VIA Rail

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

In theory. In reality, how many people are actually choosing to spend over 24 hrs on a train from Toronto to Halifax? Or just generally half a day from Toronto to the Maritimes? And of these people, who is it, that would completely reconsider if they have to transfer in Montreal? This is getting into the same logic as transit developments that insist on convoluted routings or extensions to avoid transfers. At some point, you need to break the trip to ensure that there's sufficient logistics capabilities, schedule buffers, etc. Montreal is a reasonably logical terminus for the Ocean and is well fed by Corridor services for the rare person that insist on using a train to get from deep in Ontario to the Maritimes.

I've already stated who the customers would be.

1) - foreign tourists wanting to see the full breadth of the country.
2) - rail enthusiasts.
3) - severe aerophobes
4) - senior citizens who want a more relaxed means of seeing the country (air terminals can be very intimidating).

Most competent people would rather fly, and get to their destination more quickly, but there is a subset of society who would rather just take the train. This should remain an option (and not just in the QC-Windsor corridor).

[Truenorth00]

Sure. But again accommodating this, comes at the cost of a Corridor train, that these folks could transfer onto. Not worth the higher cost in my opinion. If HFR existed the Ocean could use it, maybe.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Sure. But again accommodating this, comes at the cost of a Corridor train, that these folks could transfer onto. Not worth the higher cost in my opinion. If HFR existed the Ocean could use it, maybe.

OK, but if you add 4 short-haul coaches and a VIA 1 car to the Ocean in Montreal and it then heads to Toronto, the Ocean would effectively become a dual transcontinental/corridor train for that portion of its journey.

That said, I assume the demand must just not be there... even in the heyday of passenger rail of Canada I don't think there were ever through trains from Toronto to the Maritimes, except as holiday one-off specials.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

The fully-allocated costs you are looking at are meaningless, as they include VIA's overheads, which are largely insensitive to any changes in VIA's network. If you compare the direct revenues of the Canadian with its direct costs, you will see that its direct operating loss was $6.5 million in 2018, but that it actually generated a - very modest, but still - direct operating profit of $0.8 million in 2017:



Cross-post from: Urban Toronto

Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) do not distinguish between fixed and variable costs and they are not reported in financial statements, so whatever Via assigns as fixed, variable and semi-variable in its own internal accounting does not have to conform to any standards or need to be reviewed by Via's auditors.

That being said, Via has very few fixed costs in the traditional sense of the word (at least what it reports in its public documents), so I suspect most of what you are calling "semi-variable and fixed" are in fact associated with a route. I.e. if there was no Canadian maintenance, marketing, pension, back office, rolling stock, etc. costs would go down.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by esquire

OK, but if you add 4 short-haul coaches and a VIA 1 car to the Ocean in Montreal and it then heads to Toronto, the Ocean would effectively become a dual transcontinental/corridor train for that portion of its journey.

Yes, this would be an acceptable solution. It is not at all uncommon for trains to be separated or joined at different points along a route.

Originally Posted by esquire

That said, I assume the demand must just not be there... even in the heyday of passenger rail of Canada I don't think there were ever through trains from Toronto to the Maritimes, except as holiday one-off specials.

Back in the day, Montreal was the alpha city in Canada. This is no longer the case. Most Maritimers using the train aren't going to Montreal, they are connecting further on. It makes sense now for the western terminus to be in Toronto.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by esquire

OK, but if you add 4 short-haul coaches and a VIA 1 car to the Ocean in Montreal and it then heads to Toronto, the Ocean would effectively become a dual transcontinental/corridor train for that portion of its journey.

Again though,you are tying one Corridor slot to the Ocean. And so whatever delays occur on the Ocean then cascade onto this Corridor train. And that in turn might impact the rest of the Corridor's schedule.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Again though,you are tying one Corridor slot to the Ocean. And so whatever delays occur on the Ocean then cascade onto this Corridor train. And that in turn might impact the rest of the Corridor's schedule.

Yeah, that's fair. Not an issue for the eastbound trains but it could cause some hassles for westbound trains given that the Ocean currently arrives fairly early in the morning in Montreal.

What is the Ocean's OTP like? I presume it is not prone to the epic delays of VIA's western transcontinentals?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by esquire

What is the Ocean's OTP like? I presume it is not prone to the epic delays of VIA's western transcontinentals?

No idea. It's hard to find good stats. However, it's not going to be zero. And the risk here isn't just delaying a single Corridor departure westbound. It's the risk of delaying several westbound departures as slots get jumbled up. Again, this would be less of an issue if VIA had its own tracks from Montreal to Toronto. But it does not. And as such, the flexibility to absorb delays is highly restricted.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I have mentioned on this forum before that I think the western terminus for the Ocean should be Toronto and not Montreal.

This would greatly simplify transcontinental transfers, both for tourists and for railway enthusiasts. It might also increase the popularity of the Ocean as well.

Or, have the Ocean terminate in Toronto and the Canadian terminate in Montreal.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

1) How many people are trying to connect to the Canadian? Who are these folks who have spent say 22 hrs on a train from Halifax to Montreal, and another 5-6 hrs on a train from Montreal to Toronto, who then want to continue on? Why would they not fly, which would definitely be cheaper, faster and less environmentally damaging at that point? Even if you're originating in Quebec, unless your destination is some in between stop (which is probably a single digit pax count on any train), there's no point taking a train to Toronto to catch the Canadian. It's faster and probably cheaper to fly to nearest city and then drive to your destination.

At this point, I do not have actual numbers. I will one day do an Access to Information with Via. One of the benefits of it being a crown corporation.

As far as personal information, I know a friend of mine who lives in Montreal that would rather take the train, but the timing just does not work. I'll bet he isn't the only one.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

2) These changes aren't free. And are highly problematic for an operator reliant on networks owned by several other operators. How would changes to the departure time impact the rest of the schedule? And how would those changes in turn impact demand?

Are you suggesting I think there would be no issues to instate one more run, earlier in the day? I know that there are lots of challenges. For starters, will CN allow them that early.Then there is the question as to whether sleepers should be added to that early of a train.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I've already stated who the customers would be.

1) - foreign tourists wanting to see the full breadth of the country.
2) - rail enthusiasts.
3) - severe aerophobes
4) - senior citizens who want a more relaxed means of seeing the country (air terminals can be very intimidating).

Most competent people would rather fly, and get to their destination more quickly, but there is a subset of society who would rather just take the train. This should remain an option (and not just in the QC-Windsor corridor).

Those are the same that would want to see more rail services added outside the Corridor too.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Sure. But again accommodating this, comes at the cost of a Corridor train, that these folks could transfer onto. Not worth the higher cost in my opinion. If HFR existed the Ocean could use it, maybe.

But does it? There used to be a really early train between Toronto and Montreal. Maybe it should come back Everyone wants a higher frequency on the Corridor, yet suggesting one more frequency should be added and now people are saying it is a bad idea.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Again though,you are tying one Corridor slot to the Ocean. And so whatever delays occur on the Ocean then cascade onto this Corridor train. And that in turn might impact the rest of the Corridor's schedule.

Maybe it should wait till the HFR Havelock sub is built.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I've already stated who the customers would be.

1) - foreign tourists wanting to see the full breadth of the country.
2) - rail enthusiasts.
3) - severe aerophobes
4) - senior citizens who want a more relaxed means of seeing the country (air terminals can be very intimidating).

Most competent people would rather fly, and get to their destination more quickly, but there is a subset of society who would rather just take the train. This should remain an option (and not just in the QC-Windsor corridor).

You are describing the kind of passengers which already use the Ocean, but we are looking for the kind of passenger for whom extending the Ocean to Toronto would motivate the decision to buy a ticket which they would otherwise have not bought and for none of the four groups you‘ve mentioned is that particularly likely:

1) Foreign tourists are very likely to make this their once-in-a-lifetime trip to Canada: I met a couple from Australia during my last trip and their itinerary should be rather typical, as they spent 2-3 nights each in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax while crossing the country by train. These people don‘t fly 20 hours to Canada to cross the country as fast as possible.

2) Rail enthusiasts come for the adventure: traveling coast-to-coast or to off-the-beaten path places like Churchill and Prince Rupert ticks boxes, but they still want to visit the places along the routes. Also, they are very unlikely to get scared away by the requirement of having to change trains when reaching one of this planet‘s most popular cities after 21 hours of journey.

3) There is hardly any ridership which is more captive than people who are afraid of flying, especially now that there still is no bus service crossing the NB-QC border. If they don’t travel on the Ocean now, they won‘t do it if you extend it to Toronto either.

4) Senior Citizens have the time to travel by train and also to spend a few hours or days in a city like Montreal.


Another misconception is the expectation that through-routing to Toronto would save anyone travel time: A time window of 5 minutes will be enough to transfer between a delayed inbound to an outbound train at Montreal (if they are both at the same platform, which is the standard procedure in Montreal). If you have a night train operating through Montreal, you will have to stop for at least one hour and that is even if you arrive six hours late. If you have to shunt cars between both trains (and you will have to, since the Renaissance cars all need to go to MMC rather than Toronto), we are more looking at a minimum layover of two or three hours.

Have a look how time-consuming the shunting of the Berlin-Stockholm through sleeper in Malmö is:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=2656s&v=OGhxum6y2Sw&feature=youtu.be

[swimmer_spe]

I was playing with the Via website as I wanted to cost out a trip on the Ocean and Canadian. I just wanted to know pricing. A month out, and all except for seats are booked. That says to me that if all the times it runs it could add sleepers that Via should acquire more so that they can reach a point of maximum use, or maximum length of train. Eventually, I'll do an access to information with Via to find out the cost break even for 2 engine operation vs adding more runs per week.

[J81]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Simplified transfers and access to a larger pool of potential riders should be beneficial to this service, should it not???

Transfers are already simple. 64 from Toronto and 28 from Ottawa are both timed to arrive in Montreal to facilitate transfers onto the Ocean. The same holds true when the ocean arrives in Montréal for connections to Ottawa and Southern Ontario. You can leave Halifax tomorrow afternoon and be in Windsor Monday night and only change trains once in Montreal. So sending the ocean to toronto accomplishes nothing. In fact in order to do that you would need a 3rd trainset which Via does not currently possess.

[J81]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

1) How many people are trying to connect to the Canadian? Who are these folks who have spent say 22 hrs on a train from Halifax to Montreal, and another 5-6 hrs on a train from Montreal to Toronto, who then want to continue on? Why would they not fly, which would definitely be cheaper, faster and less environmentally damaging at that point? Even if you're originating in Quebec, unless your destination is some in between stop (which is probably a single digit pax count on any train), there's no point taking a train to Toronto to catch the Canadian. It's faster and probably cheaper to fly to nearest city and then drive to your destination.

2) These changes aren't free. And are highly problematic for an operator reliant on networks owned by several other operators. How would changes to the departure time impact the rest of the schedule? And how would those changes in turn impact demand?

I think you would be surprised at how many ppl take the train from coast to coast in the summer. I get that its not for you but there are groups of people who prefer the train. Of the 270 passengers onboard 14 last trip id say 20-30 had come from Vancouver.
Now I dont know anything about the Amish culture but they frequently use the train from southern Ontario to Moncton and Halifax. Is that preference or what i dont know, but they arent the only ones. The train is routinely sold out so obviously its serving a purpose.

[J81]

Originally Posted by esquire

Yeah, that's fair. Not an issue for the eastbound trains but it could cause some hassles for westbound trains given that the Ocean currently arrives fairly early in the morning in Montreal.

What is the Ocean's OTP like? I presume it is not prone to the epic delays of VIA's western transcontinentals?

It is currently terrible. There are approximately 180 minutes of delays due to TSOs on the Newcastle and Mont Joli subdivisions alone. There are 41 slow orders between Campbellton and Riviere du Loup. There are nine passing tracks between those two points and half are out of service. Of the remaining serviceable sidings half of them are only useable from one end, meaning you can go into the siding but have to back out to carry on. So to paint a picture, 15 takes the siding at the east end of the passing track for the nightly CN freight to go by. This usually results in at least at 30 minutes delay. Once the freight is by they have to release the track to the RTC so it can be given to 15. 15 then has to back out of the siding before proceeding westward again. Repeat this scenario again when 15 meets 14 and then again when 14 meets that same CN freight.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by J81

Transfers are already simple. 64 from Toronto and 28 from Ottawa are both timed to arrive in Montreal to facilitate transfers onto the Ocean. The same holds true when the ocean arrives in Montréal for connections to Ottawa and Southern Ontario. You can leave Halifax tomorrow afternoon and be in Windsor Monday night and only change trains once in Montreal. So sending the ocean to toronto accomplishes nothing. In fact in order to do that you would need a 3rd trainset which Via does not currently possess.

Ok, so how do you fix the Canadian so that people from Montreal can get to it and from it in the same day?

[J81]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Ok, so how do you fix the Canadian so that people from Montreal can get to it and from it in the same day?

It used to leave Toronto at 2200 I believe. Go back to that i guess? I dont think they really care about connections from east honestly.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by J81

It used to leave Toronto at 2200 I believe. Go back to that i guess? I dont think they really care about connections from east honestly.

They should care.
The first train from Montreal seems to get in around noon. Maybe add one earlier, or maybe move the time the Canadian leaves till around 1400?

[MonctonRad]

The romance of the rails.........

• Video Link

The Railway Museum in Hillsborough NB used to run steam train excursions on the old Hillsborough & Salem sub when I first moved to Moncton. I was not aware of it at the time. Once, when my youngest son was about three years old, we went for a drive down NB 114 to Fundy National Park for the day, and as we approached Hillsborough, a flagman stopped us at the rail crossing. We were quite shocked to hear in the distance a steam whistle, and it blew several more times before it crossed the track just in front of us. It was such an unexpected (and pleasant) shock to see an honest to God steam train passing right in front of my car the it was one of those life experiences you will never forget.

Sadly, the railway museum lost one of their two functioning steam locomotives in a fire a few years later, and, being a volunteer organization, they could not afford to keep either the remaining locomotive (or the trackage) in running order. The last excursion trains ran about 20 years ago. A great loss.

[J81]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

They should care.
The first train from Montreal seems to get in around noon. Maybe add one earlier, or maybe move the time the Canadian leaves till around 1400?

Why? If the Canadian is sold out anyway then it doesnt matter to VIA that you have to spend a night in Toronto. From what i gather from the travelling public they seem to look forward to spending time in the city before continuing on their journey.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by J81

Why? If the Canadian is sold out anyway then it doesnt matter to VIA that you have to spend a night in Toronto. From what i gather from the travelling public they seem to look forward to spending time in the city before continuing on their journey.

To sell out faster, and to make it better for those on the Corridor between Montreal and Toronto to not need to add an extra day to the journey.