VIA Rail

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

We can speculate on political motives if we want, but they in no way bring the validity of the project into question. There's no other VIA project or proposal that I've heard that would better serve the public in terms of ROI by a significant margin.

If ROI's metric is money, then you are correct. What if the ROI was based on political capital? HFR may not win that then.

A person can dream, but as a realist, I know that it is HFR or not spending anything.

[manny_santos]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/london-toronto-train-via-1.6480397

I had no idea VIA had axed the early morning train from London to Toronto. That seems like a pretty obvious service to bring back, especially with the growth of remote work, and people in London needing to go to an office in Toronto periodically.

I know that train is a money-maker; when I used to book VIA trains in the past I remember that train often had the Escape fare sold out months in advance.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ I wonder if part of the issue is conflict between VIA and the new GO service given that part parts of the route are single track.

There is another option to get to Toronto by rail: taking the GO train from London, though that leaves at 5:30 am and the trip takes four hours, getting into Union Station at 9:30 a.m., after the regular work day has started.

It just goes to show why such distances aren't really suitable for "commuter" trains. While I'm sure part of the issue is the reduced track speeds on the northern route through Kitchener, another issue is that GO routes tend to have more stops and therefore just aren't as able to cover long distances as quickly. Especially given the low power-weight ratio of those long GO consists.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

^ I wonder if part of the issue is conflict between VIA and the new GO service given that part parts of the route are single track.



It just goes to show why such distances aren't really suitable for "commuter" trains. While I'm sure part of the issue is the reduced track speeds on the northern route through Kitchener, another issue is that GO routes tend to have more stops and therefore just aren't as able to cover long distances as quickly. Especially given the low power-weight ratio of those long GO consists.

I doubt these two services would conflict with each other, as they run on different tracks for all but 1.4 miles between the London station and the junction with the CN Guelph Sub - the GO service using the Guelph Sub and this particular VIA service using the CN Dundas Sub.

Furthermore the London station has 3 dedicated passenger tracks on 2 platforms, so there should be no issue with passenger trains being unable to use the station at any time.

Of course, that 1.4 miles of CN track east of the London station could be the problem, as that is also used heavily by freight.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/london-toronto-train-via-1.6480397

I had no idea VIA had axed the early morning train from London to Toronto. That seems like a pretty obvious service to bring back, especially with the growth of remote work, and people in London needing to go to an office in Toronto periodically.

I know that train is a money-maker; when I used to book VIA trains in the past I remember that train often had the Escape fare sold out months in advance.

I really miss this train. It was half full of Western Profs/students.

[GoTrans]

This is another example of federal government inaction on providing rail service or improving the environmental footprint of intercity transport and supporting Via Rail.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

This is another example of federal government inaction on providing rail service or improving the environmental footprint of intercity transport and supporting Via Rail.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8852290/via-rail-ceo-resigns/

And then this happens, which only shows that the problem is not Via, it is the politicians tying their hands.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

https://globalnews.ca/news/8852290/via-rail-ceo-resigns/

And then this happens, which only shows that the problem is not Via, it is the politicians tying their hands.

Absolutely agree.

[GoTrans]

Here is an article in Railway Age about HFR and the ex CEO of Via written by David Thomas. Why am I not surprised?

May 24, 2022 Intercity
VIA Rail’s Existential Problem? It Never Existed
Written by David Thomas, Canadian Contributing Editor

Cynthia Garneau on May 20 gave up VIA Rail Canada leadership with two years remaining in her nominal tenure.

The former VIA Rail CEO quit, according to informed speculation, because Transport Canada scooped up VIA Rail’s scheme for a high-frequency rail (HFR) service on dedicated tracks linking Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.

In VIA Rail-speak, “the Shareholder” is Transport Canada, not the people of Canada. VIA Rail simply does not exist as an autonomous entity with its own parliamentary charter under which the CEO can actually make decisions and do deals. VIA Rail is technically a “crown corporation,” but one that reports to the Minister of Transport, not to parliament, which has never once voted on its very existence let alone a vision for growth.

VIA Rail is merely a branch of a secretive and largely incompetent department that has been repeatedly chided by Canada’s information commissioner, auditor general and Transportation Safety Board.

Amtrak, in comparison, operates under the congressional Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, which assumed private railroads‘ obligations to operate passenger services in exchange for the railroads providing priority status to Amtrak trains. Whether you like the service or not, Amtrak does exist as an independent legal entity.

VIA Rail does not. CN and Canadian Pacific have no legal obligation to prioritize VIA Rail’s passenger trains over their own freight trains. Sometimes, CN orders VIA Rail’s flagship The Canadian to reverse to a distant passing track to make way for CN trains. (I was on one of those reverse movements in 2015 on my way to an interview with VIA Rail’s previous CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, in which he revealed VIA Rail’s vision for a dedicated passenger corridor.)

Desjardins-Siciliano carried the stigma of being appointed by a previous Conservative government and was replaced by Garneau, an aerospace executive with no rail or passenger-carrying experience but considered friendly to the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. The CEO appointment is nominally a five-year term, but that can be abbreviated at the whim of the governing party.

Garneau’s own writing-on-the-wall was the announcement in March by Transport Minister Omar Alghabra that he was assuming entire control of the HFR project. Garneau didn’t even attend the media event.

So, if it can possibly happen under the direction of Canada’s worst federal department, HFR will be separate from VIA Rail, giving the country two less-than-stellar passenger rail services instead of just one.

In September 2021, VIA Rail Canada took delivery of the first of 32 new Siemens trainsets, and on Nov. 30, revealed it to the public; testing started in December.

Garneau was right to quit (perhaps with a not-so-friendly push from the Minister). VIA Rail believed in its project and, like motivated Ukranian fighters, could well have succeeded. Instead, HFR has been handed over to a top-down Russia-style bureaucracy with a proven record of failure in everything it touches:

• Lac-Megantic and the succession of oil train explosions that followed while Transport Canada tried to cover up its role.

• Airline chaos throughout the pandemic panic including forcing arriving passengers to use contaminated touch-screens to make customs declarations (I was there for that too).

• Allowing Quebec’s rapacious Caisse de dépôt et placement to take over Montreal’s Central Station and Mount Royal tunnel for its own regional rail commuter system, effectively choking off VIA Rail’s HFR access to Montreal.

Transport Canada may have done some things right, but none come to mind.

HFR had looked like the last best hope for modernizing passenger rail in Canada. Garneau’s departure shows that she herself is no longer a believer. The one certainly in Transport Canada’s assumption of full control over HFR is that the new rail service either will never happen, or, if it does, it will be a fiasco.

The best thing now may be to dissolve VIA Rail entirely and look for Brightline-type investors to return Canada’s passenger rail to fully private ownership. The country’s 45-year attempt to run a railway as a branch of a third-rate government bureaucracy has failed, utterly.

David Thomas is a reporter who has covered government and society since graduating from Ottawa’s Carleton University with degrees in political science and journalism. He has written for National Geographic, Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, The Gazette, and The Canadian Press news agency from postings in Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, and London, England. “Railroading has been a personal fascination since a childhood timed fortunately enough to witness the golden years of steam on the late-to-dieselize Canadian National and Canadian Pacific,” he says. The opinions expressed here are his own.

[Truenorth00]

There's many issues with Transport Canada and how the Liberals screwed over VIA to try and get HFR built by the CIB and TC. But the idea that simply turning over passenger rail service to the private sector will attract investment like Brightline is quite ignorant. Most notably of how Brightline is structured and the relationship with real estate development.

[Nouvellecosse]

For one thing, Brightline-type operation only works for sufficiently lucrative routes such that they can be profitable, while most passenger rail services (and public transport in general) has trouble achieving that in NA. Most need some level of subsidy which is the whole reason why VIA and Amtrak are public rather than private services.

The article may offer some valid observations in terms of identifying problems, but its prescriptions are just a typical knee-jerk to neoliberal dogma.

[swimmer_spe]

This only further supports my thoughts that Via Rail's mandate is political, not based on any other metric. I'd like to hope this wakes them up in Ottawa (and Montreal), but it most likely won't. Make it as irrelevant as you can and watch it being welcomed to be shut down.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

This only further supports my thoughts that Via Rail's mandate is political, not based on any other metric. I'd like to hope this wakes them up in Ottawa (and Montreal), but it most likely won't. Make it as irrelevant as you can and watch it being welcomed to be shut down.

I agree that the government would like to do away with Via completely. The problem is politicians of all stripes except for the Greens, who don’t have any power all have the same ideology. The bureaucrats at Transport Canada have been allowed to make it the air and pavement ministry.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

I agree that the government would like to do away with Via completely. The problem is politicians of all stripes except for the Greens, who don’t have any power are have the same ideology. The bureaucrats at Transport Canada have been allowed to make it the air and pavement ministry.

It's easy to blame bureaucrats but they answer to Parliament, not the other way around. The government can pass legislation and allocate funding to improve VIA anytime it wants. But successive governments have just refused to do that.

The reality is that subsidizing national rail services is a thankless proposition with little to no political reward. Building higher speed rail in the Corridor probably has a decent economic case. But the dynamics of the country means that a government risking a large commitment to such a project, might see backlash elsewhere. So we get the constant scheming where every government is trying to find a way to get somebody else to build something in the Corridor and refuses to do anything else with the rest is VIA but keep it on life support.

It's amazing that somebody who writes for a railway magazine either doesn't get all this or doesn't care. Moving VIA to a Brightline model would be the end of VIA. Service would probably be reduced to just Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal.

[acottawa]

I am not sure where the via good, TC bad narrative came from. I think they both handled this very badly.

The so-called “plan” that Via came forward with 7 years ago was always completely aspirational, they had never thought out any of the actual details or made any attempt at cost estimates (which is why each iteration kept getting worse and worse).

The government’s decision to try to do the follow-up in-house was bizarre. It is both a Canadian and international best practice to follow up a proposal with a feasibility study that is made public. We still have very little idea what TC has done for 6 years.

[Truenorth00]

^ Fair points. I am slightly sympathetic to VIA because I don't think they are largely resourced to do in-depth studies. They had a rough idea. They wanted more money to get it fleshed out more. The government turned around and gave that money and responsibility to TC and the CIB.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I am not sure where the via good, TC bad narrative came from. I think they both handled this very badly.

The so-called “plan” that Via came forward with 7 years ago was always completely aspirational, they had never thought out any of the actual details or made any attempt at cost estimates (which is why each iteration kept getting worse and worse).

The government’s decision to try to do the follow-up in-house was bizarre. It is both a Canadian and international best practice to follow up a proposal with a feasibility study that is made public. We still have very little idea what TC has done for 6 years.

The main problem with not allowing the Via plan to go ahead is project creep and the resultant increase in costs. HFR was a relatively low cost proposal of increasing both moderately increasing speeds and drastically increasing on time performance while also adding frequencies.The Via plan was a gradual step in getting to high speed rail. There have been arguments that this route does not have the geometry from HSR. While this may be true, most of the route is in countryside where the land acquisition costs would be quite low for changing some of the routing in later years. Now the Feds, be it the Minister of Transport or the department are saying that 90% of the line will be electrified and making sounds like the speeds will be increased while at the same time the government is trying to get the private sector to be the owners. As others have stated there is no economic case for ownership by the private sector. Electrification and the purchase of electrified rolling stock will cost several billion of additional dollars. This makes the likelihood of the project even less likely.

[Truenorth00]

Yep. The best argument for HFR is that building infrastructure that allows VIA to use a lot of the new Siemens fleet more efficiently on a route designed to accomodate higher average operating speeds for inter-metro service, is relatively moderate investment and utilizes existing rolling stock. This is actually a pretty reasonable idea. Even if VIA may have underestimated the cost of the HFR corridor a fair bit.

Pushing electrification and speeds that may require substantial grade separation or straightening and adding bypasses, is substantial scope creep that completely breaks the initial lower investment idea VIA had in mind. And most of this increase in scope doesn't seem to have come from VIA at all.

I can understand why Cynthia Garneau left.

[Truenorth00]

I'll also say that some transit advocates like Reece Martin have happily cheered on the scope creep towards HSR without appreciating the risk of failure. No idea if this impacted the political decision-making. But it would have been nice to see at least some pushback on scope creep from transit advocates as the project moved further and further out of reach.

[manny_santos]

Slight off topic but related - I spotted a Rocky Mountaineer Train rolling through New Westminster yesterday. It looked pretty full too, though I'd say the average age of the passenger was 65+.

It was a very long train too with mostly double decker cars.