offering two tickets in the same transaction only raises expectations which are often unrealistic. In the current reality, interlining would only lead to even more passenger frustration…

Getting the VIA on-time performance up would be key.

Currently you can't even book a trip the connects between local and national rail services. If you even want to see if it is posable you need to play with both booking sites and try to find a connection that works. This at least gives you the option. Fairly standard in Europe and other parts of the world.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by casper

While I am certain Pembroke, Deep River and North Bay would love rail service I think that would be secondary. It would provide a Montreal connection for the Canadian service heading west. That avoids the lengthy detour through Toronto.

I don't think doing that can be justified based on local needs in the Ottawa valley. The population base just is not there for that.

How many people do you think connect from Montreal to the Canadian and how many additional passengers do you think you could attract? Given the extremely low frequency, speed and punctuality of the Canadian, it will only remain relevant for tourists, which are usually spending a few nights in Toronto anyways. If local needs already can‘t justify the necessary investments into restoring this link, transcontinental tourist travel will certainly not pull the needle…

Getting the VIA on-time performance up would be key.

Currently you can't even book a trip the connects between local and national rail services. If you even want to see if it is posable you need to play with both booking sites and try to find a connection that works. This at least gives you the option. Fairly standard in Europe and other parts of the world.

if you offer a connection in a reservation system, you are creating the expectation that you will make sure the passenger reaches his destination on the same day (even by taxi, if no alternatives are available) or gets booked into hotels - regardless of whether a legal obligation („passenger rights“) exist or not. Given the current reality, no operator will be willing to cater to such expectations.

As a way to wind down for a few minutes before falling asleep, I‘m currently watching a cab video from Trondheim to Tromsø (in Norway) and after 354 km, almost 5 hours of travel time and hardly more than a half-dozen train meets (all with passenger trains only) on this single-tracked rail line, the train has a single minute delay. So much just to put things into perspective and to highlight how far away we are from your ideas to become viable…

[MolsonExport]

Via Rail network (c. 1979)

[hipster duck]

The Feds are spending $1.9 billion on VIA rail's long distance (non-Corridor) locomotives.

Of that, $1.6 billion will go toward buying 45 locomotives from Stadler. The first 9 will be built in Spain, and then the remaining $357M will go toward tacking on an assembly plant to VIA's Montreal Maintenance Centre to build the remaining 36 locomotives and servicing them.

This announcement doesn't include anything about the coaches.

LINK

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

The Feds are spending $1.9 billion on VIA rail's long distance (non-Corridor) locomotives.

This is nice but I still think it is somewhat mischaracterized as being for "the rest of the country" while it's going to be very organized around Montreal, building and servicing trains there, and as far as Atlantic Canada goes only providing a very minimally usable extremely long and slow train to a faraway city people can much more easily fly to.

It comes across as "how can we invest in the Montreal hub" as much as "how can we give the best rail service to people living outside of the corridor". Calgary, Regina, and Saint John don't even get rail service at all.

I think it would be better for the federal government to take a step back and come up with some kind of comprehensive transportation plan for the country including input from the provinces.

[SFUVancouver]

^ I don’t think I agree with the sentiment that this is a sop to Quebec and won’t benefit points west. Regular line maintenance for the fleet would still surely occur in VIA’s fleet hubs and terminus cities (e.g. Mimico Yard). Heavy overhaul and rebuilds would use the VIA maintenance facility in Montreal, as would typically be the case anyway of a locomotive being sent back to the OEM for major rebuilds/remanufacturing.

Since no official renderings have been released to date, with the assistance of ChatGPT to modify the Stadler marketing photo of the Stadley Eurolight, I mocked up something to see what the future fleet livery could potentially look like:



Source: https://www.stadlerrail.com/en/solutions/rolling-stock/locomotive-eurolight (edited with ChatGPT for illustrative non-commercial purposes)

[J81]

Originally Posted by someone123

This is nice but I still think it is somewhat mischaracterized as being for "the rest of the country" while it's going to be very organized around Montreal, building and servicing trains there, and as far as Atlantic Canada goes only providing a very minimally usable extremely long and slow train to a faraway city people can much more easily fly to.

It comes across as "how can we invest in the Montreal hub" as much as "how can we give the best rail service to people living outside of the corridor". Calgary, Regina, and Saint John don't even get rail service at all.

I think it would be better for the federal government to take a step back and come up with some kind of comprehensive transportation plan for the country including input from the provinces.

Well considering these locomotives will operate trains between Jasper and Prince Rupert, Vancouver and Toronto, Winnipeg to Churchill, Sudbury to White River, Montreal to Jonquiere and Montreal to Halifax, id say “rest of the country” is accurate LOL. Good grief.

[MolsonExport]

Train schedules along parts of the corridor have been reduced so much that I can't do the same-day trips to many places that I used to be able to do.

It is just ridiculous that I can't, for example, take via to London to Guelph and back again on the same day. I can no longer do so.

[kwoldtimer]

Are the new locomotives intended to expand VIA's fleet, or will they just replace old stock?

[madog222]

Here's the official render from VIA.


Image from VIA Rail

[someone123]

Originally Posted by J81

Well considering these locomotives will operate trains between Jasper and Prince Rupert, Vancouver and Toronto, Winnipeg to Churchill, Sudbury to White River, Montreal to Jonquiere and Montreal to Halifax, id say “rest of the country” is accurate LOL. Good grief.

But they're not actually useful for the bulk of populations in those areas. Vancouver to Toronto is a very expensive tourist train that loses money. These long routes have schedules that aren't always convenient if you're only going for part of the journey.

Some small towns do get useful service. For example, it's important for Churchill, MB. But it's not a good argument to say this is "rest of Canada" service; it does nothing for somebody in Calgary.

I'm not anti-VIA or ranting about this but I think your framing of it is off.

[Innsertnamehere]

delete