VIA Rail network developments

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

Option 2 would be to build tracks separate tracks on the CP Mainline from the crossing to meet up with the CN tracks closer to downtown, probably before the junctions to the CP and CN rail yards.

This (or something similar to it) is VIA's plan for HFR. The CP Mainline is double tracked, but since they now only have single track west of Smiths Falls, it is not really necessary, so VIA could probably take over one of the two. Alternately they could have CP divert to the CN mainline as it would be a lot easier for CN and CP to share track than it would be for CN and VIA (as I said above, "each passenger train consumes the equivalent capacity of 2.5 - 5.0 freight trains.").

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by roger1818

This (or something similar to it) is VIA's plan for HFR. The CP Mainline is double tracked, but since they now only have single track west of Smiths Falls, it is not really necessary, so VIA could probably take over one of the two. Alternately they could have CP divert to the CN mainline as it would be a lot easier for CN and CP to share track than it would be for CN and VIA (as I said above, "each passenger train consumes the equivalent capacity of 2.5 - 5.0 freight trains.").

I would switch all the freights to the CP line except for CN locals and all the passengers to the CN line. Clearly CN would not like this and the government would have to contribute significant money to do this but it might be less than building the HFR line on the old CP RoW from Smiths Falls to Peterborough.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

I would switch all the freights to the CP line except for CN locals and all the passengers to the CN line.

That is similar to the old VIA Fast plan (at least west of Smiths Falls). Between Ottawa and Montreal I would argue that the CP route is better for VIA until about Dorval.

I created a map showing the Freight and passenger corridors for the VIA Fast plan on My Maps.

Clearly CN would not like this and the government would have to contribute significant money to do this but it might be less than building the HFR line on the old CP RoW from Smiths Falls to Peterborough.

As long as their route was double tracked, CN would prefer sharing with CP than sharing with VIA.

[Guideway]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I created a map showing the Freight and passenger corridors for the VIA Fast plan on My Maps.

I cannot see the map, it tells me that I need to request access to view. Can you make it public?

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Guideway

I cannot see the map, it tells me that I need to request access to view. Can you make it public?

Whoops. Sorry. Try now.

[rocketphish]

VIA Rail adds additional Ottawa-Toronto trains as demand picks up steam

By: OBJ staff
Published: Nov 17, 2017 10:23am EST

VIA Rail is expanding its service between Ottawa and Toronto amid a nearly 40-per-cent increase in passenger traffic over the past four years.

Earlier this month, the rail service added a 10th daily round trip along the corridor on weekdays. An additional Toronto-to-Ottawa departure has also been added to weekend service.

This year, ridership for to Ottawa-Toronto route was 451,920 passengers as of Sept. 30, a 38.3-per-cent increase over the same period in 2014.

This is the third time in three years new departures have been added on the route. VIA Rail CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano said in a release that the company sees a rise in ridership each time it increases frequency.

“With this addition, we will be able to serve more Canadians, help reduce the carbon footprint of their journeys, and improve our financial performance,” he said in a statement.

VIA also announced it would also be adding an additional departure from Toronto to Kingston, with extra stops in Trenton Junction and Guildwood.

Separately, a $20-million renovation project on Ottawa’s VIA Rail station on Tremblay Road started in September 2016 was scheduled to wrap up this fall.

Work included the construction of an elevated and heated passenger platform, roof renovations as well as new elevators and electrical equipment.

Ottawa’s VIA Rail station opened in 1966. The architecture firm behind the building, John B. Parkin and Associates, won a Governor General’s Massey Medal for its work a year later.

While the building received a heritage designation in 1996 and a landmark award by the Ontario Association of Architects in 2007, some residents still bemoan the station’s location outside the downtown core and occasionally take to social media to complain about a perceived lack of amenities.

http://www.obj.ca/index.php/article/rail-adds-additional-ottawa-toronto-trains-demand-picks-steam

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

and occasionally take to social media to complain about a perceived lack of amenities.

perceived??? I am curious under what perception the station has sufficient amenities.

[1overcosc]

Biggest thing they need to fix: Make the restaurant in the station actually open all hours the station is open. Right now it closes at 6PM everyday... so it literally misses out on the Friday night weekend rush. Stupidity.

[Truenorth00]

I get that it's a heritage building because of the award, but it's ugly. I hope they can do some major work if HFR gets approved.

And the stations amenities are terrible. But with the traffic from HFR it should improve. Now if only they can move over the buses as well.

[GeneralLea]

I really hope they try and add to the Toronto - Sarnia railway link someday. It's an important stretch of the VIA network in Ontario and could really use more service.

Good to hear of the news from Ottawa to Toronto though.

[phil235]

"VIA Rail CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano said in a release that the company sees a rise in ridership each time it increases frequency."

Think OC Transpo management will take any lesson from this? Although that would make it hard to continue to blame the federal government cuts from 2012.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by phil235

"VIA Rail CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano said in a release that the company sees a rise in ridership each time it increases frequency."

Think OC Transpo management will take any lesson from this? Although that would make it hard to continue to blame the federal government cuts from 2012.

They don't want to increase frequency because each new passenger is added at a loss.

Let the excuses continue.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

There's not as much demand on the Ottawa-Montreal route. They tried adding new trains but they didn't sell. Whereas with Ottawa-Toronto, whenever they add a new train, sales immediately go up to match.

I think Ottawa-Toronto is in this sweet spot distance-wise. It's far enough that a lot of people don't want to drive it, and close enough that it's not worth it to fly. Whereas Montreal is close enough that it's easy enough to just drive.

I suspect you are right, but for a slightly different reason. While there are many factors that will determine what mode of travel a person will use. When it comes to frequency of service, I would argue that the distance you are travelling will determine at what frequency the sweet spot is (the shorter the distance, the more frequent the service needs to be to be competitive).

I am guessing the sweet spot for Ottawa/Toronto is hourly service. As we get closer to that, ridership is growing dramatically. For Ottawa/Montreal, I would guess the sweet spot is every 30 minutes. We are no where near that, so adding one or two more trains doesn't make that much difference.

[roger1818]

I found this article. I don't think it was previously posted here. Nothing earth shattering, but provides a bit more weight to what was already discussed:

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/pass...-high-frequency-rail-details-emerge.html

Tuesday, September 05, 2017
VIA High Frequency Rail: Details emerge

---

Written by David Thomas, Contributing Editor

---

VIA Rail is coyly dripping details of its desired route for dedicated “High Frequency Rail” (HFR) service linking Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto as it seeks to build political support for the C$6 billion scheme that requires approval of its single shareholder, the government of Canada.

While the railway has not officially unveiled its proposed route map, VIA Rail’s personable CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano has been meeting discreetly with leaders of towns and cities that would be served by new stations, some after decades without any passenger rail service. VIA Rail hopes local and national politicians will in turn urge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to finish the job started 40 years ago by his father Pierre, who forged VIA Rail from the remnants of passenger service then reluctantly operated by Canadian National and Canadian Pacific.

The HFR scheme would seem to fit nicely with the government’s promised public-private infrastructure bank expected to be launched later this year. Desjardins-Sicilianjo has long been courting the high public pension funds that would comprise the core of the infrastructure investment bank.

A rejection by Ottawa would effectively strangle passenger rail in Canada by constraining it to the shrinking slots between CN freight trains between Quebec City and Toronto. Without exclusive trackage, VIA Rail cannot grow in its most important market. It would also be a career disappointment for Desjardins-Siciliano and likely deflate employee morale, boosted over the past three years by the CEO’s energetic ambition for the railway.

It would take a brave Justin Trudeau to risk his immediate electoral fortunes in Ontario and Quebec and assume oedipal notoriety as the boy who killed his father’s creation. Infrastructure spending was a signature promise of Trudeau’s 2015 landslide victory, but so far there has been little to show for it. A highball this year for VIA Rail’s HFR could see shovels in the ground by the country’s next election in 2019.

VIA Rail’s proposal offers either the C$6 billion full-meal deal of clean, green trains powered by Quebec’s abundant renewable hydroelectricity or a meager C$4 billion, diesel-hauled child’s portion through a region already visibly smudged by fossil fuel pollution.

There is no status quo alternative: Without HFR, VIA Rail’s existing motley fleet of locomotives and cars would have to be replaced at a cost of C$1.5 billion, or passenger rail in Canada would simply be allowed to rust into irrelevance.

VIA Rail annotates its proposed route map with caveats that it is so far only a management initiative, does not reflect government policy, and is subject to change.

From Quebec City in the east, the HFR line would restore passenger service to CP’s former north shore route to Montreal, now operated as the Quebec Gatineau Railway by Genesee & Wyoming. VIA Rail would take over the marginal Quebec Gatineau but could accommodate overnight freight service to existing customers as it does in Ontario with the Smith Falls to Brockville line acquired from CP.

From Montreal, the HFR route would subsume VIA’s existing fully-owned Ontario trackage through Alexandria, Ottawa and beyond to Smith’s Falls, whence it would more-or-less retrace abandoned CP right-of-way to Peterborough and carry on to Toronto over a still-operational subdivision to be acquired from CP. (Download a PDF map from the link below.)

New passenger rail service thus would be gained in Quebec by the St. Lawrence River port city of Trois-Rivières and in Ontario by Sharbot Lake, Tweed and Peterborough.

Station stops along VIA Rail’s existing CN lines would be continue to be served by local schedules tuned to the needs of communities between the big cities. Kingston would become the terminus for regional trains to and from Montreal and Toronto. The existing snippet of VIA Rail trackage between Smith’s Falls and Brockville would bridge the new HFR service to the future Montreal-Kingston-Toronto locals.

Some route details remain obscure, particularly access to downtown stations in Montreal and Toronto, where nascent regional transit projects are competing for the same track. But those are trivial compared to the larger issue of whether Canada’s rail passenger service will thrive, remain on life support, or be allowed to expire.

[rocketphish]

Article date: Tuesday, September 05, 2017
Link to map: http://www.railwayage.com/index.php?opti...&id=136_6348ae810e7368162f0c8a3f9bfaa99c

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Article date: Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Yeah, there hasn't been a peep about this in months.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Article date: Tuesday, September 05, 2017
Link to map: http://www.railwayage.com/index.php?opti...&id=136_6348ae810e7368162f0c8a3f9bfaa99c

Sorry. I forgot to add the date. As for the map, it's the same as was previously posted in this thread.

[roger1818]

My first experience with an HEP car on the Ottawa-Montreal route (train 26) right now. Boy oh boy, do I ever hope Via gets funding to replace these. Far more bumpy than the LRC or even Renascence cars.

Update: Smoothed out once we got out of city limits, but still not as smooth as an LRC.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

There's not as much demand on the Ottawa-Montreal route. They tried adding new trains but they didn't sell. Whereas with Ottawa-Toronto, whenever they add a new train, sales immediately go up to match.

I think Ottawa-Toronto is in this sweet spot distance-wise. It's far enough that a lot of people don't want to drive it, and close enough that it's not worth it to fly. Whereas Montreal is close enough that it's easy enough to just drive.

Ottawa-Toronto is in that sweet spot where all 4 options (drive, fly, train and bus) are viable options. Hence the enormous demand. A tonne of people do fly Ottawa-Toronto, be it Pearson or the Island. I've read it's well over 3/4 million per year. Between PD, AC and WS, connections aren't the only reason why there's 45 departures per day, per direction. Biz travellers value the hourly service (1/2 hourly at peak times).

It's great though to see rail service flourishing. The Ottawa train station is a heck of a lot busier now than at any point in the past 30 years.

Originally Posted by GoTrans

The problem with Ottawa to Montreal is primarily lack of adherence to the schedule. Being 15-20 minutes late over a short distance is less acceptable than over a longer distance such as Ottawa-Toronto. Most of the delay is between Central Station and Alexandria due to freight traffic and waiting for CP freights on the CP mainline. The options to fix this is to build a rail/rail overpass at the CP crossing and complete the original proposals for trackage at Coteau. This plus an extension of double track to Alexandria would solve a lot of the problems. Option 2 would be to build tracks separate tracks on the CP Mainline from the crossing to meet up with the CN tracks closer to downtown, probably before the junctions to the CP and CN rail yards. Option 3 would be to forget about using Via's current ROW and use the old CP ROW from Ottawa to a junction point in Montreal with the CN tracks. Speeding up the trains would boost ridership on the Quebec-Ottawa trains. We need to get the Ottawa-Montreal time down to at least 1.5 hours.

In order to be useful there needs to be about 2 more departures a day with one in the morning and one later in the evening. Before the big cuts to Via there used to be 8 trains a day on average departing Ottawa to Montreal and Ottawa was a lot smaller then.

Part of it as well is, is Ottawa-Montreal is kinda the sweet spot distance, time and frequency wise for Greyhound. Via has to compete with Greyhound's hourly service that extends well into the night to boot.

[roger1818]

Not related to VIA Rail, but certainly of interest. I received the following e-mail today:

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