VIA Rail network developments

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Horus

Union in Ottawa isn't coming back. When Confederation line finally opens, the current VIA station at Tremblay will be sufficiently well connected to downtown.

Besides, the Senate is going to occupy old Union for at least 10 years.

Never say never and 10 years isn’t forever. For InterCity (IC) trains I agree that Tremblay is good enough, if not a better option, but when Commuter rail eventually becomes viable, a downtown station will be necessary. Admittedly that won’t be for a very long time.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Never say never and 10 years isn’t forever. For InterCity (IC) trains I agree that Tremblay is good enough, if not a better option, but when Commuter rail eventually becomes viable, a downtown station will be necessary. Admittedly that won’t be for a very long time.

Even if there were ever an appetite for bringing a commuter line downtown in the distant future, I can’t see the Senate building being a good option. There is an extremely small footprint and there are far too many obstacles and complications.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Even if there were ever an appetite for bringing a commuter line downtown in the distant future, I can’t see the Senate building being a good option. There is an extremely small footprint and there are far too many obstacles and complications.

I can't agree. There are not that many obstacles and it makes sense if we consider Trillium Line style trains instead of heavy rail trains. With even two tracks feeding into Union Station, we could have departures every 5 minutes or more if we are using small trains. The Nicholas corridor could be adapted to include trains and there is still the unused Alta Vista corridor to bring trains across the Rideau River and directly into the Nicholas interchange.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I would guess there isn’t much demand. It is too late for most people who have to work the next day and too early for most evening activities in Toronto.

As all day RER service becomes offered in greater Toronto, a later train will allow business travels to return to Ottawa even if the meeting is not right in downtown. Also, an 8 pm departure allows for someone to enjoy dinner in Toronto before returning on the evening train.


This is even more the case with Montreal where an even later departure allows Montreal rail day trips possible.


Also, more and later departures allow for better connectivity. For example, when I went to New York, I was forced to stay overnight in Montreal because I could not reliably connect with last Ottawa bound train.

[Norman Bates]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As all day RER service becomes offered in greater Toronto, a later train will allow business travels to return to Ottawa even if the meeting is not right in downtown. Also, an 8 pm departure allows for someone to enjoy dinner in Toronto before returning on the evening train.


This is even more the case with Montreal where an even later departure allows Montreal rail day trips possible.


Also, more and later departures allow for better connectivity. For example, when I went to New York, I was forced to stay overnight in Montreal because I could not reliably connect with last Ottawa bound train.

^^^This^^^

I’ve lived all three situations and wished for better options.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As all day RER service becomes offered in greater Toronto, a later train will allow business travels to return to Ottawa even if the meeting is not right in downtown. Also, an 8 pm departure allows for someone to enjoy dinner in Toronto before returning on the evening train.


This is even more the case with Montreal where an even later departure allows Montreal rail day trips possible.


Also, more and later departures allow for better connectivity. For example, when I went to New York, I was forced to stay overnight in Montreal because I could not reliably connect with last Ottawa bound train.

I could see a case for a later Montreal departure that would still arrive in Ottawa at a reasonable time. For Toronto I can’t see a lot of people choosing late dinner and getting home at 1 in the morning over an early dinner and getting home at 11. People in Toronto later for business reasons are probably going to fly rather than get back to Ottawa that late.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I can't agree. There are not that many obstacles and it makes sense if we consider Trillium Line style trains instead of heavy rail trains. With even two tracks feeding into Union Station, we could have departures every 5 minutes or more if we are using small trains. The Nicholas corridor could be adapted to include trains and there is still the unused Alta Vista corridor to bring trains across the Rideau River and directly into the Nicholas interchange.

1. 20m right of way between the convention centre and the canal. All construction has to occur in that’s space, and there is probably room for only one platform (hardly suitable for a commuter rail service of any significance).

2. Need to cross the river, the Queensway, the Nicholas interchange, and possibly Nicholas, the LRT and Colonel By.

3. Trying to fit in a suitably-sized diamond at Hurdman.

4. Conflicts with the Via line.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

HFR for MTL-TO as a direct link, through Ottawa, with minimal stops in between (sub-rosa leading to HSR) is not in question. It's just plain faster and cleaner.

I think that Kingston as a control hub for Lakeshore - St.Lawrence services makes immense sense.
And earlier comments have specified VIA's reasoning for better start-and-end-of-day schedule services all up and down the length of the lines.

And I have to tend to think and believe that VIA has done some real customer traffic analysis on this and determined that Ottawa,
for service along the legacy and re-developed Lakeshore and St.Lawrence routes (MTL and TO), really and truely is a 'side-track'.
A few Ottawa customers to any station on those routes will feed through trains controlled through Kingston. Most OTT customers want MTL or TO.
And most of the customers on the Lakeshore - St.Lawrence probably want MTL or TO, and only a few want OTT.
(I have no stats nor numbers for this, only a belief that this is the origin-destination analysis. And I am ready to be shot down for it.)

And finally, recall that roger1818's map is from an earlier proposal, and that this proposal is mainly and chiefly for TO-OTT-MTL only.
On to Quebec would be one of two next-phase proposals in the future, after this one has worked.

IMHO, for consideration.

This!!!

Facilitating return trips between Toronto & Ottawa within the same day would be awesome.

I did this once, for an appointment on a GO train stop. The only reason it worked, was because my appointment was in the middle of the day.

I don't think trains leaving Ottawa earlier or arriving back in Ottawa later would really help, as the departure & arrival times needed to be convenient enough for someone else to pick up/drop off (or OC Transpo to still have frequent-enough service).

The trains need to go faster in order for more people to consider same-day OT/TO/OT trips to be viable, due to constraints on total time on the road for the traveller. Of course, they also need to be reliable on timing, so the traveller doesn't miss their local transport connection(s) or their meeting time.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As all day RER service becomes offered in greater Toronto, a later train will allow business travels to return to Ottawa even if the meeting is not right in downtown. Also, an 8 pm departure allows for someone to enjoy dinner in Toronto before returning on the evening train.


This is even more the case with Montreal where an even later departure allows Montreal rail day trips possible.


Also, more and later departures allow for better connectivity. For example, when I went to New York, I was forced to stay overnight in Montreal because I could not reliably connect with last Ottawa bound train.

Interesting! Makes sense. Thanks!!

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I would guess there isn’t much demand. It is too late for most people who have to work the next day and too early for most evening activities in Toronto.

Time based pricing. They can absolutely fill that last train with less time sensitive travelers. There's flights and buses arriving close to that late, so I don't think filling the train will be a challenge.

On the topic of sleeper trains.... These are pointless on 500km trips. They only existed on the corridor because our trains are ridiculously slow. With HFR, that shouldn't be a problem. You don't need a bed for a 3.5 hr trip to Toronto.

[Urban_Sky]

Gosh, I wish I had seen this thread when I signed up to this Forum 10 months ago! Here some comments on posts I've seen while reading up since page 50:

Originally Posted by roger1818

No one is saying the Lakeshore service will be eliminated. Kingston will most likely see a reduction in service, but all the other cities will likely see the same or better service (in some cases much better). Here is a list of the number of weekday trains to Toronto from various cities:

Brockville	7

Gananoque	1

Kingston	17

Napanee		1

Belleville	9

Trenton Jct.	2

Cobourg		6

Port Hope	1

Oshawa		14

Guildwood	5

As discussed in another thread, many of the trains to Kingston are very close together, so don't really count anyway. Without having to worry about keeping trains fast to/from Ottawa and Montreal, many of those small cities could see an increase in the number of trains even if the total number of trains from Kingston is reduced.

It's not just about the number of connections offered between these cities and Toronto (or Ottawa or Montreal), it's about the number of connections offered between these intermediary cities:

Note: I'm ignoring connections which depart less than 30 minutes after a previous train serving the same O-D.

There is currently not a single connection between Montreal and Gananoque, Napanee, Trenton Junction or Port Hope (and v.v.), just like there is no connection from Ottawa to Napanee or Port Hope and Ottawa (though there are 2 connections in the opposite direction). Even between the major cities along the Kingston Subdivision (Cobourg, Belleville, Kingston) certain O-D's are surprisingly infrequent, such as Kingston=>Cobourg (6x, though 8x times in the opposite direction) or Belleville=>Cobourg (5x, opposite direction: 6x), and with substantial gaps like between Belleville and Cobourg (#41 departs at 8:16, #65 is the next connection at 14:27, i.e. more than 6 hours later). The current timetable is the result of trying to serve two distinct markets with different needs (end-to-end markets desiring short travel times vs. intermediary markets requiring frequent and multiple stops), but separating the two markets and serving them with two different routes will allow intercity trains to do what they can do best: providing reasonably fast and frequent connections along a string of cities...

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Here's the HFR map from 2011.


http://www.cat-bus.com/2016/10/via-torpedoed-regional-rail/

That "HFR map" is actually an HSR map and can be found as Appendix B in Deliverable 5 of the Ecotrain Study, while a much more detailed map can be found as Appendix 1 in Deliverable 9.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

A train departing from Toronto at 8 pm would arrive in Ottawa 12:00 to 12:30. A train departing Montreal at 10 pm would arrive in Ottawa around midnight.

Why does this not occur rather than an overnight sleeper train?

You seem to assume that there is ample of available capacity in the Corridor to add intercity trains as they are needed. However, if the limit of available slots is reached the question moves from "is there enough demand to justify this new train?" to "will this train generate enough demand to offset the demand I will loose by cancelling a different train on the same route?". You will inadvertently sort your anchor times (approximate departure time at a major node, such as the train's origin) by the largest revenue potential and start inserting them in that order, just like in the examples I provide for one, two, three, four, five or six frequencies:

• One frequency: Depart ~6am towards the more important terminus and return at ~6pm (example: Sarnia-Toronto).

• Two frequencies: Depart ~6am and ~6pm at either end (Sarnia-Toronto between January 1990 and April 1995).

• Three frequencies: Depart ~6am, ~noon and ~6pm at either end (Toronto-Ottawa between January 1990 and January 1992).

• Four frequencies: Depart ~6am, ~noon, ~3pm and ~6pm at either end (Montreal-Quebec between October 1992 and December 2012).

• Five frequencies: Depart ~6am, ~9am, ~noon, ~3pm and ~6pm at either end (Quebec-Montreal).

• Six frequencies: Depart ~6am, ~9am, ~noon, ~3pm, ~5pm and ~6pm at either end ( Toronto-Montreal).

• Seven frequencies: Depart ~6am, ~9am, ~noon, ~3pm, ~5pm, ~6pm and ~8pm at either end (Ottawa-Montreal between January 2012 and June 2015).

There are of course always deviations (e.g. Windsor=>Toronto with its 4 frequencies has an anchor time at 9am rather than at noon, whereas Toronto=>Windsor has one at 8pm instead of 3pm), but as a general guide, I would not expect a train later than 7.30pm as long as that seventh frequency is missing:

Source: VIA Rail timetables effective 1990-01-15, 1992-10-25, 2012-01-24 and 2018-11-18.

Originally Posted by roger1818

If I remember correctly, the old sleeper train departed around 11:00 pm, which would give you 3 more hours in Toronto or Montreal. [...]

I never understood why they didn’t run the sleeper trains through Ottawa. It isn’t as if they were short of time, and they could have picked up/drooped off more passengers.

Originally Posted by esquire

[...]Anyway, I also wondered why train didn't go through Ottawa. It's not like they couldn't spare the time... the train parked in Kingston for several hours in each direction to kill time and ensure arrival at a reasonable hour.

Well, if you try to think up a possible schedule, this might be easier to answer: What time do you want to board a night train? At some point between 10 and midnight (i.e. late enough for fine dining, but early enough to go to bed at a decent time). And what time do you want to arrive at your destination?
If you are on business (or returning from a long weekend away), then probably before 9am. So, if the night train departs Montreal at 10pm (on the dot) and it takes 2 hours to travel to Ottawa, then what is the earliest time passengers in Ottawa can check into their cabin and go to sleep? With the train arriving at 8:30 in Toronto (just like it did when the Enterprise ran between January 2000 and September 2005) and having to clear the platform shortly after (because it's rush hour and all these GO trains need a place to stop), passengers might almost get their 8 hours of sleep and a breakfast and a shower).
However, in the opposite direction you would already have to leave the train at 6:30 in Ottawa so that passengers continuing to Montreal can arrive their by 8:30. That means getting up well before 6am, in order to have a shower and breakfast before train arrival.

Back in the days, this issue was solved by setting off cars at an intermediary station in the middle of the night and letting passengers stay on board until a more reasonable time and by letting them board earlier in the evening before the car is picked up again in the middle of the night. One such train is shown in the April 1950 CN timetable as trains 57 and 58, with train 58 leaving Montreal at 19:20 and setting off a sleeper car in Riviere-du-Loup at 2:10, where passengers can detrain until 7am while the train continues to Metis Beach and train 57 picking up the Sleeper car again in the evening at 23:35 (with passengers being able to board in Riviere-du-Loup from 9pm onwards), before arriving in Montreal at 6:25:

Source: CN 1950-04-30 timetable (p.14)

Unfortunately, such an operation is no longer realistic nowadays and the European Commission has recently released a 228-page long report which provides and analyses many reasons why night trains are close to extinction in Europe (and beyond)...

Originally Posted by Buggys

I don't think trains leaving Ottawa earlier or arriving back in Ottawa later would really help, as the departure & arrival times needed to be convenient enough for someone else to pick up/drop off (or OC Transpo to still have frequent-enough service).

Take the currently earliest departure time from Ottawa (5:30) and the latest arrival time (23:16), assume a travel time of 3:10 hours and you'd have more than 11 hours (8:40 to 20:06) to spend during a day trip in Toronto...


Sorry for the over-long post (but too many interesting discussions here to respond to),

Urban_Sky

PS: any suggestions about how to convert screenshots into a URL which can actually be embedded as pictures in posts in this forum (Images linked via Dropbox don't work - tried and tested) are welcome...

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Time based pricing. They can absolutely fill that last train with less time sensitive travelers. There's flights and buses arriving close to that late, so I don't think filling the train will be a challenge.

Via loses money on every ticket already. I’m not sure it would be a good idea to lose even more money to encourage people to arrive in the middle of the night. As you say there already alternatives for people into late night arrivals.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by Buggys
I don't think trains leaving Ottawa earlier or arriving back in Ottawa later would really help, as the departure & arrival times needed to be convenient enough for someone else to pick up/drop off (or OC Transpo to still have frequent-enough service).

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky
Take the currently earliest departure time from Ottawa (5:30) and the latest arrival time (23:16), assume a travel time of 3:10 hours and you'd have more than 11 hours (8:40 to 20:06) to spend during a day trip in Toronto...


Hi Urban_Sky,

That doesn't work in reality for most people, as 5am is too early for most people to arrive at the station, and 11:30pm is too late for most people to get back to the station.

On the Ottawa end, it takes about 1-1.5 hrs to get between point of origin to the station by public transit, or 0.5-1hr if someone provides a ride.

Each Via trip takes about 5 hours including the boarding time. However, as freight trains & construction delays & summer track bend delays are not accounted for in Via's online timetables, one needs to allow 6-6.5 hrs for assurance of arrival time.

On the Toronto end, one must travel between Union Station and destination. If your destination is within a 15 min walk from a GO Train or Subway stop, you are lucky. Budget for 1-2.5 hrs each way, depending on which stop your destination is on.

Note that if you miss the GO train, it's a 30 minute wait for the next one, as much of it is on single track, even though Union to Stouffville is about 40 minutes once it's running.

Note that it's over 2 hours from Scarborough Town Centre to Kipling on the Subway. That's assuming not rush hour crowds and no maintenance (old equipment breaking down) delays.

[lrt's friend]

The majority of people using VIA in Ottawa travel to the station by private car, taxi or Uber.

Personally, I have never used public transit when using VIA or the airport in Ottawa. When visiting other cities, it is a different story. The difference being, I need to get to/from a suburban location where public transit is too slow and unreliable.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Via loses money on every ticket already.

This would be absurd and I don't believe that this is actually what you meant, because unless you buy a $20 ticket after talking to a telephone agent for an hour, your marginal revenue will by far exceed the marginal costs that ticket will cause and therefore reduce VIA's deficit by absorbing some of its fixed costs. VIA's Annual Plan 2017 suggests that the Corridor recovers 65.9% (i.e. just under two-thirds) of its costs, but that does not mean that all routes and departures generate losses, as I've explained elsewhere:

The figures provided in VIA Rail's Annual Reports for the Corridor do not provide any figures at a route-level (except for "Toronto-Niagara", i.e. trains #97 and #98), as "Quebec-Montreal-Ottawa" includes QBEC-MTRL and MTRL-OTTW (i.e. train numbers 20-39 and 620-639), "Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto" includes MTRL-TRTO, OTTW-TRTO and KGON-TRTO (i.e. train numbers 40-69 and 640-669) and "Toronto-London-Sarnia-Windsor) includes TRTO-BRTF-LNDN-WDON and TRTO-KITC-LNDN-SARN (i.e. train numbers 70-89). For instance, it appears reasonable to expect that the cost recovery for TRTO-BRTF-LNDN-WDON (i.e. trains 70-83) is significantly higher than for TRTO-KITC-LNDN-SARN (i.e. trains 84/85/87/88), given that the former has much better frequencies and travel times than the latter.

Furthermore, the cost and revenue figures are so-called "fully allocated" costs, which means that costs include direct (e.g. train-operating) as well as indirect (e.g. administrative) costs, while revenues include direct (e.g. ticket sales) as well as indirect (e.g. station or infrastructure) revenues. Given that indirect costs includes things like the salaries for almost the entire HQ (including the one I receive), which are most probably significantly higher than indirect revenues (such as rent payments of merchants at VIA stations or track access charges received for freight trains using VIA trackage), indirect costs may escalate the "avoidable" costs (i.e. the costs directly associated with operating trains) by much more than indirect revenues escalate direct (e.g. ticket or on-board) revenues. This means that even though a service is reported in the Annual Report with a higher cost than revenue figure (i.e. with a nominal deficit), this does not automatically mean that withdrawing that service would reduce VIA's subsidy need, as the share of the net indirect costs (i.e. indirect costs minus indirect revenues) currently absorbed by this service will now have to be re-allocated across the remaining services.

In that same post on UrbanToronto, I've also pointed out that the recent increase in ridership and revenue on the Corridor was accompanied by an increase in train miles (e.g. TRTO-OTTW grew from 7 frequencies at the start of 2014 to 10 frequencies by the end of 2017) and that the Corridor would break-even by 2030 if these trends could be sustained:

Compiled and extrapolated from: VIA Rail Annual Reports 2014 and 2017

Originally Posted by Buggys

Originally Posted by Buggys
I don't think trains leaving Ottawa earlier or arriving back in Ottawa later would really help, as the departure & arrival times needed to be convenient enough for someone else to pick up/drop off (or OC Transpo to still have frequent-enough service).

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky
Take the currently earliest departure time from Ottawa (5:30) and the latest arrival time (23:16), assume a travel time of 3:10 hours and you'd have more than 11 hours (8:40 to 20:06) to spend during a day trip in Toronto...


Hi Urban_Sky,

That doesn't work in reality for most people, as 5am is too early for most people to arrive at the station, and 11:30pm is too late for most people to get back to the station.

On the Ottawa end, it takes about 1-1.5 hrs to get between point of origin to the station by public transit, or 0.5-1hr if someone provides a ride.

Each Via trip takes about 5 hours including the boarding time. However, as freight trains & construction delays & summer track bend delays are not accounted for in Via's online timetables, one needs to allow 6-6.5 hrs for assurance of arrival time.

On the Toronto end, one must travel between Union Station and destination. If your destination is within a 15 min walk from a GO Train or Subway stop, you are lucky. Budget for 1-2.5 hrs each way, depending on which stop your destination is on.

Note that if you miss the GO train, it's a 30 minute wait for the next one, as much of it is on single track, even though Union to Stouffville is about 40 minutes once it's running.

Note that it's over 2 hours from Scarborough Town Centre to Kipling on the Subway. That's assuming not rush hour crowds and no maintenance (old equipment breaking down) delays.

My intent was to point out that the travel time reductions associated with HFR may allow you to spend almost 3 hours more in Toronto (the earliest train from Ottawa arrives currently at 10:02, while the last train departs at 18:40) without leaving Ottawa earlier or returning there later, not to claim that leaving that early or returning that late suits every traveller (even though I frequently left Montreal on board #61@6:42 and returned from Toronto on board 668@22:56, I'd much rather stay overnight than spending 10 hours in the train on a single day).

Also, the use of a dedicated infrastructure for passenger trains will greatly improve the punctuality and reliability of the service (thus reducing the need to take earlier trains "just in case"), while the discussion of transit times to/from the Union Stations in Ottawa or Toronto is not relevant for the point I'm making...

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The majority of people using VIA in Ottawa travel to the station by private car, taxi or Uber.

Personally, I have never used public transit when using VIA or the airport in Ottawa. When visiting other cities, it is a different story. The difference being, I need to get to/from a suburban location where public transit is too slow and unreliable.

Thankfully, for many people and destinations (especially those relevant for visitors), this will improve significantly once the LRT is running...


Urban_Sky

[lrt's friend]

Thankfully, for many people and destinations (especially those relevant for visitors), this will improve significantly once the LRT is running...

Considering that LRT runs only from Tunney's Pasture to Blair compared to the much broader Transitway service that accessed the station, I don't know how you can make this statement. There are some odd assumptions concerning LRT.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

This would be absurd and I don't believe that this is actually what you meant, because unless you buy a $20 ticket after talking to a telephone agent for an hour, your marginal revenue will by far exceed the marginal costs that ticket will cause and therefore reduce VIA's deficit by absorbing some of its fixed costs.

You’re right, I should have said Via loses money on nearly every ticket. Those tickets sold for more than about 150% of the average may be profitable.

However, since the post I was responding to suggested adding a new late night service (so costs are all marginal) and selling tickets at a lower price to encourage people to take that service, then Via would be taking higher than average losses on nearly all of those tickets.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Considering that LRT runs only from Tunney's Pasture to Blair compared to the much broader Transitway service that accessed the station, I don't know how you can make this statement. There are some odd assumptions concerning LRT.

Much higher frequencies at Tremblay station than at the old Train transitway station. Plus people can transfer from train to bus, after all. I know Ottawans are used to one seat rides from everywhere to everywhere but that has to change.

Right now, of course, the situation with transit to VIA is completely unusable. The detours worked fine enough for suburban commuters but for those who need to get to anywhere in between Orleans and downtown it's been a nightmare.

[Innsertnamehere]

Also remember not to plan for today's transit journey, plan for one in the future. If HFR happens it likely won't be complete until 2023 or 2024 at the earliest - phase 2 of the Ottawa LRT will be open, REM will be done, and GO RER will be done a year or two later. Getting from the via station to your destination will be a lot easier than today.

[JohnnyRenton]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The majority of people using VIA in Ottawa travel to the station by private car, taxi or Uber.

Personally, I have never used public transit when using VIA or the airport in Ottawa. When visiting other cities, it is a different story. The difference being, I need to get to/from a suburban location where public transit is too slow and unreliable.

Exactly. And LRT will not change the fact that the Tremblay location is not great. In fact, you could even argue that when it had Transitway service it was at least marginally better as you could catch buses other than the 95. Where as with LRT, there is only a single set of destinations.

The most convenient location for a central station is downtown, where you have the maximum number of transit services feeding into it. For suburbanites, the most convenient location is a suburban station that is a short bus or car ride away (like Fallowfield for Barrhaven residents). The full potential of rail service in the NCR will never be achieved with the current rail network. Whether it is worth spending the money today, or in a few decades, to rationalize it, is something that people will have wildly varying views on. And you could argue that Tremblay is "okay", but I don't think anyone could come up with an argument that it is great, and is ideal for Ottawa future rail needs.