Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
After all that, this country will still have slower passenger train service than half a century ago (Toronto-Montreal just under 5 hrs with HFR). Imagine, $4-7 billion and still can't beat the Turbo from the 70s (HFR is an 18-25% longer trip!).
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You are cherry picking one train and totally dismissing the value of frequency of service. If you look at the
October 1976 schedule (the first national schedule that combined CN and CP's services), on weekdays each way there were
- 2 turbo trains each way (4:10 for express* and 4:15 if it stopped in Kingston)
- 2 Rapido direct trains (4:55, with a stop in Kingston)
- the Cavalier (overnight and took 8 hours)
- 2 trains that had local service to Brocville and allowed a connection to trains from Ottawa (ranging from 5:35 to 5:55)
* all trains stopped at both Guildwood and Dorval.
So unless you wanted a train at either 8:00am or 3:50pm, you would either have to wait several hours or catch a considerably slower train. Saving an hour of travel time is useless if you have to wait several hours for the train.
It is HFR's plan to combine the Montreal-Toronto route with the Montreal-Ottawa and Ottawa-Toronto routes into one route that will allow it to have hourly service, which means you only have to wait an average of 30 minutes for a train.
You are also completely ignoring the travel time improvements between Ottawa and Toronto. That is VIA's busiest route and, AFAIK, the current service frequency (prior to COVID) is the highest it has ever been in history. The new HFR route will be significantly shorter and faster, which when combined with even more frequent and reliable service, will boost ridership even higher.
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
Not just the Turbo, it was not long ago Via had a 4 hour express train between Toronto and Montreal with existing equipment.
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Yes, VIA did operate 1 express* train that would do the trip in 3:59 minutes using LRC trainsets, but there were still only 6 trains on weekdays (according to the
April 1996 schedule), with travel times ranging from 4:34 to 5:30, depending on the number of stops.
*with only a stop at Dorval (not Guidwood).
Today (prior to COVID), they don't offer an express train between Toronto and Montreal (they have them on Toronto-Ottawa instead), and the travel times range from 4:49 to 5:28 (ignoring trains via Ottawa, which are slower with the current route).