VIA Rail

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

All those secondary highways in Prairies used to have a railroad running alongside them. Most of the RoW are still more or less existing, except all the bridges are now gone.

There's always a sense of sad nostalgia driving through the Prairies seeing all the old track beds. Quite often even quite substantial bridges are still extant.

I did however see something unexpected a few months ago - a brand new grain elevator and loop track being built (near Red Deer). I always think that all the rail infrastructure there will ever be in Canada has been built, but I guess there is still the ability to grow.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

The path doesn’t seem too convoluted to me. The biggest deterrent though is that there seems to be no place to put a passenger rail station in the heart of downtown. Ending it at the airport won’t help. I’ve thought about running it on LRT tracks but that adds the issue of mixing light and heavy rail, the verdict of which we shall find out with the Mont Royal tunnel fiasco.

The generally accepted thinking is that if rail is to be built between Calgary and Edmonton, to do something worthwhile is going to be expensive (though not outrageously so) whatever you do. So to get the most bang for buck, you build high speed rail. You could spend 80% of the cost to build rail that is not fast, and it won't compete with cars or plane. Or you spend a bit more to get a much faster railway that will compete on time with air travel and car travel.

[Dengler Avenue]

I wonder if the median of QEII is wide enough to fit 2 tracks in for the most part. Obviously this will mean all the overpasses need to be single-span when time comes to replace them.

@swimmer_spe @insertnamehere You guys really enjoy turning a thread about Via into a speed-showoff post huh?

[VANRIDERFAN]

A friend of mine lives in one of the burbs south of Ottawa. Works from home 4 days a week but goes to a downtown Toronto office once a week. She gets on the 6am train at Fallowfield, does all her South African/European correspondence on the ride and then a short walk from Union Station to the office. I think she catches a train around 3pm, has a nice meal, glass of wine and movie to relax on the way home. Quite civilized I must say.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I wonder if the median of QEII is wide enough to fit 2 tracks in for the most part. Obviously this will mean all the overpasses need to be single-span when time comes to replace them.

@swimmer_spe @insertnamehere You guys really enjoy turning a thread about Via into a speed-showoff post huh?

Not speed, bur frequency.

[Apey]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Part of being on a forum is participating in a discussion. Part of the participation is using other's information to validate yourself.

One did have to be cut, but was it the right one? We will never know.



My dad one time did North Bay to London in under 4 hours... Back in the late 80s, in a Chev Cavalier wagon.

1) Do you mean just like most airports? The Edmonton Via Station is 3 km from the NAIT station on the LRT. If the Via station was busier than once every few days, the city might see a reason to connect it to the LRT.

2) Sell you on something is to make you want it. You can sell someone on a daily service easier than a service that comes once every few days.

3) You can sell people anything with the right phrases.



Untill you hit congestion, and then the train and the LRT would be faster.



That is due to many factors. The problem really is, we base the success of transit on pure ridership based on world wide metrics. If we based it on moving people efficiently, and moving people out of their cars, we might have a much better system. Instead We have congested roads and congested transit.This is why when someone ignores the fact that the 4th largest city has no intercity rail to it from anywhere, I am not surprised.

Thanks for the response @ swimmer_spe! Still sitting here stund that's how the system works! But I'm absolutely baffled at the fact the 4th largest city in Canada has no intercity rail to it from anywhere. Maybe time to start lowering my expectations, as you yourself said you are not surprised!

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by melissasandever

Thanks for the response @ swimmer_spe! Still sitting here stund that's how the system works! But I'm absolutely baffled at the fact the 4th largest city in Canada has no intercity rail to it from anywhere. Maybe time to start lowering my expectations, as you yourself said you are not surprised!

Maybe it is time all Canadians raise our standards. Have the government work for us, not just where they can make money, but where the services would help.

Here is how it could help us.
1) reinstate the old Dominion line.
2) put in a Calgary-Edmonton line.
4) have those lines pluse Canadian and Ocean lines as dailies.

This would mean most major cities in Canada would be served by daily rail service provided by the Government of Canada.

[milomilo]

What's the point of a daily rail service? It's useless. Any regional transit line should have a better frequency than that, if we expect people to use it. And if we don't expect people to use it, why build it?

For a Calgary - Edmonton line to be successful, it has to compete with cars, buses, and planes on some metric. Running a train on existing lines won't cut it, it will be worse than all of those in every way. So it needs substantial new infrastructure, which means spending big bucks. Which could be worth it, but stop the idea that running a crappy daily train is in any way a good use of funds is not useful.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

What's the point of a daily rail service? It's useless. Any regional transit line should have a better frequency than that, if we expect people to use it. And if we don't expect people to use it, why build it?

For a Calgary - Edmonton line to be successful, it has to compete with cars, buses, and planes on some metric. Running a train on existing lines won't cut it, it will be worse than all of those in every way. So it needs substantial new infrastructure, which means spending big bucks. Which could be worth it, but stop the idea that running a crappy daily train is in any way a good use of funds is not useful.

It is not for the major cities, sort of.

Think of it this way, lets say you want to go to the city for business. If you can get a train today, that gets you in today so that you can do business, and then hop on a train today to go home today, that is good, right? Now, what if you have to wait 2, 3 or more days for a train to go one way or the other? Not very practical, is it? Spending a night in a hotel is reasonable, but multiple days? Not very.

Another group of people are the weekend travelers. For me, I live about a 4 hour drive from Toronto. If I could take a train on Friday and come back on the Sunday, that would be great. Having a daily means I could.

These types of people are the ones that are not captured by thee Ocean or the Canadian as they do not come often enough. So what if it takes longer than driving. Not having to deal with traffic or parking is a reason to take the train.

Right now, outside of the the Corridor, the other trains are geared toward tourists or the remote communities. Maybe it needs to change to tourists, remote communities, business people, and weekend travelers.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by milomilo

What's the point of a daily rail service? It's useless. Any regional transit line should have a better frequency than that, if we expect people to use it. And if we don't expect people to use it, why build it?

For a Calgary - Edmonton line to be successful, it has to compete with cars, buses, and planes on some metric. Running a train on existing lines won't cut it, it will be worse than all of those in every way. So it needs substantial new infrastructure, which means spending big bucks. Which could be worth it, but stop the idea that running a crappy daily train is in any way a good use of funds is not useful.

So 2 set of rail tracks in the median of QEII (replacing all the overpasses with a single span)?

[Nouvellecosse]

For me I rarely use the Ocean, not just because it isn't daily but because of the time of day and travel times. If I wanted to go from Dartmouth to Truro and spend the day there, if the service in each direction was only daily the it would have to go from greater Halifax early in the day and leave from Truro late in the day. But if it left from Truro late in the day, that wouldn't be useful for anyone coming from Truro and hoping to spend a day in Halifax. The bus makes at least 3 trips per day per direction making it possible.

Of course, there's also the problem that the train only leaves from central Halifax and I'd have to travel a lot farther often through congestion to get there from Dartmouth compared to the Intercity bus which also has a Dartmouth stop. Ironically this means taking the train would require me to deal with more traffic than taking the bus. And also, it seems to take the train just as long to get out of town as it would a road vehicle since it travels so slow, has to sometimes stop for freight traffic, etc.

For my purposes, using the train is purely for the novelty of it. There's no practical justification whatsoever and while it would be an improvement, adding daily service wouldn't totally fix that. What I'd like to see is:

- Train leaving both morning and evening from both Halifax and Dartmouth
- Double tracking in town to eliminate delays
- Track upgrades and additional double track sections outside of town to allow higher speeds and more consistent speeds making the service faster than automobile.

But... it would probably take a good $$billion to achieve that, and that would be much better spent on HFR in the corridor at this point. No because it would "make money" but because it would make sense. I doubt HFR would have a fare recovery ratio of one or greater anyway so money would not be directly made.

[headhorse]

Does anyone have a list of ways airports and the air travel industry is supported by the government? whether it be free rent on land/free land or anything related to fuels/parts/manufacturing? if we removed all these supports, I’m guessing prices would increase and more people would be looking to things like rail travel (esp for example, flights that are under 2 hours).

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by headhorse

Does anyone have a list of ways airports and the air travel industry is supported by the government? whether it be free rent on land/free land or anything related to fuels/parts/manufacturing? if we removed all these supports, I’m guessing prices would increase and more people would be looking to things like rail travel (esp for example, flights that are under 2 hours).

It might be the other way around? Airports paying the government to lease the land the government still owns?

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

It is not for the major cities, sort of.

Think of it this way, lets say you want to go to the city for business. If you can get a train today, that gets you in today so that you can do business, and then hop on a train today to go home today, that is good, right? Now, what if you have to wait 2, 3 or more days for a train to go one way or the other? Not very practical, is it? Spending a night in a hotel is reasonable, but multiple days? Not very.

Another group of people are the weekend travelers. For me, I live about a 4 hour drive from Toronto. If I could take a train on Friday and come back on the Sunday, that would be great. Having a daily means I could.

These types of people are the ones that are not captured by thee Ocean or the Canadian as they do not come often enough. So what if it takes longer than driving. Not having to deal with traffic or parking is a reason to take the train.

Right now, outside of the the Corridor, the other trains are geared toward tourists or the remote communities. Maybe it needs to change to tourists, remote communities, business people, and weekend travelers.

If it's for business, then the employer will just pay for the plane, and they will value the time saving. And now you're actually talking about a twice daily service, which is still mostly useless as the timing usually won't work. Since the train will take 4+ hours from Calgary to Edmonton on the CP line, to get to Edmonton before 9, the train will have to leave before 5, and then they'll have to wait around all day and be back really late. I know my employer would never expect or want me to do that.

There will be some demand for a daily rail service, just nowhere close to being able to justify the cost. A bus will be better until you build the infrastructure such that the train actually has better performance.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by headhorse

Does anyone have a list of ways airports and the air travel industry is supported by the government? whether it be free rent on land/free land or anything related to fuels/parts/manufacturing? if we removed all these supports, I’m guessing prices would increase and more people would be looking to things like rail travel (esp for example, flights that are under 2 hours).

Hahaha. Have you seen the prices of air travel in Canada? If you removed the government support, the opposite of what you say would happen - with competition the prices of air travel in Canada would drop due to the awesome magic of free market capitalism.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

So 2 set of rail tracks in the median of QEII (replacing all the overpasses with a single span)?

The price of buying the land is probably not the major price driver for a new rail line and this would severely limit what capabilities the new line has. The corners are too sharp for one, and yeah you'd probably have to rebuild a load of interchanges.

[Aylmer]

I think that we're conflating two different types of travel. For day-trip distances (Halifax-Truro, Calgary-Edmonton, Saskatoon-Regina, roughly less than 500km), then you definitely want multiple daily frequencies because many of these hops are likely to be planned around whatever else you've got going on that day (leaving in the morning for a lunch meeting, leaving after work for an evening, etc.). Speed is also important here - an extra 30 minutes on a 2-3h trip can mean the difference between making and missing a meeting/concert/dinner, etc.

Long-distance travel is another matter though. These are trips which might require at least a long weekend to be worth it the time or expense under normal (read non-business) circumstances, no matter how you travel (Halifax-Montreal, Winnipeg-Calgary, Edmonton-Vancouver, about 1000+ km). For these types of trips, a daily departure or two is likely all you'd really want. Unlike shorter hops, these are likely proper planned trips where you'll be dedicating your day to travelling, not planning your travel around your day. Speed is also less of a factor here, especially if it's overnight; you'll have dedicated your whole day for a Winnipeg-Banff, so an hour or two faster or slower isn't really your biggest concern. Even less so if you've been sleeping through it.

To look at more extreme contrasts, I'm perfectly happy to only have one transatlantic flight per day, but I get frustrated if I have to wait more than 15 minutes for a bus to take me downtown, and anything over an hour's frequency may as well not exist at all. And I won't notice much if a direct flight is delayed 1h, but a 5-minute delay on the bus will have me fuming.

In the Corridor, there are plenty of short city pairs which demand frequency and speed above all else. And although there are definitely some of those elsewhere (St John-Moncton-Halifax, Calgary-Edmonton, Saskatoon-Regina), many of the trips in other regions fall into the long-distance category. And for those, a once or twice daily train - even a slow one - would likely fit most people's needs. If I'm doing Toronto-Winnipeg from Toronto to visit the in-laws and there's a morning and an evening departure, I would be thrilled and would likely take the train much more often on that stretch, time permitting.

But I think that daily is really the bare minimum. The problem right now is that if you want to take the train long-distance, you have to not only plan your day around travel (which you were likely to do in any case for any mode for those distances), you have to also plan your whole week according to it. The times that I have taken the train to Winnipeg - which is lovely and I recommend it - I didn't have the flexibility to, say, add an extra day because it's a long weekend, or come back a day earlier because I have something planned. My week has to be a blank slate, and then I plan it around the fact that I'm taking the train. Or I roll the dice and see whether the train departures just happen to match my agenda. I do it because I enjoy the experience, but it definitely isn't practical and I can't do it most of the time. And if the timetable is infrequent enough to turn away even a railfan, then it'll be a hard sell to the average Canadian.

Bring the Canadian and the Ocean up to daily, and I'm quite certain that a lot of people who never considered the train as a practical option will take notice.

[headhorse]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Hahaha. Have you seen the prices of air travel in Canada? If you removed the government support, the opposite of what you say would happen - with competition the prices of air travel in Canada would drop due to the awesome magic of free market capitalism.

The Ontario government itself loses $250 million/year by having reduced taxes on aviation fuel

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by headhorse

The Ontario government itself loses $250 million/year by having reduced taxes on aviation fuel

VIA's yearly subsidy for the entire network is roughly that amount. Maybe we start taxing the full amount on aviation fuel, and put the extra proceeds into funding passenger rail... Then nevermind daily, let's bring back the 4 transcontinental trains per day between Toronto and Vancouver

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

...
Bring the Canadian and the Ocean up to daily, and I'm quite certain that a lot of people who never considered the train as a practical option will take notice.

But weren't they already daily before about 10-15 years ago when service was cut due to poor ridership?