Quote:
Originally Posted by swimmer_spe
I understand what you are saying, and I think we are saying the same things.
My assumption is the order placed now will replace all existing rolling stock on the Windsor -Quebec City Corridor.You can correct me as to whether what is ordered will be enough.
|
According to
VIA's most recent Corporate Plan (p.34), its annual train mileage is projected to exceed 2019 (i.e. pre-Covid) levels of
6,933,000 train-miles already this year (by 6.6% or 7,394,000 train-miles) and by even 9.9% (7,618,000 train-miles) in 2026. Given that I have no reason to believe that any frequency increases are in the card for the non-Corridor services, this suggests that Corridor services (some 5.4 million scheduled train miles in 2019) will solely account for that 685,000 increase in train miles, which would represent an increase in Corridor mileage by almost 13%.
I can't imagine that my former colleagues would budget for such an increase in train-mileage if the 32 Siemens trainsets were not able to support such an increase in timetable volume...
Quote:
Could the P42s be used to replace the F40s that are needing to be retired? Could they be a stopgap till the new long distance fleet be brought online? Am I right that the replacement tender is just cars, not engines?
|
VIA's current fleet holds some
50 F40s, of which approximately 20 are used in the Corridor service (together with a
similar number of P42s). With the 20 F40s being freed from their Corridor duties, there will be no shortage of F40s to run into the ground on non-Corridor routes, which makes the P42s redundant.
The more pressing reason for the non-Corridor fleet renewal, therefore, is the 70-year old HEP1 fleet, whereas VIA has enough F40s to burn through before the new non-Corridor fleet hopefully arrives...
Quote:
So, if we assume HSR is built TOM, all of the existing rolling stock along there will have to go somewhere.
|
Nobody seems to have any idea what service-levels on the Kingston Subdivision will look like post-Covid, but let's take the frequency map Kingston's mayor Patterson
posted six years ago:
If we compare with the
June 2019 timetable, TRTO-OTTW would decreased 4 train pairs (i.e. from 10 to 6 tpd) and KGON-TRTO by 1 (i.e. from 1 to 0 tpd). Let's also assume that MTRL-OTTW gets absorbed by HSR (that is currently 6 tpd) and that MTRL-QBEC stays the way it is (as I honestly don't see a way to make that viable for HSR, given that the tunnel was enthusiastically surrendered to the REM), the train-mileage for the Siemens trainsets would be reduced (compared to 2019) by 6,320 km per day or 1.4 million train-miles per year:
MTRL-OTTW: 187 km * 6 tpd * 2 directions = 2,244 timetable-km per day
OTTW-TRTO: 446 km * 4 tpd * 2 directions = 3,568 timetable-km per day
KGON-TRTO: 254 km * 1 tpd * 2 directions = 508 timetable-km per day
Compared to the Corridor train-mileage observed in 2019 and projected for 2026, this only represents a decrease by 21% or 19%, respectively. At a fleet size of 32 trainsets, this translates to at most 6 trainsets you could deploy elsewhere...
Quote:
Absolutely correct. Depending on the political landscape, one could see taking the extras and moving them elsewhere. If, for example the E&N survives the next few days, maybe one or 2 are sent there to replace the Budd RDC car. Maybe the same happens with the Sudbury -White River as well; then the RDCs can be retired.
|
The problem with sending Siemens trainsets elsewhere is that you would need to build a new maintenance facility for a tiny fleet of maybe 6 trainsets (or even less, if you split them between Sudbury-White River and Victoria-Courtenay). This requirement would most likely have killed the Northlander Revival, if there wasn't the possibility to simply send the trainsets to VIA's future Siemens maintenance facility in Toronto, but that's way too far from Sudbury or Victoria...
Quote:
The good thing about Toronto, with Metrolinx owning the approaches, and their future plans of an electrified system, if HSR does happen, some of the infrastructure will be there and in the hands of a transit agency, instead of a freight carrier.
|
That's indeed correct, if we ignore the shameful destruction of any Heavy Rail capabilities in the Mont-Royal tunnel...
Quote:
Even then, the energy costs to get hydrogen, regardless of where you get it will make it prohibitive. It isn't that we can't, but whether we should.
|
If I look at the kind of scale of where Hydrogen trains are currently rolled out (relatively short routes covered by self-propelled multiple-unit trainsets), it would indeed be absolutely utopic to bank on the Canadian railway industry to simply swap out diesel locomotives for Hydrogen ones...
Quote:
Originally Posted by swimmer_spe
Here is how I feel this could play out.
Alston's HSR (or any other company's plan for HSR) is approved between TOM.
This would mean 2 things:
1) not ordering the extra 16 trainsets for the Corridor service.
2) New rolling stock between TOM
The rest of the 32 trainsets are moved to the rest of the Corridor to be able to add frequency.
If Via can get funding, and if it is seen that the Corridor has a surplus of trainsets, they may expand. The Prairies and the Mairitimes are the most likely places to see additional service.
Using the Northlander as a template for the number of trainsets needed, the Maritime service would need 3 sets, C-E would need 2-3, and the rest of the Prairies would need 5-10.
And then there is the possibility that the RDCs for the Sudbury - White River and the E&N are replaced with these as well.
Yes, a lot of this is fantasy, but much of that fantasy is rooted in real possibilities based on the reality of the rolling stock of Via and the desire to change parts of Via into better service.
|
As we've seen above, we are talking about at most 6 trainsets which could be redeployed, provided we are prepared to build a brand-new maintenance facility ($$$).
Quote:
Originally Posted by swimmer_spe
All of this talk of hydrogen as a fuel source makes me wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to build new power plants and begin stringing wires to have electric trains.
|
The impact of rail electrification on national energy consumption would be rather negligible. To provide some figures from Germany, Deutsche Bahn
consumes some 10 terawatt-hours of electricity every year, less than 2% of German's
total electricity consumption of approximately 560 terawatt-hours...