VIA Rail

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I don't think a national HSR in Canada really deserves serious consideration. There just isn't the right conditions to warrant it across most of the country outside the QC - Windsor corridor and maybe the Alberta metropolitan corridor. It needs to connect two or more population centres that are large enough to have strong demand, far enough apart that the high speed makes a meaningful difference, but not so far apart that the increased speed is still unable to compete with flying.

I would say the main limitations for rail in Canada are that we don't have a good framework for consistently incrementally improving service and infrastructure, and (related) most places don't have a functional public transportation network that can feed into and incorporate passenger rail as a major transport modality.

The population argument isn't completely wrong but you can have 10x shifts in ability to build infrastructure (cost, delays, political will, etc.) or demand (not just "do people want this given how things are" but questions like "does a subway take you to the station in 15 minutes or is it a 1 hour drive?"). The main difference between Canada and Spain or Scandinavia isn't that we don't have big enough cities or they are too sparse. Finland has a 200 km/h rail line running to its 5th largest city Oulu, population 200k or so.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

https://johnnyrenton.substack.com/p/...ndroid&r=f2a8y

Saw this posted elsewhere. Would there be a net benefit to this line being given to the ONR? Could this be a good reason to extend the service to Toronto and Winnipeg?

As a federal taxpayer based outside of Ontario, I certainly wouldn’t object against offloading this service from federally-funded VIA Rail to provincially-funded Ontario Northland. However, if your hope is to expand this service across a provincial border, I‘m not sure I‘d be too enthusiastic about passing this service from a federally-regulated railroad to a provincially-regulated one…

Originally Posted by someone123

I would say the main limitations for rail in Canada are that we don't have a good framework for consistently incrementally improving service and infrastructure, and (related) most places don't have a functional public transportation network that can feed into and incorporate passenger rail as a major transport modality.

The population argument isn't completely wrong but you can have 10x shifts in ability to build infrastructure (cost, delays, political will, etc.) or demand (not just "do people want this given how things are" but questions like "does a subway take you to the station in 15 minutes or is it a 1 hour drive?"). The main difference between Canada and Spain or Scandinavia isn't that we don't have big enough cities or they are too sparse. Finland has a 200 km/h rail line running to its 5th largest city Oulu, population 200k or so.

Indeed, once you only look at Ontario and Quebec and exclude the virtually uninhabited Northern parts (i.e. Ontario‘s Kenora district and Nord-du-Quebec), then your porpulation density lands you somewhere between Norway‘s and Finland‘s. However, the problem remains that nothing like that can be said about any other region of relevant size in Canada…

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

As a federal taxpayer based outside of Ontario, I certainly wouldn’t object against offloading this service from federally-funded VIA Rail to provincially-funded Ontario Northland. However, if your hope is to expand this service across a provincial border, I‘m not sure I‘d be too enthusiastic about passing this service from a federally-regulated railroad to a provincially-regulated one…

ONR had both a provincial license and a federal license. The federal license is under Nipissing Central, which owns the line to Rouyn-Noranda From Kirkland Lake. Does this change anything for you?

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

ONR had both a provincial license and a federal license. The federal license is under Nipissing Central, which owns the line to Rouyn-Noranda From Kirkland Lake. Does this change anything for you?

ONR doesn’t have two licenses: they just happen to own a subsidiary which needs to operate under a federal license to venture into Quebec. ONR already has only limited experience in operating passenger trains, but having to contract a subsidiary without any experiences of that kind invites all kinds of complexities…

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

I would say the main limitations for rail in Canada are that we don't have a good framework for consistently incrementally improving service and infrastructure, and (related) most places don't have a functional public transportation network that can feed into and incorporate passenger rail as a major transport modality.

The population argument isn't completely wrong but you can have 10x shifts in ability to build infrastructure (cost, delays, political will, etc.) or demand (not just "do people want this given how things are" but questions like "does a subway take you to the station in 15 minutes or is it a 1 hour drive?"). The main difference between Canada and Spain or Scandinavia isn't that we don't have big enough cities or they are too sparse. Finland has a 200 km/h rail line running to its 5th largest city Oulu, population 200k or so.

Yes we would have (and used to have) much better rail service if there was a steady, long term commitment to improvements and upgrades. I was mostly thinking of new HSR corridors and building new tends to have a much higher threshold for feasibility. According to the HSR wiki article, 200km/h isn't even considered HSR for a new corridor with the threshold for that being at least 250km/h. I think the main difference between us and a place like Finland (or Europe in general) is that our existing tracks are mostly dominated by freight, and freight and HSR don't always co-exist well on the same tracks. Sometimes HSR tracks lean too much on curves, but also freight causes more track wear and HSR needs tracks of the highest quality. Plus freight is much slower and adds delays. I've heard it quoted that Canada has more freight on rail than all of the EU combined so in Europe it isn't as much of an obstacle.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

Indeed, once you only look at Ontario and Quebec and exclude the virtually uninhabited Northern parts (i.e. Ontario‘s Kenora district and Nord-du-Quebec), then your porpulation density lands you somewhere between Norway‘s and Finland‘s. However, the problem remains that nothing like that can be said about any other region of relevant size in Canada…

Wikipedia says Finland and Norway are around 15 per square km and Southern Ontario is around 120 per square km. PEI is about 25 per square km.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

Wikipedia says Finland and Norway are around 15 per square km and Southern Ontario is around 120 per square km. PEI is about 25 per square km.

Do Finland and Norway cover the whole country with rail?

I think it's more relevant to look at what percentage of the population are served by their networks. This requires certain standards to measure against. But I think that's a more like-for-like comparison.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Do Finland and Norway cover the whole country with rail?

Sure. I'm just saying that example, which makes it sound like the largest population concentration of Canada is equivalent to Finland, is misleading. It's the corridors that matter. The wider point is that there are a bunch of variables like ability to incrementally build on improvements or construct meaningful networks that aren't in place in most of Canada. I don't agree that we have hit some kind of theoretical ceiling for supporting a well-managed passenger rail network given the population density we have (which is exploding right now without a commensurate increase in infrastructure).

As far as HSR goes I bet a lot of places would get there first by building 50-200 km/h rail services even if the infrastructure is different, if only due to the political/economic and network effects (i.e. if jurisdiction A says "let's try to consistently fund improvements to rail and transit", while B says "let's do HSR", A will likely beat B to HSR). Right now in the Lower Mainland it often takes 2 hours to go from Vancouver to Chilliwack, a distance of 100 km or so; we don't need maglev trains to beat that.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

ONR doesn’t have two licenses: they just happen to own a subsidiary which needs to operate under a federal license to venture into Quebec. ONR already has only limited experience in operating passenger trains, but having to contract a subsidiary without any experiences of that kind invites all kinds of complexities…

A few things:

1) ONTC is the company that everything is under. ONR is what is seen for all trains on the routes they operate on. Whether it be freight, the Polar Bear Express, or the future Northlander, they all operate with ONR livery.

2) All rail operations are based out of Englehart. Their head office is in North Bay, but the main rail operations are based in Englehart. This means all crews are based out of there. In Cochrane and North Bay, they do have some, but they first operated out of the Englehart yard office.

3) All new hires are trained on all routes, including the NCR sections.

So, what would happen is people would be hired and trained to operate on the CP sections. They may even contract out to CP till enough people are trained to do it.

Having said that, I doubt it would ever happen. We shall see what happens when the new train replaces the existing Budd cars.

[Vin]

Anyone knows when VIA will officially run the new Alstom intercity train between the Montreal-Quebec City route? Looks like they are testing the train right now.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by Vin

Anyone knows when VIA will officially run the new Alstom intercity train between the Montreal-Quebec City route? Looks like they are testing the train right now.

Alstom manufactured the Hydrogen-powered trainset currently tested in revenue service on the Train de Charlevoix tourist train, which has been designed for low-demand regional service Conversely, VIA converts its Corridor fleet to Siemens trainsets, which are already gradually entering service and are actually designed for the needs of intercity travellers…

[Truenorth00]

^ Could this train set work on the White River, Jonquière and Senneterre routes?

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

^ Could this train set work on the White River, Jonquière and Senneterre routes?

Given that it is neither FRA- nor TC-conpliant and presumably only operates along the Saint-Lawrence because of the absence of any other trains it could collide with („temporal separation“), I can‘t imagine it operating anywhere else in Canada (though Vancouver Island would have been a plausible deployment), except maybe as a Gaspé shuttle (if VIA lacks the equipment for a continuous Montreal-Gaspé train). Besides, due to their geography, „Remote Routes“ might be the last route you would want to deploy innovative (i.e. immature) propulsion systems…

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

Given that it is neither FRA- nor TC-conpliant and presumably only operates along the Saint-Lawrence because of the absence of any other trains it could collide with („temporal separation“), I can‘t imagine it operating anywhere else in Canada (though Vancouver Island would have been a plausible deployment), except maybe as a Gaspé shuttle (if VIA lacks the equipment for a continuous Montreal-Gaspé train). Besides, due to their geography, „Remote Routes“ might be the last route you would want to deploy innovative (i.e. immature) propulsion systems…

The Sudbury -White River route is not that remote, but seems like it because it passes through forest. It is a heavily used line that would allow for a reasonably quick rescue if needed. Charlevoix would be more remote when it comes to breaking down.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The Sudbury -White River route is not that remote, but seems like it because it passes through forest. It is a heavily used line that would allow for a reasonably quick rescue if needed. Charlevoix would be more remote when it comes to breaking down.

The problem is not just emergency evacuation, but also fuel resupply. Alstom claims the reach of their „iLint“ is 1,000 without refuelling - a Sudbury-White River round trip is 968 km and can encounter much lower temperature levels than what you would have to expect in France or Germany. Do you happen to know of any hydrogen suppliers in White River or Chapleau…?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

The problem is not just emergency evacuation, but also fuel resupply. Alstom claims the reach of their „iLint“ is 1,000 without refuelling - a Sudbury-White River round trip is 968 km and can encounter much lower temperature levels than what you would have to expect in France or Germany. Do you happen to know of any hydrogen suppliers in White River or Chapleau…?

White River is on the Trans Canada highway and as such could be set up for hydrogen refueling. I don't want it, but I can see the merit of it.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

White River is on the Trans Canada highway and as such could be set up for hydrogen refueling. I don't want it, but I can see the merit of it.

That‘s a discussion which might be worth having once any rolling stock manufacturer starts producing hydrogen trainsets which either the FRA or TC approves for any mainline application…

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

That‘s a discussion which might be worth having once any rolling stock manufacturer starts producing hydrogen trainsets which either the FRA or TC approves for any mainline application…

Has it been stated explicitly that this one won't meet those?

[casper]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

Given that it is neither FRA- nor TC-conpliant and presumably only operates along the Saint-Lawrence because of the absence of any other trains it could collide with („temporal separation“), I can‘t imagine it operating anywhere else in Canada (though Vancouver Island would have been a plausible deployment), except maybe as a Gaspé shuttle (if VIA lacks the equipment for a continuous Montreal-Gaspé train). Besides, due to their geography, „Remote Routes“ might be the last route you would want to deploy innovative (i.e. immature) propulsion systems…

There is a group in BC proposing this in Fraser Valley. It would use a line that is owned by the province but is leased to CN as part of the BC Rail deal. It is a weird lightly used line that was built for an interurban many years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zunLMJY_-aI

Given no provincial or municipal government official is willing to offer any comment on this "proposal" it is likely more a fantasy than anything else. However it is a hydrogen rail fantasy.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by casper

There is a group in BC proposing this in Fraser Valley. It would use a line that is owned by the province but is leased to CN as part of the BC Rail deal. It is a weird lightly used line that was built for an interurban many years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zunLMJY_-aI

Given no provincial or municipal government official is willing to offer any comment on this "proposal" it is likely more a fantasy than anything else. However it is a hydrogen rail fantasy.

Given the power requirements to get hydrogen, or the need to drill for NG to get hydrogen, I do not see it as the future. I feel the future is electric. Whether that be overhead wires or batteries or both, it is the future.