VIA Rail

[J81]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

So, you work for VIA, eh? Based on your arrogance and combativeness on this thread - not just to me, but to others - I'm getting a good glimpse into your company's culture, and it shows in your product.

It doesn't matter that you think trains depart Union station very frequently. First of all, they don't. Second of all, if you're traveling to Ottawa, you don't care how many trains leave Union Station. You care how many trains leave Union station for Ottawa. Right now, there are 2 that leave before noon. There is nothing that gets you into Ottawa in time to have a full day of productivity. I work two blocks from Union Station, and everyone I work with who travels to Montreal or Ottawa flies. If VIA can't take the hint, the last 15 years have seen the advent of Toronto City Centre Airport, the Union Pearson Express, and - for people with less money - frequent Megabus departures to Montreal. VIA is leaving all these passengers on the table.

You don't have to write a paragraph-long screed to convince me that uncoupling a train in Brockville lengthens the travel time beyond 4.5 hours. To the traveling public, all they know is they're wasting time on some siding for ten minutes.

Let me be blunt: VIA runs dated, unreliable trains in a market with a huge latent demand for better intercity rail service. VIA can blame uncooperative freight operators all they want. The truth is, where there's a will, there's a way. There are countless stories of pariah organizations that turned themselves around and got the political and financial capital to do what they wanted to do.

We live in a country where an increasing portion of the country's elite lives and works downtown, where there are huge institutional investors, and where there are short line operators and abandoned rail rights of way that are almost just lying around waiting for offers. Get someone who can put two and two together.

PS: Run something useful in Western Canada and the Maritimes. Even a bus. You're wasting a lot of political goodwill in our fractured federation by concentrating all your chips in Southern Ontario and Quebec.

Lol im being combative? Have you listened to yourself? Your name says it all. You clearly know more about the subject then i do having taken the train all of 1 time to ottawa. If you work 2 blocks from Union and prefer to fly than take the train i guess thats your preference. But dont come on her spewing untruths based on your opinion.

You refuse to listen to facts ive provided so carry on being ill informed. It’s useless for me to change your mind because it is clearly made up.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Let me be blunt: VIA runs dated, unreliable trains in a market with a huge latent demand for better intercity rail service. VIA can blame uncooperative freight operators all they want. The truth is, where there's a will, there's a way.

Yeah, the bottom line is the service levels are poor even in parts of the country like Southern Ontario which could support really good rail service. If you travel to other developed countries VIA starts to look pretty bad. To add insult to injury some of the routes that do exist are impractical, and there is little rhyme or reason to which places have service (a real example of a reason is probably something along the lines of whether an area voted for the Liberals or PCs in the early 90's).

PS: Run something useful in Western Canada and the Maritimes. Even a bus. You're wasting a lot of political goodwill in our fractured federation by concentrating all your chips in Southern Ontario and Quebec.

The Maritimes used to have Acadian lines and now they have a company called Maritime Bus. I don't know much about it but it seems fine, it's been running reliably since buses were a thing, and it serves practical routes (which are not very long and run through populated areas) like if you want to get from Moncton to Charlottetown or get from Truro to YHZ. I am sure this bus service could be "VIA-ified" into nothingness by moving control to somewhere like Montreal and adding a bunch of arbitrary constraints to its operation. If that were to happen I am sure we'd hear excuses about why bus service in the Maritimes is really hard to do and people there should be happy that there's a twice weekly milk run from Yarmouth to Caraquet.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Let me be blunt: VIA runs dated, unreliable trains in a market with a huge latent demand for better intercity rail service. VIA can blame uncooperative freight operators all they want. The truth is, where there's a will, there's a way. There are countless stories of pariah organizations that turned themselves around and got the political and financial capital to do what they wanted to do.

We live in a country where an increasing portion of the country's elite lives and works downtown, where there are huge institutional investors, and where there are short line operators and abandoned rail rights of way that are almost just lying around waiting for offers. Get someone who can put two and two together.

You write this out as if it is simple and easy, but why do you think it is? VIA is given a mandate by the federal government to do certain things, and a budget to do it with. If that budget barely stretches to buy new trains while they are forced to run services to BF nowhere, how can they be to blame when they can't afford to buy new trains, can't afford to spend billions building the new railways required, and definitely can't afford to start up new services in western Canada? Passenger rail is a subsidized endeavour, it will rarely make a profit on its own, so VIA can't just go to investors to get money as you imply, the federal government has to give them it.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

You write this out as if it is simple and easy, but why do you think it is? VIA is given a mandate by the federal government to do certain things, and a budget to do it with. If that budget barely stretches to buy new trains while they are forced to run services to BF nowhere, how can they be to blame when they can't afford to buy new trains, can't afford to spend billions building the new railways required, and definitely can't afford to start up new services in western Canada? Passenger rail is a subsidized endeavour, it will rarely make a profit on its own, so VIA can't just go to investors to get money as you imply, the federal government has to give them it.

Arguably, the single biggest problem is government financial support. Ignoring the Corridor service, the rest are set up such that they will never really generate more customers. For a simple example, the Sudbury - White River train does not connect to the Canadian, even though they are within 10-20 km of each other.

For the longer trains that are serving larger centres, like the Canadian and Ocean, they are nor run each day, which means they are harder to make work for use outside of vacationers.

An example for me is the Canadian. I'd love to hop on it on a Friday and go down to Toronto, and then hop on it to come home on a Sunday. So, car, bus or plane it is.

This is why I see a sliver of hope for Via. With a minority government focused on climate change, Via is a viable service to lower our carbon footprint.

[Nouvellecosse]

Is government financial support a major problem for other public transportation operators too? Should the TTC and STM et al not get government funding?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Arguably, the single biggest problem is government financial support. Ignoring the Corridor service, the rest are set up such that they will never really generate more customers. For a simple example, the Sudbury - White River train does not connect to the Canadian, even though they are within 10-20 km of each other.

For the longer trains that are serving larger centres, like the Canadian and Ocean, they are nor run each day, which means they are harder to make work for use outside of vacationers.

An example for me is the Canadian. I'd love to hop on it on a Friday and go down to Toronto, and then hop on it to come home on a Sunday. So, car, bus or plane it is.

This is why I see a sliver of hope for Via. With a minority government focused on climate change, Via is a viable service to lower our carbon footprint.

The Canadian isn't intended to be a non tourist service though. Trying to make it one doesn't really achieve much while diminishing the primary purpose of that service. If there is a demand for other passenger rail in the places the Canadian runs, you'd be better off running separate trains (or buses).

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Is government financial support a major problem for other public transportation operators too? Should the TTC and STM et al not get government funding?

They do get government funding.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Is government financial support a major problem for other public transportation operators too? Should the TTC and STM et al not get government funding?

Other transit systems have far greater ridership, that is far more concentrated amongst more vocal (richer) people. VIA carries 4 million or so people every year, Calgary transit carries 100 million. So it's not surprising there would be more political support for local transit.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Other transit systems have far greater ridership, that is far more concentrated amongst more vocal (richer) people. VIA carries 4 million or so people every year, Calgary transit carries 100 million. So it's not surprising there would be more political support for local transit.

The problem is simply basing it on ridership is horrible, considering that our longest line is over 4000km and one person may stay on it for the whole length.

[milomilo]

The Canadian is a bit of a special case, it should really be considered separately. But I agree, and there is a lot of potential to increase that ridership.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The Canadian is a bit of a special case, it should really be considered separately. But I agree, and there is a lot of potential to increase that ridership.

The Canadian, Corridor and Ocean routes should all be lumped together and be set up to generate more ridership. This would start with the Ocean and Canadian having daily service. It would also mean, like the Corridor, it should have segmented sections too.

[milomilo]

Why? The Canadian is a tourist train. It isn't intended for intra-Canadian travel. If you segmented it or combined it with others, you'd ruin its primary purpose in cause of something it isn't supposed to do.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The problem is simply basing it on ridership is horrible, considering that our longest line is over 4000km and one person may stay on it for the whole length.

Yeah I've often been frustrated by people constantly trying to use ridership comparisons between systems that exist in totally different settings. I remember the same thing came up in the prior VIA thread.

Originally Posted by jawagord

Besides my prairie perspective (Calgary’s C-train) I have rode other trains from time to time:

City Transit
Vancouver: Skytrain
Toronto: Subway
Frankfurt: Commuter Train
Tokyo: Subway
Hong Kong: Subway
Singapore: Subway
KL: Subway

City Airport
Munich: to airport
Singapore: to airport
Hong Kong: to/from downtown
Denver: to downtown
KL: to downtown

City to city
Munich to Sonthoven: 3 hrs, one change
Tokyo to Kyoto: Shinkansen
Tokyo to Hitachi City: 2 hrs
Jakarta to Cirebon: 3 hrs

Via’s 15,000 passengers a day is not a well used system, perhaps your southern Ontario bubble makes you think so? I know a few things about train systems. Some were really good, some were a waste of time, some were packed full of passengers, on one I was the only person in the entire car. In Canada the intra-city train is the dinosaur not the car. These ridiculous fantasy arguments won’t bring intra-city train travel back and Via will continue to stumble along because governments lack the will to end it and lack the will to pile billions into it for marginal gain.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

The total number of passengers is not a good metric to use when comparing different types of systems (urban vs suburban vs interurban/rural). There may be fewer passengers, but each passenger is being provided with much more service since they're on the vehicle for longer (hours or even days) and covering large distances. The only realistic way to compare them is in terms of the total amount of transportation provided in terms of passenger kms. If we look at Calgary for example, the C-Train is about 60km with four arms stretching out from downtown - two for route 201 and two for route 202, making each arm an average of 15km. Some riders will be coming into downtown from the very ends of each line (about 15km trip) while others will be coming in from very close (about 1km), so we can approximate the average trip distance at 8km. The average weekday ridership of the system is about 315k, so 315,000 * 8 = 2520000. About 2.5 million passenger km per weekday.

Meanwhile, according to your Tesla post the QC-Windsor corridor can be assumed to average 15,000 riders per weekday. It spans about 1,150km, but of course most people won't be going the whole distance. There are three main segments (Toronto-Windsor, Toronto-Montreal, and Montreal-QC, so if we divide the corridor by three (383km) and assume about half will be crossing each full segment and half will be getting off at points in between, we can divide that in 1/2 again (191.5). If this is the average trip for 15000 people, that makes for 2872500km passenger km of transportation per weekday. About 2.9 million. That's more than the CTrain. The reason VIA's corridor trains won't seem as busy is just due to the nature of intercity service vs urban service. To accommodate peak loads on an urban service you would assume a high number of standing passengers so even at quiet times there will still be many steaded passengers. On an intercity route, your plan for peak times is to have all seats filled, but not to have standing passengers since the travel distances are too far for that that be practical. So if you have train capacity that never has any more than seated passengers, at quiet times some cars in some route segments will seem practically empty.

Anyway, the point is not that VIA is a super bustling system by world standards but rather that it can still be well-used without having a high number of individual passengers compared to an urban system. It just isn't useful to make assumptions about a service or its validity based on inappropriate comparisons or assumptions.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Why? The Canadian is a tourist train. It isn't intended for intra-Canadian travel. If you segmented it or combined it with others, you'd ruin its primary purpose in cause of something it isn't supposed to do.

I am not saying get rid of it. However, having a train that goes Toronto - Winnipeg, Winnipeg - Edmonton and Edmonton - Vancouver daily could do a lot to bridge our fractured country. Also, extending the Prince Rupert - Jasper train to Edmonton. Doing this would mean you still have the tourist pat, but you also can serve people who want a daily service.

What you are suggesting would be the same as getting rid of the Corridor service and instead switch it to a single train operating every few days.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by milomilo

You write this out as if it is simple and easy, but why do you think it is? VIA is given a mandate by the federal government to do certain things, and a budget to do it with. If that budget barely stretches to buy new trains while they are forced to run services to BF nowhere, how can they be to blame when they can't afford to buy new trains, can't afford to spend billions building the new railways required, and definitely can't afford to start up new services in western Canada? Passenger rail is a subsidized endeavour, it will rarely make a profit on its own, so VIA can't just go to investors to get money as you imply, the federal government has to give them it.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. I never expected that southern Florida would build a modern 21st century high frequency intercity passenger rail line before southern Ontario, but here we are. The FEC didn’t build it because it was profitable, but because it was a real estate development vehicle. I think Metrolinx is pursuing a similar strategy in the GTA. I also don’t think that institutional investors will invest only in infrastructure that turns a conventional profit. How or when will Montreal’s REM system be profitable? I really think there’s a lot of avenues a passenger rail agency can explore to build better infrastructure and provide decent service, but VIA is not the way to do it.

The other reason I think VIA should be dismantled is because provinces have more of a sense of the regional transit needs. someone123’s example of Maritime bus operating a decent service because it is locally controlled rather than centrally controlled out of VIA’s hq in Montreal is a good one. Closer to me, Metrolinx bought the Kitchener line from a short line operator that didn’t even have signaling. VIA was running two tin can trains a day over this route for years until Metrolinx took it over, and began making incremental improvements to allow all-day two way service. It’s still a work in progress, but at least they’re up to 8 trains a day.

The mandate for running services to places like White River and Churchill should be given to the a Ministry of Northern Affairs or their provincial equivalents. Trains like the Canadian and Atlantic are land cruises for boomers and we shouldn’t be subsidizing them. There are markets within the routes of the Atlantic and the Canadian that are viable for locals, and those should be locally (or at least provincially) run.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Why? The Canadian is a tourist train. It isn't intended for intra-Canadian travel. If you segmented it or combined it with others, you'd ruin its primary purpose in cause of something it isn't supposed to do.

The Canadian is only a tourist train because it never runs on time because the high probability of delays due to the length of its run, it has to stop somewhere at 3am in the morning even if it not convenient, it doesn't service larger centres of population, and it only runs 2-3 times a week. If you make something unreliable and inconvenient enough people take different options, it doesn't mean there isn't a demand for service. It is more of a case that demand is unsatisfied and therefore ignored.

You ruin the train by the reasons listed above, not by segmenting it. We should be subsidizing our citizens, not tourists. It is time for environmentally train service, more frequent, faster, more convenient train service and more funding.

[Dengler Avenue]

If this HFR thing ends up dying at the end of the day, Ontario Metrolinx should just (say FU to Via and) take over the stretch from Windsor to Ottawa.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

If this HFR thing ends up dying at the end of the day, Ontario Metrolinx should just (say FU to Via and) take over the stretch from Windsor to Ottawa.

That's not how it works... or even a reasonable idea. Why would the federal government give up something that makes them money?

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

That's not how it works... or even a reasonable idea. Why would the federal government give up something that makes them money?

From what I’ve gathered from what most have been saying, VIA isn’t even making money on the Corridor...? Plus, unlike VIA, Metrolinx doesn’t have the mandate to serve remote area. If anything, it’s quite the opposite.

Edit: roger1818 had commented on similar topic in the rail thread in Ontario’s subforum, but I couldn’t find it now...

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I am not saying get rid of it. However, having a train that goes Toronto - Winnipeg, Winnipeg - Edmonton and Edmonton - Vancouver daily could do a lot to bridge our fractured country. Also, extending the Prince Rupert - Jasper train to Edmonton. Doing this would mean you still have the tourist pat, but you also can serve people who want a daily service.

What you are suggesting would be the same as getting rid of the Corridor service and instead switch it to a single train operating every few days.

No. I'm not at all. The Canadian's purpose is as a tourist train, it is not intended for general transport, and the route would be useless for that as it goes almost entirely through wilderness. The corridor, on the other hand, is intended for general passenger transport as it goes through a high density region. They're intended for completely different purposes. If there are portions of the Canadian route that justify frequent rail (and there probably are not), there's no reason we can't run those as well. And if running the Canadian is not seen as a worthwhile cost, we can scrap it. But there is no reason to try to combine the products.