VIA Rail

[thewave46]

Hence the concept of ‘rough guide’.

Rail conceptually sucks in Northern Ontario, even with ‘dangerous’ 2-lane highways.

Why? Let me name the ways:

1. High level of automobile ownership, acceptance of the risk of driving, and cultural acknowledgment of driving long distances.
2. Smaller and more dispersed populations that don’t travel much between the various cities within the region. When they do, they often end up in a place that one needs a vehicle to get around.
3. The highest traffic volume highways are being improved.
4. The fact that long-distance bus service was so marginal a business case that the private sector got out of it. It’s now a subsidized government service.
5. The speed advantage of flying over longer distances.
6. Rail cannot serve smaller towns very efficiently.

Passenger rail is optimized for large volumes of passengers moving between higher-density, spaced apart nodes. In short, it is optimally suited for anti-Northern Ontario development patterns.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Passenger rail is optimized for large volumes of passengers moving between higher-density, spaced apart nodes. In short, it is optimally suited for anti-Northern Ontario development patterns.

Or places where other options are limited (i.e. the same economics as a ferry). North of Cochrane it is train only already, so there are a bunch of car-less passengers getting off the Polar Bear express that are looking to get somewhere.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by thewave46

But trains!

But let’s rehash here for optimal mode of transport. There is two axes that matter: population and distance.

This is a rough guide:

<500 km between smaller towns and larger centre: bus
<500 km between medium-sized city and larger metro: higher frequency bus/regular speed rail
500-1000 km between major metros: high speed rail
>1000 km between large cities: airplane

Anything outside of those parameters generally requires an increasing subsidy or is iffy from a viability standpoint. A lot of <500km demand is annihilated by private automobile, as is a lot of demand from smaller places for the same reason.

My inner cynic says the Ford government will introduce the Northlander to Timmins for a bit, watch it flop (because most will still either drive/fly) and then the next government will use the rolling stock for GO.

I'm still not very convinced that passenger rail service will actually happen. It's not something that most people in Timmins are very excited about anyways.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Or places where other options are limited (i.e. the same economics as a ferry). North of Cochrane it is train only already, so there are a bunch of car-less passengers getting off the Polar Bear express that are looking to get somewhere.

True, but this is a very edge-case legacy service.

It is cheaper than building a highway and leverages existing infrastructure.

I just view passenger rail to communities in Northern Ontario like using 747s to fly passengers around the northern reaches of the province. Possible, but hideously inefficient and underused when better alternatives exist.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Hence the concept of ‘rough guide’.

Rail conceptually sucks in Northern Ontario, even with ‘dangerous’ 2-lane highways.

Why? Let me name the ways:

1. High level of automobile ownership, acceptance of the risk of driving, and cultural acknowledgment of driving long distances.
2. Smaller and more dispersed populations that don’t travel much between the various cities within the region. When they do, they often end up in a place that one needs a vehicle to get around.
3. The highest traffic volume highways are being improved.
4. The fact that long-distance bus service was so marginal a business case that the private sector got out of it. It’s now a subsidized government service.
5. The speed advantage of flying over longer distances.
6. Rail cannot serve smaller towns very efficiently.

Passenger rail is optimized for large volumes of passengers moving between higher-density, spaced apart nodes. In short, it is optimally suited for anti-Northern Ontario development patterns.

1) That is very true. Most own at least 1, and many have a second which is usually a truck. We have these large 4x4 vehicles specifically because of the risks of driving. If there was an alternative, this may not be the case.

2) They would be traveling to the cities of Timmins, North Bay, Sudbury, Ottawa and the GTA. Many of those small towns have rail stations that would connect to some of those places. Some of those places have transit that is/could be connected to the train station.

3) 2+1 is not really an improvement.

4) In bad weather, how much safer us a bus?

5) Reminds me of the time I was flying from North Bay to Victoria. I had booked the first flight out of North Bay so I can get home at a decent time in Victoria. I managed to get on the last flight of the day out of North Bay due to fog. This was just after Christmas. So, flying is not much better than the bus or driving.

6) Most towns along Highway 11 north of North Bay have a station in town.


Multiple trains a day is not likely to be a success, but a train a day may be. We shall see whether it is.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Or places where other options are limited (i.e. the same economics as a ferry). North of Cochrane it is train only already, so there are a bunch of car-less passengers getting off the Polar Bear express that are looking to get somewhere.

Don;t forget all the ones who have heir cars loaded on flatbeds too. Not suggesting that for the Northlander, but too many assume there are not reasonable solutions.

Originally Posted by Loco101

I'm still not very convinced that passenger rail service will actually happen. It's not something that most people in Timmins are very excited about anyways.

That is likely why everyone is not enthused about it. They think it will be yet another broken promise by a government that forgets them.

[thewave46]

Sit there and think of the people you know. How many would actually do these things, even if they existed.

When I do that, it completely falls apart for me with respect to Northern Ontario and smaller regions of the country.

A group of people who can’t be arsed to waddle into Tim Hortons and instead idle a truck through a drive-thru are not a people who will use any form of train/bus if they can drive somewhere.

The bus is a legacy service provided by government to those who don’t drive for those regions.

Spend the money elsewhere and get actual usage.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Sit there and think of the people you know. How many would actually do these things, even if they existed.

When I do that, it completely falls apart for me with respect to Northern Ontario and smaller regions of the country.

A group of people who can’t be arsed to waddle into Tim Hortons and instead idle a truck through a drive-thru are not a people who will use any form of train/bus if they can drive somewhere.

The bus is a legacy service provided by government to those who don’t drive for those regions.

Spend the money elsewhere and get actual usage.

I know of family and friends that will utilize this service. Most of them are elderly.

The attitude of spending the money elsewhere is why most people still won't believe it is coming till it shows up in the station.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by thewave46

But trains!

But let’s rehash here for optimal mode of transport. There is two axes that matter: population and distance.

This is a rough guide:

<500 km between smaller towns and larger centre: bus
<500 km between medium-sized city and larger metro: higher frequency bus/regular speed rail
500-1000 km between major metros: high speed rail
>1000 km between large cities: airplane

Anything outside of those parameters generally requires an increasing subsidy or is iffy from a viability standpoint. A lot of <500km demand is annihilated by private automobile, as is a lot of demand from smaller places for the same reason.

There's actually empirical modeling on where rail is effective. It's more about travel time.

According to Peter Jorritsma, the rail market share s, as compared to planes, can be computed approximately as a function of the travelling time in minutes t by the logistic formula



According to this formula, a journey time of three hours yields a 65% market share, not taking into account any price differential in tickets.

In Japan, there is a so-called "4-hour wall" in high-speed rail's market share: If the high-speed rail journey time exceeds 4 hours, then people likely choose planes over high-speed rail. For instance, from Tokyo to Osaka, a 2h22m-journey by Shinkansen, high-speed rail has an 85% market share whereas planes have 15%. From Tokyo to Hiroshima, a 3h44m-journey by Shinkansen, high-speed rail has a 67% market share whereas planes have 33%. The situation is the reverse on the Tokyo to Fukuoka route where high-speed rail takes 4h47m and rail only has 10% market share and planes 90%.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail

• Video Link

Aside from travel time, there's also absolute demand. A good way to gauge that is using the gravity model (P1*P2 / d^2). And when you apply today, it's really hard to justify rail service to a lot of places. Especially if the infrastructure is poor and travel times and fares are excessive. I don't think regular rail service is really useful unless you have several cities along the line with six figure populations and a service that is at least as quick as driving.

Originally Posted by thewave46

My inner cynic says the Ford government will introduce the Northlander to Timmins for a bit, watch it flop (because most will still either drive/fly) and then the next government will use the rolling stock for GO.

Can't see it. Operating subsidies aren't huge. And three diesel trainsets is pretty useless to a GO service that is about to go through a $12B program with substantial electrification.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

My father worked for CNR too. I count myself a rail fan, and have a history of train travel when I was younger.

The speed limit you mention is based on track condition, and does not include the Halifax/Moncton/Saint John corridor.

For political reasons, VIA does not use the CNR mainline from Moncton to central Canada via Grand Falls and Edmundston. Instead, VIA is mandated to follow the less used and poorly maintained trackage northward to Miramichi, Bathurst, Campbellton and Rimouski. The section between Miramichi and Bathurst in particular carries no freight, and is falling apart. There is a hard speed limit here. This is what you are probably referring to. This is not relevant to the conversation, other than by pointing out that if VIA could use the main line to QC from Moncton, they could probably cut 4-5 hours off the duration of the Ocean journey from Halifax to Montreal.

The advantage of the current route is there is less freight interference. The down side is the state of repair. If the frequency was changed back to daily service improvements to the route would be more practical. One only has to look at how much money the QC government is spending on the Gaspe route and how little Canada has contributed. We need some federal investment in railways all over Canada, not just in the corridor. Via would need more rolling stock which it will require anyhow. The current route services a higher population since there is nothing between Moncton and Grand Falls.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by thewave46

True, but this is a very edge-case legacy service.

It is cheaper than building a highway and leverages existing infrastructure.

I just view passenger rail to communities in Northern Ontario like using 747s to fly passengers around the northern reaches of the province. Possible, but hideously inefficient and underused when better alternatives exist.

We’re not talking about building a new railway from scratch. The Ontario Government already owns the track, it was used for passenger rail until 2012 (unlike some of the other zany schemes we have seen which haven’t been used in decades) and it has to run the Polar Bear express anyway because there is no road. It also operates the bus service, so it is subsidizing transportation whether it is rail or bus. So the main question is what is the difference in cost between between running a bus and running a train. I have no doubt the train is more, but the difference might be a number small enough that it doesn’t bother a politician.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by acottawa

We’re not talking about building a new railway from scratch. The Ontario Government already owns the track, it was used for passenger rail until 2012 (unlike some of the other zany schemes we have seen which haven’t been used in decades) and it has to run the Polar Bear express anyway because there is no road. It also operates the bus service, so it is subsidizing transportation whether it is rail or bus. So the main question is what is the difference in cost between between running a bus and running a train. I have no doubt the train is more, but the difference might be a number small enough that it doesn’t bother a politician.

I doubt the buses along Highway 11 will be shut down.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by acottawa

We’re not talking about building a new railway from scratch. The Ontario Government already owns the track, it was used for passenger rail until 2012 (unlike some of the other zany schemes we have seen which haven’t been used in decades) and it has to run the Polar Bear express anyway because there is no road. It also operates the bus service, so it is subsidizing transportation whether it is rail or bus. So the main question is what is the difference in cost between between running a bus and running a train. I have no doubt the train is more, but the difference might be a number small enough that it doesn’t bother a politician.

My argument against it goes thus:

Ontario Northland - at the best of times - made small, yet politically palatable financial losses. Those losses widened in the early 2010s.

This was their operations prior the the Northlander shutdown:


The province had financial issues post-2009 recession, and duplicate train and bus services seemed a luxury when it missed most of the large population centres of the region, aside from North Bay.

However, the private sector (Greyhound) pulled out of the Northern Ontario (and indeed, Canadian) market a few years ago, there was a bit of an issue for connectivity and Ontario Northland's remit expanded to this:



I approve of this because in lieu of a duplicate train line because it covers the whole northern region with service.

Now we go back to the duplicate train, because (political) reasons. The province is in somewhat better financial condition (as much as a jurisdiction with $400+ billion of debt can be) so it spends a pile of money to run trains. Again. Until the next financial problem.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by thewave46

My argument against it goes thus:

Ontario Northland - at the best of times - made small, yet politically palatable financial losses. Those losses widened in the early 2010s.

This was their operations prior the the Northlander shutdown:


The province had financial issues post-2009 recession, and duplicate train and bus services seemed a luxury when it missed most of the large population centres of the region, aside from North Bay.

However, the private sector (Greyhound) pulled out of the Northern Ontario (and indeed, Canadian) market a few years ago, there was a bit of an issue for connectivity and Ontario Northland's remit expanded to this:

I approve of this because in lieu of a duplicate train line because it covers the whole northern region with service.

Now we go back to the duplicate train, because (political) reasons. The province is in somewhat better financial condition (as much as a jurisdiction with $400+ billion of debt can be) so it spends a pile of money to run trains. Again. Until the next financial problem.

Given the amount of money that the McGuinty government pissed away it is hard to see the original cancellation as anything but political, particularly since the communities affected all voted NDP or Tory (and it was no coincidence both parties pledged to bring the service back).

I don’t know what the operating costs are like for the new service. I would speculate that they would be lower since the rolling stock is new, the locomotives are much more efficient than the ones they used to use and Via (which bought the same train) is doing the maintenance.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I don’t know what the operating costs are like for the new service. I would speculate that they would be lower since the rolling stock is new, the locomotives are much more efficient than the ones they used to use and Via (which bought the same train) is doing the maintenance.

The Ontario government actually published a fairly detailed business case*, and the 20 year costs for the project as chosen (option 1A, table 23) is around the $540-$600 million mark. All the options, in terms of whether to buy used or new, or terminate in Timmins or Cochrane, all kind of fell in the same ballpark.

It's a bit of a boondoggle, but not a major one. About half of the upfront cost is fixed capital that you can't move or sell, and the cost of the trainsets was actually slightly cheaper than the business case estimate ($139.5 million vs. $142M).


*That's more than can be said for HFR. The Federal government gave the JPO $70 million to do engineering reports/studies that so far have yielded nothing, and it looks like that kind of stuff will be done by the selected private partner anyway. In other words, ONR was able to purchase 3 new trainsets for double the cost of the money the Feds' spent on non existing HFR engineering reports.

[Truenorth00]

The business case basically says that beyond initial capital costs, it's $14-15M per year in operating costs. I'm not sure why a public service not breaking even is a "boondoggle".

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The business case basically says that beyond initial capital costs, it's $14-15M per year in operating costs. I'm not sure why a public service not breaking even is a "boondoggle".

I mean, the operating cost ratio of the existing bus (all ONR bus services) is 0.8, and this train is 0.35 (quoted on pp. 61-63), and they admit that any growth in revenue will always be outpaced by growth in operating costs, so I don't see how this doesn't meet the dictionary definition of a boondoggle. Still, this is pretty minor, and I don't have a problem throwing a bone at Northern Ontario.

At the end of the day, the technical people who have to mop up after politicians make campaign promises did a pretty good job. They chose a trainset that VIA already did the heavy lifting for: the testing and certification, the maintenance centre, etc. Worse comes to worst, you can always sell or lease the equipment to them. They chose a schedule where the trains run the North Bay to Timmins leg during the night so you can arrive or leave from Toronto at a normal time, and you don't have to invest heavily in infrastructure for better trip times.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

*That's more than can be said for HFR. The Federal government gave the JPO $70 million to do engineering reports/studies that so far have yielded nothing, and it looks like that kind of stuff will be done by the selected private partner anyway. In other words, ONR was able to purchase 3 new trainsets for double the cost of the money the Feds' spent on non existing HFR engineering reports.

Just because you’ve never seen these studies, doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. I can personally attest of the existance of considerable amounts of Engineering Reports prepared for HFR, even though I’m unfortunately not authorized to disclose any details about them…

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I mean, the operating cost ratio of the existing bus (all ONR bus services) is 0.8, and this train is 0.35 (quoted on pp. 61-63), and they admit that any growth in revenue will always be outpaced by growth in operating costs, so I don't see how this doesn't meet the dictionary definition of a boondoggle. Still, this is pretty minor, and I don't have a problem throwing a bone at Northern Ontario.

The dictionary definition is "work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value."

The government choosing a slightly more expensive option that is a rounding error in the province's transportation budget isn't a boondoggle.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The dictionary definition is "work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value."

The government choosing a slightly more expensive option that is a rounding error in the province's transportation budget isn't a boondoggle.

Boondoggle is an overstatement, but one might think that $140 million of upfront costs and $14-15 million annual subsidy could be used more wisely for things that region of Northern Ontario needs and will use more. Things like improved highways or long-term care facilities.

Especially when it literally has a duplicate service that competes for the same passenger, but said service has a much better cost recovery.

Like I said, it will be interesting to see where the province hacks away in Northern Ontario when the financial situation gets wobbly again.