VIA Rail

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

If rail development was part of the climate calculus, we might actually never invest in slow long distance trains like the Canadian.

Getting emissions down is first and foremost about reducing the emissions involved in local travel. And next regional travel. And finally transcontinental and transoceanic travel. From that perspective, VIA's priorities basically get reduced to QW and CalEd corridors.

I agree with you. I believe we should be focusing on regional intercity travel and scrap the Canadian as it exists replacing by the schedule with trains that are more regional in nature. By regional I do not mean provincial with the exception of Calgary - Edmonton. I do think that the feds should focus more on areas of their responsibilities and and make the provinces pay a larger share for transit with the saved funds going towards intercity rail.

[rbt]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

... and make the provinces ...

Feds have almost no authority to make the provinces do anything. Most federal policy is implemented via contract law with the province (feds provide money in exchange for the province performing an action in a specific way).


Feds could raise taxes across the country and pay the provinces to implement a specific intercity transit policy. Of course, since provinces can opt-out, the payment would need to be a non-trivial amount to result in a national implementation.

[Curmudgeon]

^^^ the Railways are a federal responsibility under the Constitution and even for an intra-provincial railway the federal government can go ahead and undertake works if in the interests of Canada as a whole.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

^^^ the Railways are a federal responsibility under the Constitution

That is about regulating them. Not financing them.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

...and even for an intra-provincial railway the federal government can go ahead and undertake works if in the interests of Canada as a whole.

The feds can do anything they want in theory. But that's not the point. They have never seen a role in facilitating intraprovincial travel and they perceive their role in facilitating interprovincial travel as being to provide the absolute bare minimum necessary. This view has held through both Liberal and Conservative governments. Expecting that to change is tough. Just look at the hesitancy on HFR right now.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The problem is, just like most citizens, the governments across Canada re not really wanting to do what is needed to lower GHGs. The carbon tax on a plane ticket should be high enough that for all but the ultra wealthy, a train trip is the way to go for places along the Corridor. You put short haul trips at $1000 each way and you'll see the demand for other options.

Lets have a look at the consequences of that. If you look at one of the most popular short haul flight routes in Canada (YYZ-YUL), according to Air Canada's carbon offset partner (Less Emissions), a one way flight on that route with compensation for high-altitude impacts requires an offset of 98 kg of CO2 per passenger (interestingly VIA Rail estimates 83 kg per seat for flying, but per seat isn't the same as per passenger). Using AC's numbers (since they are highest), to get a $1000 carbon tax, you would need to charge $10.20 per kg. That would mean the carbon tax on gasoline would have a $25.50 carbon tax per litre and VIA would have to charge $150.55 carbon tax per seat (not per passenger) for their trains between Toronto and Montreal.

I can't find any figures for the carbon emissions of the Canadian, but I expect it uses between 4 and 5 times as much fuel per "seat" to cover the same distance, since the old HEPs are much heavier than the LRCs and sleeper cars can accommodate about 1/3 as many passengers as a coach (plus the other service cars that don't have paying seats). Assuming the emissions are only 4 times higher, a similarly distanced trip from Edmonton to Saskatoon would have a carbon tax of over $600 per seat each way.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by thewave46

VIA's claimed carbon emissions are on par with a passenger car with two occupants - I'm using this as my source (page 4) that references Amtrak, but is reasonably comparable.

It actually isn't comparable. Amtrak has many more long distance trains that VIA does and, as I previously mentioned, long distance trains emit far more carbon per passenger than intercity trains. It does give you an idea of the emissions of the Canadian, although its emissions will be higher than Amtrak's average emissions.

For the Corridor, VIA has published the carbon emissions for the main routes here. Unfortunately, as I previously mentioned, they are per seat, not per passenger (not every seat is filled). It will be interesting to see how VIA's carbon emissions are affected by the new fleet.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

It is not baseless. Well, it is no less baseless than your constant screaming HSR in AB or nothing!

I don't ever remember seeing milomilo say anything close to "HSR in AB or nothing." He has said (and I agree) that adding trains to a route that hasn't seen passenger service in over 30 years without doing any upgrades would be a recipe for failure (if even possible). At a minimum, the track should be upgraded to a standard equivalent to what is currently seen on the eastern corridor.

Moving to daily service on all existing routes has credibility to it.
Adding the CP Canadian route has credibility to it.

At what cost and who is going to pay for it?

Adding some service, but not HSR to C-E has credibility to it.

I agree, but it has to be done right. It needs to be at least comitative in travel time to the current Red Arrow bus.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Have a look at this post by Urban_Sky.

EDIT: Regarding the northern communities, it is anecdotal, but I am sure one could extract the data from VIA Rail's 2018 Passenger Boarding and Deboarding stats.

Those passenger boarding stats really exemplify how useless VIA is outside of The Corridor. Any route outside of it is completely financially unsustainable and should be cancelled immediately.

I live in Vancouver and NOBODY even thinks about using VIA for any form of transportation. Full stop. The ONLY people who use it are tourists and wealthy ones to boot. The cancellation of Greyhound in the West was big news in the city but if VIA was to cancel service no one would care and even fewer would notice. Saying people in BC take VIA as transportation is akin to saying people in Niagara view the Maid of the Mist as a commuting option.

Sell off all non-Corridor routes to private companies and send their precious dollars to the only place they make any sense.

[esquire]

Interesting to look at the YEG thread in the Edmonton subforum... coldrsx expressed the thought that HSR would hurt their airport. I wonder if that's at least part of the reason why Alberta hasn't acted on HSR? Opposition from Edmonton based on the notion that it would reduce their airport to a feeder to Calgary?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

That's not how a carbon tax works. The entire point of a carbon tax is to price the carbon and let consumers decide how they much they value the activity after the cost of polluting is included.

The entire point of a real carbon tax is that it forces you to make hard decisions about the climate that would otherwise not have been made. The problem is, the government really hasn't done that. If they did, the price of somethings would be so high that it would no longer exist due to being priced out of the market. Reality is, it is there to be an inconvenience. Just like PSTs, GST and HSTs, the carbon tax is just part of life. In reality if we want to do something more than token things, it needs to be much higher. However, that won't happen as our economy, and the world economy would take a serious hit.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

These cities are so small and the traffic so light that actual new construction of lines might not have a net carbon return for half a century or more. There will always be city pairs where an electric bus running on existing roads makes more sense. And again, the pricing of carbon let's operators figure out which is better.

Electric buses do not exist for long distance routes.

How small is too small? How big is big enough?

For most of the Prairie cities once a day each way could be enough. Some places, more than that would be enough.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Kenney probably won't be Premier by the time we're discussing how to find a Calgary-Edmonton line in 7-8 years.

That may be true, but one of his successors could be.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Eventually. But that date is decades away. And I say that as one of the people most bullish on renewables in this forum.

Our move away from oil doesn't mean shutting down the sector today. We'll have to build up the alternatives first. The oil sands will still exist and be selling oil in 2050. They probably will sell less of it. And employ less people. But they'll be around.

With car companies saying 2030 is when they won't be making cars with ICE anymore, that is quite close. I know oil for gasoline is a small percentage of overall oil usage. Still, it is just one more nail in the coffin for the high priced oil sands oil.

Originally Posted by milomilo

Sure but this is irrelevant to the subject of building railways. The fact remains, even if you covered the nation with rails such that every trip could be made on them, it still couldn't reduce Canada's emissions all that much, especially considering we can make cars, trucks and eventually maybe plains carbon neutral.

Reality is, carbon neutral isn't going to be enough. This is not just about the environmental aspects, but also about giving people an option. Why should Hornepayne have train service, but not Regina?

Originally Posted by thewave46

VIA is diesel powered, so its effect on reducing carbon emissions is not fantastic. Especially when it is using heavy trainsets and passenger cars that aren't full.

VIA's claimed carbon emissions are on par with a passenger car with two occupants - I'm using this as my source (page 4) that references Amtrak, but is reasonably comparable.

Ironically, a motor coach does a much better job reducing emissions, so plowing money into bus services would be a better benefit than trains.

Via is Diesel Electric powered. Cutting emissions could be as simple as switching to other low carbon options for the energy source for the generator on board, or, overhead wires. I am not suggesting the entire network be electrified, but the busier sections like the Corridor

Originally Posted by milomilo

All true. Even if you electrified VIA though, it is not capable of reducing Canada's emissions all that much, When you consider that cars and buses will be mostly electric soon with trucks following either with batteries or hydrogen. That leaves planes, but they are only a % or so of Canada's emissions and there is the potential to make them carbon neutral though bio/synthetic fuels, hydrogen or carbon capture.

So when the claim is made that Canada will have to build out ultra long distance rail routes that will never have much ridership, because of climate change, it's a red herring.

This is where making the cost of short haul fights skyrocket will work. The problem is we have become fixated on convenience at a low cost. 100 years ago, there were planes. Even 40 years ago, there were planes. It is only in the last 20 years that flying has been cheap enough for the masses. Flying used to be for the rich. The problem is, flying is horribly expensive for GHGs. Let's get rid of the idea of buying carbon credits and require the real costs to be paid. Make the cheapest fare between Toronto and Ottawa, and other cities that rough distance be very expensive.

I am not suggesting that the CP route be returned for the people going between Toronto and Vancouver. I am suggesting it for people going Thunder Bay - Winnipeg, or Moose Jaw - Calgary, or other things like that where flights do exist, but really are not worth doing environmentally speaking.

Originally Posted by milomilo

Super agree. You can look at it similarly from an economic perspective also - a freight train with 100 cars cold be carrying millions of dollars worth of goods and the train itself worth a lot too. Delaying that train so a handful of people on a VIA train can get past doesn't make sense.

This all changes in situations where rail is actually worth it, like in Toronto. When there is demand such that you can fill up big trains with passengers, high productivity workers going to work in skyscrapers, then it does make sense that you spend the money to separate the freight from the passenger trains.

I agree. The real issue is that CN and CP have ripped up lots of double track to save money on maintenance costs. It is now biting everyone who uses that line in the butt. Let's start double tracking the busier sections. Double track places where freight and passenger service use. And lets try and time trains better.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

For so many economic and political reasons. The subsidy to VIA Rail is not terribly large in comparison to other modes of transportation. Many things are subsidized. Should we shutter all of the national museums as they are not self-sufficient? And what about national pride, or are we not a real country after all?

The underlying assertion I think in your post is that the country's fourth city is not served by passenger rail. I too find that appalling. Pre 1981 service levels need to be restored. So trains would leave both Toronto and Montreal (trains originating in Montreal operating via Ottawa) daily as either The Canadian or The Super-Continental depending on day of week, combine at Sudbury Jct., and then Canadian trains via Thunder Bay and Kenora, Super-Continental via the northern route to Winnipeg and then Canadian trains via Regina and Calgary and Super-Continentals via Saskatoon and Edmonton to Vancouver. The service would be much better used if the on-time performance and frequencies were better (60 1/2 hours and an average rail speed of 26 mph Winnipeg to Vancouver?). In Canada there is still perception that rail is "poor man's travel", that needs to change.

In any transport system, whether it be national passenger rail, air routes or urban transit, there are always profitable routes and routes that lose money. VIA must improve Corridor services as its first priority. For rail journeys, 4 hours is about the journey length beyond which rail loses its competitive edge with air travel. If for example VIA was able to offer a few daily high speed 3 1/2 hour trips on the lucrative Toronto-Montreal run (calling only at Kingston) and offer a true premium first class experience it would capture a much higher share of that market, esp. with business travel. Remember that with air travel you have to get to the airport, then you have to get there about an hour early, then there's the flight time, then deplaning and then the journey back into the city from the destination airport.

A good comparison is with Amtrak, which captured a 75% share of air/train commuters between New York and Washington in 2011, up from 37% in 2000. So doubled within 10 years of the opening of the Acela Express. Revenues from that service are used to sustain other routes on the system.

I would be happy with pre 1990s cuts. That would see both CN and CP lines used as well as C-E, and most of what was cut..

Originally Posted by GoTrans

I agree with you. I believe we should be focusing on regional intercity travel and scrap the Canadian as it exists replacing by the schedule with trains that are more regional in nature. By regional I do not mean provincial with the exception of Calgary - Edmonton. I do think that the feds should focus more on areas of their responsibilities and and make the provinces pay a larger share for transit with the saved funds going towards intercity rail.

If you mean keep all of the routing, but break it into shorter sections and time them better, I agree.

Originally Posted by roger1818

I don't ever remember seeing milomilo say anything close to "HSR in AB or nothing." He has said (and I agree) that adding trains to a route that hasn't seen passenger service in over 30 years without doing any upgrades would be a recipe for failure (if even possible). At a minimum, the track should be upgraded to a standard equivalent to what is currently seen on the eastern corridor.

I think it was a year or so when discussing HSR that the only think acceptable was HSR or nothing for AB. Might have been another user, but I thought it was him.

I do agree that it, and most lines should be able to operate at Corridor speeds. They are mainline routes, so should be maintained to a high level.

Originally Posted by roger1818

At what cost and who is going to pay for it?

Well, first off, remove the subsidy for the airlines and put it to Via. That should cover most of it.

Originally Posted by roger1818

I agree, but it has to be done right. It needs to be at least comitative in travel time to the current Red Arrow bus.

Buses outrun the Corridor trains all the time. So, no, it does not need to be.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Those passenger boarding stats really exemplify how useless VIA is outside of The Corridor. Any route outside of it is completely financially unsustainable and should be cancelled immediately.

I live in Vancouver and NOBODY even thinks about using VIA for any form of transportation. Full stop. The ONLY people who use it are tourists and wealthy ones to boot. The cancellation of Greyhound in the West was big news in the city but if VIA was to cancel service no one would care and even fewer would notice. Saying people in BC take VIA as transportation is akin to saying people in Niagara view the Maid of the Mist as a commuting option.

Sell off all non-Corridor routes to private companies and send their precious dollars to the only place they make any sense.

For fun, pick a Corridor station. Now, count how many trains per week it has. Now, pick a Canadian station. Count how many trains it has per week.
Divide the top by the bottom.
Now take that Canadian station amount and multiply it by the number you got. All of a sudden the number looks promising,

For fun, lets compare Toronto and Vancouver.
Toronto has 400 trains a week.
Vancouver has 6.
That is 67.
Vancouver's ridership was 43,000
67x43,000 is 3,000,000
Toronto's ridership was 2,800,000.

Of course, that is hypothetical and assumes each additional train means each train brings the same in. However, it does show that ridership could exist if the train ran daily. Even switching to a single daily train would give over 75,000 to Vancouver.

Originally Posted by esquire

Interesting to look at the YEG thread in the Edmonton subforum... coldrsx expressed the thought that HSR would hurt their airport. I wonder if that's at least part of the reason why Alberta hasn't acted on HSR? Opposition from Edmonton based on the notion that it would reduce their airport to a feeder to Calgary?

I thought competition was good for capitalist societies.... turns out it's only if they have the monopoly and can crush the competition.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by esquire

Interesting to look at the YEG thread in the Edmonton subforum... coldrsx expressed the thought that HSR would hurt their airport. I wonder if that's at least part of the reason why Alberta hasn't acted on HSR? Opposition from Edmonton based on the notion that it would reduce their airport to a feeder to Calgary?

I have seen similar arguments in the YOW thread. Not sure if it applies to YEG, but IMHO for YOW, HxR would do the opposite and reduce the number of feeder flights to YYZ (and YUL) and encourage AC (and WS) to provide more direct flights to other destinations to compete with foreign carriers that fly to YYZ and YUL but not YOW and could use HxR to provide better access to the Ottawa market (having a direct flight from a local airport is always better than some type of connection).

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Buses outrun the Corridor trains all the time. So, no, it does not need to be.

Competitive doesn't necessarily mean faster, it just means not significantly slower.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Competitive doesn't necessarily mean faster, it just means not significantly slower.

What is "significantly slower"? That is up for discussion and is a hard metric to clearly define. The fact that the Corridor is successful with an almost 50% travel time higher than the bus, I'd say that is a good starting point. The bus does C-E in about 4 hours. So, a train should do it in no worse than 6 hours by comparison to a similar Corridor speed.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

For fun, pick a Corridor station. Now, count how many trains per week it has. Now, pick a Canadian station. Count how many trains it has per week.
Divide the top by the bottom.
Now take that Canadian station amount and multiply it by the number you got. All of a sudden the number looks promising,

For fun, lets compare Toronto and Vancouver.
Toronto has 400 trains a week.
Vancouver has 6.
That is 67.
Vancouver's ridership was 43,000
67x43,000 is 3,000,000
Toronto's ridership was 2,800,000.

Of course, that is hypothetical and assumes each additional train means each train brings the same in. However, it does show that ridership could exist if the train ran daily. Even switching to a single daily train would give over 75,000 to Vancouver.



I thought competition was good for capitalist societies.... turns out it's only if they have the monopoly and can crush the competition.

You are ignoring the fact that almost every tourist who takes VIA's land cruse will either board or deboard in Vancouver. Increasing the number of departures of the Canadian (or adding new routes) won't significantly affect the number of tourists taking it overall, they will just be spread out over more departures (The Canadian is the star attraction).

If you do that math again for Saskatoon (an unlikely starting/end point for the tourists):

Toronto has 400 trains a week.
Saskatoon had 6 in 2018.
That is 67.
Saskatoon ridership was 4,289
67x4,289 is 287,363
Toronto's ridership was 2,800,000

And that is assuming Saskatoon could even support 400 trains a week.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What is "significantly slower"? That is up for discussion and is a hard metric to clearly define. The fact that the Corridor is successful with an almost 50% travel time higher than the bus, I'd say that is a good starting point. The bus does C-E in about 4 hours. So, a train should do it in no worse than 6 hours by comparison to a similar Corridor speed.

That 4 hours is to downtown Edmonton. The train hasn't been able to get there since well before the passenger train was cancelled, since The High Level Bridge is no longer structurally sound enough to support more than a small tourist tram.

Besides, I doubt if 6 hours would be possible without significant upgrades. Just look at the Sudbury-White River train. It is 301 km (a bit less than the 308 km the old Calgary-South Edmonton train was), and prior to COVID it took over 8 hours (though granted it has more stops).

[esquire]

^ Wait a minute, how do we know the High Level Bridge is not structurally sound? It's still a major traffic artery in Edmonton.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Wait a minute, how do we know the High Level Bridge is not structurally sound? It's still a major traffic artery in Edmonton.

Rust never sleeps: High Level Bridge too weak for LRT, engineers say

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by roger1818

You are ignoring the fact that almost every tourist who takes VIA's land cruse will either board or deboard in Vancouver. Increasing the number of departures of the Canadian (or adding new routes) won't significantly affect the number of tourists taking it overall, they will just be spread out over more departures (The Canadian is the star attraction).

If you do that math again for Saskatoon (an unlikely starting/end point for the tourists):

Toronto has 400 trains a week.
Saskatoon had 6 in 2018.
That is 67.
Saskatoon ridership was 4,289
67x4,289 is 287,363
Toronto's ridership was 2,800,000

And that is assuming Saskatoon could even support 400 trains a week.

Your math is off. You need the per trip, so, 4,289/6 = 715
715x 67 = 47,893 with 400 trains.

The Majority of he Corridor users are not likely land yacht riders. They may be people who are visiting one place or another for vacation, but the train is not the sole reason for traveling. A better comparison might be London or Kingston as they are similar cities and if rail was restored pre 1990s cuts, Saskatoon could see a train from Regina. Interesting thing, Toronto's population and ridership are about the same, so it might be possible that the number wouldn't be far off.

Now, let's say Saskatoon had a daily from Edmonton, Regina and Winnipeg. That is 6 trains a day, 7 days a week. Or 42 trains a week.
715x42 = 30,030

Even a daily Canadian would double the amount to around 10,000.

Originally Posted by roger1818

That 4 hours is to downtown Edmonton. The train hasn't been able to get there since well before the passenger train was cancelled, since The High Level Bridge is no longer structurally sound enough to support more than a small tourist tram.

Besides, I doubt if 6 hours would be possible without significant upgrades. Just look at the Sudbury-White River train. It is 301 km (a bit less than the 308 km the old Calgary-South Edmonton train was), and prior to COVID it took over 8 hours (though granted it has more stops).

I haven't ridden it yet, but I assume it takes most sidings and doesn't go as fast as the C-E would could do.

As far as downtown Edmonton, what about an underground line going through downtown to the existing Via station?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I have seen similar arguments in the YOW thread. Not sure if it applies to YEG,

YEG is probably worse off than YOW on this front. It's literally on the way to Calgary and YYC. Any downtown rail station would be massively more convenient. Air-rail integration at YYC would reduce demand at YEG, most notably on YEG-YYC.

Originally Posted by roger1818

...but IMHO for YOW, HxR would do the opposite and reduce the number of feeder flights to YYZ (and YUL) and encourage AC (and WS) to provide more direct flights to other destinations to compete with foreign carriers that fly to YYZ and YUL but not YOW and could use HxR to provide better access to the Ottawa market (having a direct flight from a local airport is always better than some type of connection).

YOW is less convenient than Tremblay. And LRT at Tremblay, along with air-rail integration at Dorval would substantially change how Ottawa residents view flying through Dorval. It would definitely change both the number of flights and the mix at YOW.