VIA Rail

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by wave46

If coach service is questionable, why would a train somehow improve that situation?

- Trains can be more reliable when weather conditions are bad.
- Trains are usually safer.
- Trains allow you to get up and move around to stretch your legs.
- Trains can have more amenities like a lounge, or a snack bar, or even a dining car on long routes.

Trains are infinitely preferable to busses.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

- Trains can be more reliable when weather conditions are bad.
- Trains are usually safer.
- Trains allow you to get up and move around to stretch your legs.
- Trains can have more amenities like a lounge, or a snack bar, or even a dining car on long routes.

Trains are infinitely preferable to busses.

Fine and for certain places they make sense (see: between large metros of Europe/Asia, the Acela Express in the Northeastern US, the Corridor here)

Trains in this country are kind of in no-man's land for transit options outside of the Corridor.

They don't have the flexibility of automobile travel.
They are slower than airplanes and not much cheaper. This penalty adds up over distance.
They are more expensive than buses.

Any improvements have large capital costs.

They're not more environmentally friendly than many options here either. They are heavy and use diesel fuel. A lightly-used train may have a higher penalty environmentally than other options.

[Aylmer]

Beyond all the technical and performance aspects, I think that it's helpful when thinking about ridership to ask yourself the question: Would you use it?

The engineering mindset neglects the "soft" aspects of demand. It assumes that someone going from A to B will choose a given mode based purely on its performance characteristics. But that's not how people make choices. There are elements of desirability and dignity which are important to take into account.

I'm not saying that all trains are automatically desirable, or that all buses are automatically not. I'm just saying that we shouldn't be surprised that if you serve up a shitty, unusable, undesirable anything, you're probably not gonna find a lot of demand. If you wouldn't use it, why should you expect anyone else to?

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Beyond all the technical and performance aspects, I think that it's helpful when thinking about ridership to ask yourself the question: Would you use it?

The engineering mindset neglects the "soft" aspects of demand. It assumes that someone going from A to B will choose a given mode based purely on its performance characteristics. But that's not how people make choices. There are elements of desirability and dignity which are important to take into account.

I'm not saying that all trains are automatically desirable, or that all buses are automatically not. I'm just saying that we shouldn't be surprised that if you serve up a shitty, unusable, undesirable anything, you're probably not gonna find a lot of demand.

Like everything, it depends.

Long-distance travel has several factors to it:

-Service (Does this mode of transportation go where I want it to?)
-Distance (Is the mode of transport appropriate for the distance I have to travel?)
-Time (How long does it take me to get from A to B? My time has value)
-Convenience (Does it operate on a schedule that works for me?)
-Comfort (I can endure less comfortable rides if they're short duration. The longer I'm using this mode of transport, the higher the comfort criteria weighs)
-Total cost (Does the total cost make sense for the journey I'm taking?)

Some of these are correlated. Each individual's choice is guided by a conflicting set of demands. A student going from the city back to home for Christmas break has a different set of criteria than an executive of a major company.

Rail has certain advantages in certain ways. Between large metropolitan areas that are relatively close, it does quite well if properly implemented.

It does poorly on some of these criteria for many areas of this country. It's not much faster than a bus, but is much more capital intensive. It is required to adhere to a certain route (where the rails go). For long distances, it can't compete with the speed of an aircraft.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

That's a bit premature still. Did you read the full report?

Agreed. Here are the relevant points in the report:

3.6.1 Ensure viability of the Canadian and other services in Western Canada

VIA Rail believes that in the long term, the service delivery and business model of the Canadian, its flagship long distance train, as it is today, is not sustainable. The existing service cannot adequately serve either shorter distance travellers or the tourism market. A new solution to maintain and preserve services and provide Canadians mobility is required.

The other relevant bit is a bit later in the same section:

The current post 2019 schedule requires five train consists to operate the three round trip Toronto – Vancouver frequencies of the Canadian.

As noted earlier within this Corporate Plan, VIA Rail has developed a solution to ensure service continuity for the Ocean, after November 1, 2020, the date that VIA Rail will lose access to the Halterm rail loop in Halifax.

This solution however necessitates that HEP cars, the car type used on the Canadian, are cascaded to the Ocean. This combined with the lengthened schedules of the Canadian, leaves VIA Rail without enough cars to assemble a fifth train consist to reinstate the partially suspended peak-season frequency on the Canadian between Toronto and Edmonton. Therefore, at this time, we do not foresee the possibility of reinstating the partially suspended frequency.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by wave46

Interesting. What sections of the line did you end up using most?

The Canadian just was so inconvenient for any travel I might have planned. 3X/week isn't enough for a short-haul round trip of <800km, so I usually took a car/bus for those sorts of trips. Farther than that (say, >1000km) and an airplane was the ticket.

In one sense, it'll be missed as the options for travel across this country dwindle (RIP Greyhound). In another, trains and buses just are so slow when journeys get past 800 km compared to an airplane. They're not much cheaper to boot.

If flying was as expensive as it used to be, yeah, the train/bus makes more sense for long-haul. The downwards pressure of cost reduction has yielded more in airfare benefits than any other mode of transportation.

I predict that post covid, flying will jump up in price. AC and WJ are asking for bailouts. No one is flying, yet they still have all those planes to pay for. I think we have seen the end of cheap flights for some time.

Originally Posted by GoTrans

There is zero demand for passenger service on the prairies because there are zero trains, not the other way around. Have you ever seen and origin/destination demand study on rail passenger service on the prairies? Of course not, because there are none, other than between Calgary and Edmonton.

Scrap the Canadian and start with service, preferably daily between Winnipeg and Calgary with a connection in Regina to Saskatoon and Edmonton. Have service 4 or 5 times a week between Toronto and Winnipeg on the CP line through Sudbury and Thunder Bay. This would route trains where people live. If there are places that are considered remote we should let the provinces build roads to them until they are of a larger size to support service.

We need to do this in order to see if we can build greater demand. A latent demand exists but it is untapped.

Force the railways to give Via priority over freight trains and pay the railways for OTP or penalize them. We don't need HSR in the west, we need OTP regardless of the frequency.

Scrap the idea of a tourist train, except through the Rockies. In Europe thousands of tourists ride the trains which are not designed as tourist trains.Why should we pay for tourists and ignore regular users of the service? If tourists can't make a connection between trains, then they should look at it as an opportunity to spend a time exploring a city they may not have explored otherwise.

Be careful. You are starting to sound like me.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Beyond all the technical and performance aspects, I think that it's helpful when thinking about ridership to ask yourself the question: Would you use it?

The engineering mindset neglects the "soft" aspects of demand. It assumes that someone going from A to B will choose a given mode based purely on its performance characteristics. But that's not how people make choices. There are elements of desirability and dignity which are important to take into account.

I'm not saying that all trains are automatically desirable, or that all buses are automatically not. I'm just saying that we shouldn't be surprised that if you serve up a shitty, unusable, undesirable anything, you're probably not gonna find a lot of demand. If you wouldn't use it, why should you expect anyone else to?

If planes operated as Via does, planes would not be in service. This is about OTP and reasonable frequency.

Ask yourself, would anyone fly between Toronto and Vancouver if it only flew every second day?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

- Trains can be more reliable when weather conditions are bad.
- Trains are usually safer.
- Trains allow you to get up and move around to stretch your legs.
- Trains can have more amenities like a lounge, or a snack bar, or even a dining car on long routes.

Trains are infinitely preferable to busses.

A private limo is infinitely preferable to either too. If money is no object. But money is a thing, and the Canadian is unquestionably a waste of money. VIA needs to put it out of it's misery and kill it so we can stop having this unproductive conversation, and start talking about rail service that is worthwhile.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

There is zero demand for passenger service on the prairies because there are zero trains, not the other way around. Have you ever seen and origin/destination demand study on rail passenger service on the prairies? Of course not, because there are none, other than between Calgary and Edmonton.

Scrap the Canadian and start with service, preferably daily between Winnipeg and Calgary with a connection in Regina to Saskatoon and Edmonton. Have service 4 or 5 times a week between Toronto and Winnipeg on the CP line through Sudbury and Thunder Bay. This would route trains where people live. If there are places that are considered remote we should let the provinces build roads to them until they are of a larger size to support service.

We need to do this in order to see if we can build greater demand. A latent demand exists but it is untapped.

Force the railways to give Via priority over freight trains and pay the railways for OTP or penalize them. We don't need HSR in the west, we need OTP regardless of the frequency.

Scrap the idea of a tourist train, except through the Rockies. In Europe thousands of tourists ride the trains which are not designed as tourist trains.Why should we pay for tourists and ignore regular users of the service? If tourists can't make a connection between trains, then they should look at it as an opportunity to spend a time exploring a city they may not have explored otherwise.

We've been over this too many times to bother retyping it all. If the Canadian didn't already exist, you'd never think about implementing a similar service from scratch, you'd start with different projects where the demand actually justifies it, not shitty, slow, long distance rail services that no one would want to use. If the only reason something continues to exist is because it did in the past, that's no reason at all and the service should be scrapped.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

A private limo is infinitely preferable to either too. If money is no object. But money is a thing, and the Canadian is unquestionably a waste of money. VIA needs to put it out of it's misery and kill it so we can stop having this unproductive conversation, and start talking about rail service that is worthwhile.

Originally Posted by milomilo

We've been over this too many times to bother retyping it all. If the Canadian didn't already exist, you'd never think about implementing a similar service from scratch, you'd start with different projects where the demand actually justifies it, not shitty, slow, long distance rail services that no one would want to use. If the only reason something continues to exist is because it did in the past, that's no reason at all and the service should be scrapped.

I have a great idea. Bear with me...

Yes, lets scrap the existing Canadian service. It is a failure for so many reasons.

Now, with the savings, lets connect first the top 10 largest metros to each other if they have a rail line. This must have the following:
1) On time 95% of the time.
2) a fare return of no less than 75%.
3) a frequency of no less than once per day in each direction. If demand requires, more, more should be added.
4) Limited overnight services. No full berths. Bunks that can be stowed for daytime travel.
5) Similar equipment throughout the lines.

I am certain that plan would be a success.

Mind you, with that, anything West of Toronto on the Corridor, except to Hamilton and KW is gone. The Maritimes are gone. Ironically, the Canadian could still exist, but, the question would be where to go, CN or CP?

For fun, here are the top 10 metros in Canada
1) Toronto
2) Montreal
3)Vancouver
4) Calgary
5) Ottawa
6) Edmonton
7) Quebec City
8) Winnipeg
9) Hamilton
10) K/W/C

Places like London, Windsor, Halifax, or the rest of the Maritimes "don't need rail".

Or maybe we stop thinking Via must make money at the expense of service.

[someone123]

I still don't understand the reasoning behind this idea that services have to be implemented top-down starting with the most populated areas, with the smaller metros getting them later on if at all. It's like the Sim City view of the world where your city gets rewards at a certain population. Or as if every person uses X units of rail service and the world has a fixed number of passenger cars and locomotives in it and VIA needs to perform rail triage.

This isn't how most infrastructure development works in Canada, isn't an optimal strategy for attracting government funding, and doesn't account for the reality that different places may have different needs and existing infrastructure.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by someone123

I still don't understand this idea that services have to be implemented top-down starting with the most populated areas, with the smaller metros getting them later on if at all.

This isn't how most infrastructure development works in Canada, isn't an optimal strategy for attracting government funding, and doesn't account for the reality that different places may have different needs regardless of size.

Ok, let's start with the smallest?

Or, let's start with places that have rails?

Or, let's start with....

Let's ask if infrequent and chronically late service existed in the Corridor, why would it not fail too?

For fun, let's force that on the Corridor. One every second day, and be several hours late. I give it a decade, maybe 2 before it fails too.

Covid became the final nail in the coffin for any rail outside the Corridor.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Ok, let's start with the smallest?

How about we let provinces and cities drive the process and force the railway operators to reasonably and transparently share the public resource they inherited?

There's no zero sum game and VIA is not in charge of everything. I followed the NS rail stuff pretty closely. It died because of a failure to reach a deal with CN, with the details never released to the public. It had nothing to do with trade-offs between service for Toronto or Montreal and Halifax or Truro or Moncton. Had the service been expanded in NS, new provincial and municipal funding would have arrived along with fares. The service as planned didn't require subsidy from VIA or the federal government.

Here in BC the useful rail lines would be a route around the Lower Mainland to begin with and perhaps restoring the old route on Vancouver Island. The cross-country service is a tourist train that provides no transportation value to the vast majority in BC.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by someone123

How about we let provinces and cities drive the process and force the railway operators to reasonably and transparently share the public resource they inherited?

I totally agree with the sentiment, but that doesn't work very well with monopolies that are so powerful they have their own police forces and laws protecting them. Any changes to their power would need to come from the federal government, and it's not worth the effort. Thus, it's really better to just avoid interacting with them entirely and try to get dedicated ROWs where possible.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I totally agree with the sentiment, but that doesn't work very well with monopolies that are so powerful they have their own police forces and laws protecting them. Any changes to their power would need to come from the federal government, and it's not worth the effort. Thus, it's really better to just avoid interacting with them entirely and try to get dedicated ROWs where possible.

Yes, the federal government would need to fix the structure of the industry and mismanagement of the infrastructure. They do not need to dictate who gets what service.

Not sure I agree that it's not worth the effort. It could be something that gets fought through the court system. Perhaps a province or city will champion this. Another thing that needs to be fixed in Canada is outdated rules around mixed heavy and light rail.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I have a great idea. Bear with me...

Yes, lets scrap the existing Canadian service. It is a failure for so many reasons.

Now, with the savings, lets connect first the top 10 largest metros to each other if they have a rail line. This must have the following:
1) On time 95% of the time.
2) a fare return of no less than 75%.
3) a frequency of no less than once per day in each direction. If demand requires, more, more should be added.
4) Limited overnight services. No full berths. Bunks that can be stowed for daytime travel.
5) Similar equipment throughout the lines.

I am certain that plan would be a success.

Mind you, with that, anything West of Toronto on the Corridor, except to Hamilton and KW is gone. The Maritimes are gone. Ironically, the Canadian could still exist, but, the question would be where to go, CN or CP?

For fun, here are the top 10 metros in Canada
1) Toronto
2) Montreal
3)Vancouver
4) Calgary
5) Ottawa
6) Edmonton
7) Quebec City
8) Winnipeg
9) Hamilton
10) K/W/C

Places like London, Windsor, Halifax, or the rest of the Maritimes "don't need rail".

Or maybe we stop thinking Via must make money at the expense of service.

As someone123 says, there is no justification for this other than a Simcity style drawing of lines on a map. Canada is a vast country, there might as well be oceans between some of the cities, travelling between them is not well suited to rail. So rather than laying out low frequency rail lines that no one will use, find the places where there already are large numbers of people travelling, that could realistically be moved onto trains, and serve them. In Canada, this mostly makes sense within cities, hence why many Canadian cities have built rail based municipal transportation.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by someone123

Yes, the federal government would need to fix the structure of the industry and mismanagement of the infrastructure. They do not need to dictate who gets what service.

Not sure I agree that it's worthless, and it could be something that gets fought through the court system. Perhaps a province or city will champion this.

If I was king, I would nationalise the railway track in Canada. It's the better way to run things - imagine if the only route between two cities was a toll road owned by a business.

However, the standard Canadian never, ever rides on a passenger train, unlike in the UK or Europe where almost everyone uses trains at least infrequently and often very frequently. Thus there is no political reward from fighting a battle with CN and CP that would take a lot of political capital.

And thus, I think VIA is sensible to try and avoid the issue entirely. If they expect changes to federal law, they'll never win. But if they can get their own ROW, there is no battle to fight with the rail operators and they might actually find some relevance in Canadian politics.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

- Trains can be more reliable when weather conditions are bad.
- Trains are usually safer.
- Trains allow you to get up and move around to stretch your legs.
- Trains can have more amenities like a lounge, or a snack bar, or even a dining car on long routes.

Trains are infinitely preferable to busses.

Remote work and ride sharing have both made trains more appealing too. Remote work specifically is much more pleasant on a train than on a bus. Ride sharing reduces the penalty for arriving at a destination without a car. It's a complete game changer in suburban areas and cities without good transit systems.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I have a great idea. Bear with me...

Yes, lets scrap the existing Canadian service. It is a failure for so many reasons.

Now, with the savings, lets connect first the top 10 largest metros to each other if they have a rail line. This must have the following:
1) On time 95% of the time.

Considering that even in the Corridor, the On Time Performance (OTP) was only 67.3% in 2019, your target of 95% is a pipe dream without dedicated tracks.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Mind you, with that, anything West of Toronto on the Corridor, except to Hamilton and KW is gone. The Maritimes are gone. Ironically, the Canadian could still exist, but, the question would be where to go, CN or CP?

For fun, here are the top 10 metros in Canada
1) Toronto
2) Montreal
3)Vancouver
4) Calgary
5) Ottawa
6) Edmonton
7) Quebec City
8) Winnipeg
9) Hamilton
10) K/W/C

Places like London, Windsor, Halifax, or the rest of the Maritimes "don't need rail".

So you are ruling out London because it is number 11 in population 494,069 vs. 523,894 for K/W/C. Interestingly, in the 2018 Total passengers at stations (boarding and debearding), London ranked #4 with 508,955 and Kitchener ranked #15 with 80,980. Now a large part of that is because Kitchener has GO service, but still. London beat out Quebec City, which ranked #6 with 324,037.

It just goes to show that while CMA population is interesting, it isn't the only factor. Sinergy with other nearby destinations is far more important.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

If I was king, I would nationalise the railway track in Canada. It's the better way to run things - imagine if the only route between two cities was a toll road owned by a business.

However, the standard Canadian never, ever rides on a passenger train, unlike in the UK or Europe where almost everyone uses trains at least infrequently and often very frequently. Thus there is no political reward from fighting a battle with CN and CP that would take a lot of political capital.

And thus, I think VIA is sensible to try and avoid the issue entirely. If they expect changes to federal law, they'll never win. But if they can get their own ROW, there is no battle to fight with the rail operators and they might actually find some relevance in Canadian politics.

This reality varies depending on what part of the country you are talking about.

In metro Halifax it's quite a bad situation in that the province and city built multiple fully grade-separated routes that used to be used as transportation backbones. They were originally federally operated but eventually ended up controlled by the CN monopoly, which also sometimes strangles the port for mysterious reasons. This is permitted to happen because Halifax and NS are small and don't have a whole lot of clout. But I could also see a strong city council or province fighting more about this one day, particularly as the city grows. BTW, CN still argues that the city should pay for maintenance of the many bridges over its inherited dedicated ROWs that it won't allow more passenger rail on.

There are parts of metro Halifax that for geographical reasons are very hard to build new traffic corridors in but where CN tore out the track and yet argue they can't share the remaining track with passenger rail. They are magically simultaneously unworkably congested yet also have shrunk over time. CN's stock price was about $2 back in the 90's and now it's $140 or so. Biggest shareholder is Bill Gates.

I'd expect there's a range of situations around Canada, some places where people really don't care about rail and others where rail would be very useful but is out of reach due to bad management.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by someone123

This reality varies depending on what part of the country you are talking about.

In metro Halifax it's quite a bad situation in that the province and city built multiple fully grade-separated routes that used to be used as transportation backbones. They were originally federally operated but eventually ended up controlled by the CN monopoly, which also sometimes strangles the port for mysterious reasons. This is permitted to happen because Halifax and NS are small and don't have a whole lot of clout. But I could also see a strong city council or province fighting more about this one day, particularly as the city grows. BTW, CN still argues that the city should pay for maintenance of the many bridges over its inherited dedicated ROWs that it won't allow more passenger rail on.

There are parts of metro Halifax that for geographical reasons are very hard to build new traffic corridors in but where CN tore out the track and yet argue they can't share the remaining track with passenger rail. They are magically simultaneously unworkably congested yet also have shrunk over time. CN's stock price was about $2 back in the 90's and now it's $140 or so. Biggest shareholder is Bill Gates.

I'd expect there's a range of situations around Canada, some places where people really don't care about rail and others where rail would be very useful but is out of reach due to bad management.

In situations like Halifax where there's no other option, that's tough. Hopefully the city and province can negotiate something, but I wouldn't expect any changes to federal law and a big fat "fuck you" from CN. The small amount of revenue the rail operators would get from renting track out must not be worth the inconvenience.