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Originally Posted by swimmer_spe
The fact that its newest in the fleet are due for replacement, and the older fleet needs buffer cars only support the fact that there is a good chance that any new tech will be purchased in 20 years.
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Locomotives and passenger rail cars typically have an economic lifespan of 40 years, with locomotives requiring a "rebuilt" after approximately 20 years and passenger rail cars a "refurbishment". However, sometimes you need to retire passenger rail equipment earlier and VIA's Renaissance (corrosion damages and low reliability) and LRC (structural problems and safety concerns) fleets are cases-in-point. Similarly, the LRC locomotives were prematurely retired (most after only 10-15 years in service) due to their
mechanical and technical problems and glitches.
The P42s, on the other hand, will only be retired already after just 20 years because the Siemens Chargers will replace all Corridor locomotives, which will cause a surplus of F40s and therefore makes the P42s redundant, just at the time where they would be due for a rebuilt. With the Chargers and the Ventures being very proven designs, there is no reason to believe that they will need to get replaced in 20 years time...
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However, if the Alstom HSR bid is chosen, There will need to be a new fleet for it anyways.
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If HSR (i.e. speeds in excess of 200 km/h, for which the Siemens trainsets are not specified) gets chosen for HFR, you will still need a similar number of trainsets for non-HFR routes (e.g. QBEC-DRMV-MTRL, MTRL/OTTW-KGON-TRTO and Southwestern Ontario), as HFR would have anyways required the delivery of 16
additional trainsets, as the delivery of 32 trainsets only replaces the
existing Corridor fleet.
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Maybe by then, Via will be ready for expansion of Corridor like service, outside of the Corridor. The Prairies and the Maritimes would be a potential area.
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Independently from the fleet question, that's not VIA's decision to make, but that of the federal government and its bureaucrats, which define what services fit into VIA's mandate ("near-commercial" Corridor services, a Transcontinental service ensuring minimum connectivity between both ends of the country and Remote services to certain designated "remote" areas) and which one's don't (anything which doesn't fall under these categories). If you fault VIA for not restoring services which lie outside its mandate, you are unfortunately barking up the wrong tree...
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I'd suspect that for any HSR service, they will be on their own tracks. If that is the case, why would they not use overhead wires?
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HSR
speeds require own tracks (but only beyond 160 mph), but HSR
trains don't depend on them unless they operate at HSR speeds:
The ability of HSR trains to leverage the legacy rail network (except in countries like Japan and Spain, which built their legacy rail network in non-standard gauges) is the main reason why Maglevs have failed so spectacularly at superseding HSR, exactly because this inter-operability allows HSR to share tracks with urban and freight services where real estate is the most expensive and their speeds would be low anyways, i.e. on the approaches to downtown terminal stations like Gare Centrale or Union Station...