VIA Rail network developments

[Truenorth00]

This is interesting. I wonder if they could add a stop at Dorion for the Lakeshore and HFR routes. They really do need one between Dorval and Coteau.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

You forgot the most obvious option. They don't want to drive up the cost of the plan by informing those they are negotiating deals with to see how important this deal is comparted to other options. When negotiating a deal, you don't start the negotiation by telling the seller what the maximum price you are willing to pay is.

For example, to get between De Beaujeu and Vaudreuil-Dorion Quebec, VIA has 2 options:

1. As they currently do, and cross the CPR Winchester Sub to CN's Kingston Sub and run parallel to it to Vaudreuil-Dorion
2. run parallel to CPR's Winchester Sub to Vaudreuil-Dorion.

The studies likely estimate how much each option will cost. Giving that information to CN and CP will allow them to know how much to inflate their price to get the maximum amount of money from VIA.

I certainly wouldn’t call that the “most obvious” possibility.

It seems needlessly complicated considering the feds have almost unlimited powers of regulation and expropriation.

Also, if that is the strategy, why did they identify 95% of the preferred route from the very beginning.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is interesting. I wonder if they could add a stop at Dorion for the Lakeshore and HFR routes. They really do need one between Dorval and Coteau.

This older map shows a stop in Dorion. The newer map doesn't show it anymore, though it may have been removed to keep their options open.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I certainly wouldn’t call that the “most obvious” possibility.

I guess that is up to personal opinion. I wouldn't consider either of your original options anything close to obvious either.

It seems needlessly complicated considering the feds have almost unlimited powers of regulation and expropriation.

In theory yes, but I can't imaging them using them in this case. Freight transport is far more important than passenger transport, especially when looking at carbon reductions (one large train of freight likely saves more GHGs by keeping trucks off the road than HFR could save in a year by keeping cars off the road).

Also, if that is the strategy, why did they identify 95% of the preferred route from the very beginning.

95% of the route is on ROWs that are abandoned, underutilized or already owned by VIA and can be obtained without any significant difficulty. Besides, even if they have stated their preferred route, they don't want to announce what the maximum price they are willing to pay for each piece of infrastructure. The owners will be negotiating for top dollar, and any information VIA gives them will be used against VIA.

[Aylmer]

I used to fixate on the downtown-to-downtown travel times and disparage the addition of intermediate stops like Dorion. But after living in Europe for a while, I saw first-hand how by far the most useful services were the frequent, slower, cheaper, all-stop lines.

They were the ones which I'd use for weekend trips to the country. I'd love to be able to take my bike on an hourly train to go for a hike in Sharbot Lake or a bike ride in Eastern Ontario. It's not just about offering good mobility in rural areas - city folk also want to be able to get out of the city now and again. Perhaps the biggest thing I hear from city-dwellers with a seldom-used car is that "I want to be able to get out of town on weekends". There's a demand for it.

These sorts of services often resulted in shorter trip times because most of the time, I wasn't headed straight downtown. I've often used the Oshawa and Guildwood stations to take local transit to my destination instead of backtracking 30-60 minutes from Union.

But of course, what really undermines the existing peri-urban and rural stops is that the service pattern is all over the place. There's a station at Gananoque, but only 2 trains stop per day - if you miss the one return train, I guess you're staying overnight. There's a stop at Trenton and Port Hope, but no trains that stop at both - to get from one to the other, you'd have to backtrack all the way to Oshawa. There's a stop at Guildwood, but only a few runs stop there, so half the time you're heading to Scarborough, your trip is 45 minutes longer via Union and local transit.

Unless these additional stops add some unreasonable amount of time, I hope that VIA goes for a more consistent, all-stop service pattern. It may add an extra 15 minutes to your downtown-to-downtown trip, but it makes it opens up so many new opportunities for trips and trip types. If the goal of HFR is to compete with cars and not planes, I hope flexibility will be prioritized over speed.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

This older map shows a stop in Dorion. The newer map doesn't show it anymore, though it may have been removed to keep their options open.

Good catch! I never noticed that.

I really hope they do put a stop there. The stop spacing between Coteau and Dorval is not convenient, especially given the river in the middle. Dorion is perfect with both RER service and both Lakeshore and HFR service meeting there.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I used to fixate on the downtown-to-downtown travel times and disparage the addition of intermediate stops like Dorion. But after living in Europe for a while, I saw first-hand how by far the most useful services were the frequent, slower, cheaper, all-stop lines.

Cost too. Most Europeans still use regular speed (closer to HFR by our definition) rail service because it's cheaper than HSR which is more often meant to compete with air. The exceptions like Spain, spent massive amounts of government subsidies building out a network while keeping user costs low.

This is why I am deeply skeptical about full blown HSR. If we built it and had average $200 round trip economy fares to Toronto, would people really ride it? I have my doubts. At minimum, it would become a lightning rod for criticism, especially centered around the government building a massively expensive service catering to elites. But build decent high performance rail and have it run just slow enough that lots of grade separation isn't required and maybe average fares end up in the $80-100 range, with travel times of 3 hrs to Toronto instead of 2 hrs. I bet a lot more people would actually ride that.

I really think they should target something like 2:45 Toronto-Ottawa and 1:15 Ottawa-Montreal, with just enough dual tracking, straightening and grade separation to make that happen. No electrification. Just run with diesel trains. 4 hrs from Toronto to Montreal won't kill flying, but it will peel off a substantial amount of passengers who aren't same day return. 2:45 Toronto-Ottawa would basically reduce Toronto-Ottawa flights to almost entirely feeder service. Nobody is going to want to spend air fare to save 30 mins. And the fares will be enough to pull in a lot of single or even some dual occupancy drivers.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I used to fixate on the downtown-to-downtown travel times and disparage the addition of intermediate stops like Dorion. But after living in Europe for a while, I saw first-hand how by far the most useful services were the frequent, slower, cheaper, all-stop lines.

They were the ones which I'd use for weekend trips to the country. I'd love to be able to take my bike on an hourly train to go for a hike in Sharbot Lake or a bike ride in Eastern Ontario. It's not just about offering good mobility in rural areas - city folk also want to be able to get out of the city now and again. Perhaps the biggest thing I hear from city-dwellers with a seldom-used car is that "I want to be able to get out of town on weekends". There's a demand for it.

These sorts of services often resulted in shorter trip times because most of the time, I wasn't headed straight downtown. I've often used the Oshawa and Guildwood stations to take local transit to my destination instead of backtracking 30-60 minutes from Union.

But of course, what really undermines the existing peri-urban and rural stops is that the service pattern is all over the place. There's a station at Gananoque, but only 2 trains stop per day - if you miss the one return train, I guess you're staying overnight. There's a stop at Trenton and Port Hope, but no trains that stop at both - to get from one to the other, you'd have to backtrack all the way to Oshawa. There's a stop at Guildwood, but only a few runs stop there, so half the time you're heading to Scarborough, your trip is 45 minutes longer via Union and local transit.

Unless these additional stops add some unreasonable amount of time, I hope that VIA goes for a more consistent, all-stop service pattern. It may add an extra 15 minutes to your downtown-to-downtown trip, but it makes it opens up so many new opportunities for trips and trip types. If the goal of HFR is to compete with cars and not planes, I hope flexibility will be prioritized over speed.

There was an interview with the VIA president about the strategies he's taken to increase ridership in the corridor, and one of the things he talked about was the importance of stopping at the smaller cities. Under his watch what used to be non stop Toronto-Ottawa express trips added stops in Oshawa, Kingston, and Fallowfield, and those that used to stop in Kingston only now stop at Belleville too. Stuff like that.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is why I am deeply skeptical about full blown HSR. If we built it and had average $200 round trip economy fares to Toronto, would people really ride it? I have my doubts. At minimum, it would become a lightning rod for criticism, especially centered around the government building a massively expensive service catering to elites. But build decent high performance rail and have it run just slow enough that lots of grade separation isn't required and maybe average fares end up in the $80-100 range, with travel times of 3 hrs to Toronto instead of 2 hrs. I bet a lot more people would actually ride that.

I agree that pricing will be crucial to the success of HFR if the aim is to compete with driving. Especially for groups - after all, you can fit 4-7 people in a car. If you have a family of 2 adults and 2 teens, even an $80 trip to Toronto ends up being a $600 round trip. You can't afford not to drive at that price.

I'd love to see some aggressive pricing for small groups and families.
Imagine a ticket to Toronto is $80, but you can add up to 4-5 extra people on your ticket for $10 each: Now our hypothetical family's $600 round trip is only $220, competitive with the $150-ish it would cost to drive.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by CityTech

There was an interview with the VIA president about the strategies he's taken to increase ridership in the corridor, and one of the things he talked about was the importance of stopping at the smaller cities. Under his watch what used to be non stop Toronto-Ottawa express trips added stops in Oshawa, Kingston, and Fallowfield, and those that used to stop in Kingston only now stop at Belleville too. Stuff like that.

And that is exactly why inter-metro traffic needs to be separated. The current services are sort of poor for everyone. Most of the trains are milk runs that really make inter-metro travel too slow to be really competitive. And yet a lot of the smaller stations don't get every train stopping there so they less service than what they might be able to support.

Moving the inter-metro traffic off the Lakeshore, allows for the conversion of that service into a true regional rail service.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I agree that pricing will be crucial to the success of HFR if the aim is to compete with driving. Especially for groups - after all, you can fit 4-7 people in a car. If you have a family of 2 adults and 2 teens, even an $80 trip to Toronto ends up being a $600 round trip. You can't afford not to drive at that price.

I'd love to see some aggressive pricing for small groups and families.
Imagine a ticket to Toronto is $80, but you can add up to 4-5 extra people on your ticket for $10 each: Now our hypothetical family's $600 round trip is only $220, competitive with the $150-ish it would cost to drive.

HFR should in theory boost the supply of seats with higher frequencies while reducing costs through higher asset utilization. That should in theory let them keep fares where they are or go sightly lower. I would argue they need to maximize revenue to show that rail investment can provide a decent return. Otherwise, intercity rail investment might end with HFR.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And that is exactly why inter-metro traffic needs to be separated. The current services are sort of poor for everyone. Most of the trains are milk runs that really make inter-metro travel too slow to be really competitive. And yet a lot of the smaller stations don't get every train stopping there so they less service than what they might be able to support.

Moving the inter-metro traffic off the Lakeshore, allows for the conversion of that service into a true regional rail service.

Agreed. In Europe they have:

• Commuter trains,
• Regional (stopping) trains,
• Intercity trains, and
• High Speed Intercity Trains.

VIA has been trying to provide a jack-of-all-trade trains and the obvious result has been for them to be a master of none.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

HFR should in theory boost the supply of seats with higher frequencies while reducing costs through higher asset utilization. That should in theory let them keep fares where they are or go sightly lower. I would argue they need to maximize revenue to show that rail investment can provide a decent return. Otherwise, intercity rail investment might end with HFR.

There will be an increase in capacity, but not as dramatic as it might seem. Prior to COVID, VIA had 10 trains a day between Ottawa and Toronto and 6 trains a day from Montreal to Toronto for a total of 16 trains a day to/from the the two eastern cities. HFR will have 15 trains a day between Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto combined, so from a capacity perspective, there will be one fewer train per day.

HOWEVER, there will be separate trains serving the lakeshore, so any passengers filling seats from those cities won't affect HFR capacity like they currently do. Also, the HFR trains will likely be longer (and thus hold more passengers), so there will be capacity gains there as well.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

There will be an increase in capacity, but not as dramatic as it might seem. Prior to COVID, VIA had 10 trains a day between Ottawa and Toronto and 6 trains a day from Montreal to Toronto for a total of 16 trains a day to/from the the two eastern cities. HFR will have 15 trains a day between Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto combined, so from a capacity perspective, there will be one fewer train per day.

HOWEVER, there will be separate trains serving the lakeshore, so any passengers filling seats from those cities won't affect HFR capacity like they currently do. Also, the HFR trains will likely be longer (and thus hold more passengers), so there will be capacity gains there as well.

Keep in mind that HFR alone is going to be 15 trains a day. And depending on what configuration is ordered, these trains could be up to 7 cars long, with Lakeshore service probably not like to be less than 3 cars.

That's effectively something like the equivalent of more than 20 trains in each direction in terms of what they were operating pre-Covid.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Keep in mind that HFR alone is going to be 15 trains a day. And depending on what configuration is ordered, these trains could be up to 7 cars long, with Lakeshore service probably not like to be less than 3 cars.

That is why I said:

Originally Posted by roger1818

HOWEVER, there will be separate trains serving the lakeshore, so any passengers filling seats from those cities won't affect HFR capacity like they currently do. Also, the HFR trains will likely be longer (and thus hold more passengers), so there will be capacity gains there as well.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

That's effectively something like the equivalent of more than 20 trains in each direction in terms of what they were operating pre-Covid.

If you consider that there were 16 trains a day pre-COVID, when you combine the two routes, even if you assume an equivalent of 20 trains a day, that is only a 25% increase in overall capacity. Not the 50% increase between Ottawa and Toronto or the 150% increase between Montreal and Toronto that it seems like at first glance, since the capacity is shared between the two routes.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good thing as it allows a significant increase in frequency without requiring any increase in ridership. The ridership increase will come quickly and an increase in capacity will soon be required very soon.

For the Lakeshore, the regional service will not only have its schedule tailored for local riders, but the fares will be tailored for them as well. Currently the shorter distance fares are inflated since they seat could have been sold to someone who was traveling further. Sure they could sell the same seat twice (once for each segment), but there is no guarantee that it will be sold twice. With service that originates/terminates in Kingston, the maximum distance someone could travel on the train is shorter, so the maximum possible fare will be lower, since the cost of operating a shorter route is lower.

[Truenorth00]

The frequency increase is half the equation. The size of the trains is the other. If all the HFR trains are 6-7 cars, and all the Lakeshore trains are 3-4 cars capacity goes up substantially. A lot more than 25%. So we won't really know until they exercise options what they have in mind. They could also go above options exercise and order additional trainsets or cars if they think the business case is there. But right now the options the have, amount to a 50% increase over the fleet they ordered.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I guess that is up to personal opinion. I wouldn't consider either of your original options anything close to obvious either.



In theory yes, but I can't imaging them using them in this case. Freight transport is far more important than passenger transport, especially when looking at carbon reductions (one large train of freight likely saves more GHGs by keeping trucks off the road than HFR could save in a year by keeping cars off the road).



95% of the route is on ROWs that are abandoned, underutilized or already owned by VIA and can be obtained without any significant difficulty. Besides, even if they have stated their preferred route, they don't want to announce what the maximum price they are willing to pay for each piece of infrastructure. The owners will be negotiating for top dollar, and any information VIA gives them will be used against VIA.

They have already committed to using significant chunks of the CP mainline (between the Don Valley and Scarborough, West of Smith Falls. The only “options” that are available are which Metrolinx-owned line to take through the Don Valley (or whether to skip Union altogether) and how to get through the Montreal area. Your hypothesis that they are delaying the whole project an additional 5 years over possible negotiations over a small section between Alexandria and Dorval seems unconvincing.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The frequency increase is half the equation. The size of the trains is the other.

Which if you actually took the time to read my original post, you would have realized that is exact what I said. There is a name for people who misrepresent what people say to try and create an argument.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Which if you actually took the time to read my original post, you would have realized that is exact what I said. There is a name for people who misrepresent what people say to try and create an argument.

What's with the hostility? I didn't get that from your post. Geez. Testy.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

They have already committed to using significant chunks of the CP mainline (between the Don Valley and Scarborough, West of Smith Falls. The only “options” that are available are which Metrolinx-owned line to take through the Don Valley (or whether to skip Union altogether) and how to get through the Montreal area. Your hypothesis that they are delaying the whole project an additional 5 years over possible negotiations over a small section between Alexandria and Dorval seems unconvincing.

There's two explanations at the end of the day.

1) The budget allocations are what they need to close the business the case and CIB will make a launch announcement later this year.

2) They don't have confidence in the plan. Either because some want HSR. Or because they might be skeptical of the concept/cost.

Either way, I am actually okay with VIA/CIB not releasing financials if they are actually negotiating anything. But I do wish they would provide some details on what proposed routings they looked at and what their preferred route and operating concept is. Treating everything like commercial confidence is a bit much.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

There's two explanations at the end of the day.

1) The budget allocations are what they need to close the business the case and CIB will make a launch announcement later this year.

2) They don't have confidence in the plan. Either because some want HSR. Or because they might be skeptical of the concept/cost.

Either way, I am actually okay with VIA/CIB not releasing financials if they are actually negotiating anything. But I do wish they would provide some details on what proposed routings they looked at and what their preferred route and operating concept is. Treating everything like commercial confidence is a bit much.

I think those are two strong possibilities. I still think “political” problems are a possibility too. The easiest ways to value engineer this proposal (both from a time and cost perspective) is to put the Toronto terminus on the CP line (the liquor store in Rosedale, for example), put the Montreal station at Mount Royal, and bypass Peterborough. Those may make sense from an engineering perspective, but are politically challenging.