Not sure if this has been posted here yet. But, speaking with a friend who now works with VIA, he told me about this. He mentioned that there are substantial things that may happen in respects to VIA coming to London (Depot, repair facilities, etc)
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http://www.londoncommunitynews.com/news-...o-make-london-its-southwest-railway-hub/
While the City of London has made it clear the VIA Rail station will be a focal point of downtown revitalization, it seems the rail company is also viewing London as the key to its own renaissance in southwestern Ontario.
Transportation cuts make... We're waiting, Via Rail
Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, VIA Rail Canada president and CEO, was in the Forest City on April 28 to speak with members of the London Chamber of Commerce. The discussion was two-fold, the need for dedicated lines throughout the southwest area, as well as the addition of two new train frequencies on existing lines between London and Toronto.
“We really want to make London a hub from an operations point of view to service southwestern Ontario,” Desjardins-Siciliano said. “Ridership is going down, partially because we are having reliability issues around running on time due to increased congestion on the rails from more and longer freight trains, but also more regional trains in and out from metropolitan areas, Toronto and Montreal.”
With the existing lines facing new freight trains, as well as new regional trains from GO (in Toronto) and AMT (in Montreal), together with proposed new VIA Rail frequencies, congestion is impacting the carrier’s on-time performance.
Desjardins-Siciliano said that has to be addressed as a way to bring back ridership. The best way to do that, he added, is dedicated track.
“We are trying to promote, we are looking at, seeking private investment to build a dedicated passenger corridor between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal for a first phase,” he said. “Then at a later phase expanding it east to Quebec City and west to London.”
Desjardins-Siciliano acknowledged VIA Rail has to factor in what the provincial government will do. The province has announced its own high-speed rail plans from Toronto to London and now to Windsor.
With that in mind, Desjardins-Siciliano said VIA Rail needs to co-ordinate its effort to avoid duplication of activities and funding as “ultimately we all serve the same master, the taxpayer.”
He said, in the train business, everything takes a long time. Equipment takes long to obtain and construction can only be done during the summer seasons.
With that in mind, a dedicated track corridor between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal would be at least four to seven years away.
In the meantime, however, there are still things he said VIA Rail can do. In particular, offer additional trains between Toronto and London, two frequencies in each direction.
The goal, he said, is to launch the added trains no later than January 2016, but hopefully as early as the fall.
“The holy grail of the travel business is frequency. That is why some of the frequencies we are introducing now are allowing people to come to London from Toronto, have a complete business day in London, and vice versa,” Desjardins-Siciliano said. “Someone can leave London around 6:10 a.m., have a full business day, then come back either midday around 1:30 or end of day, 4:30 or 5:40, so they have an option. The idea over time would be to add other times, even a late train, so you could catch a show in Toronto and get back in at a decent time.”
The Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal corridor would likely happen incrementally, starting in 2017 with completion by 2022.
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