sacred
Active Member
What’s the latest on the new reservation system? Last I heard it was to be rolled out this year
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Can they not allow a higher concentration of development around the new rail line to help pay for the cost of building it and by having more people living close to it encourages its use. This mentality is used with building transit in cities why not use it with high speed rail?
sacred
Active Member
Other than Ottawa station, what land does VIA own along the corridor that might be appropriate for TOD?
kEiThZ
Superstar
Apparently, it is okay to heavily subsidize all other modes of transportation, or construction of relevant infrastructure, even if that doesn't turn a dime of profit. Road construction is always on the rise, after all.
Guess we're going to ignore how little aviation is subsidized in Canada. Or the billions being invested annually these days in transit....
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Doesn't have to be via owned property. Density equals to more riders which equals more revenue.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Development will certainly happen near stations. But VIA has no control over that. Also, development isn't usual a substantial driver of intercity travel demand.
ec_traindriver
New Member
Billions invested in transit will never be enough to solve the problems that have arisen in the last decades due to suburbanization. Road- and pollution-related fatalities are difficult to "monetize", in this sense, and one shouldn't overlook the fact that the lack of transit is a hindrance to social mobility. And yes, on this topic I'll always be defending a particular world-view.
The investment transit is receiving since the 2000s is just a fraction of the resources private and unsustainable mobility have sucked since the beginning of the car-era.
ec_traindriver
New Member
Paradoxically, some of the JR (private) companies are actively pursuing this business model in anticipation of future transit scenarios. They're literally building new stations along their rail corridors, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, with provision for future development. Japan has a serious problem with its aging population, and different companies are coming up with many different ideas in order to secure their financial future.
It's a digression, I know.
roger1818
Active Member
What you are saying makes sense when talking about CN and CP, since the vast majority of the miles travelled are in regions that the installation of catenary doesn't make sense and the massive weight of each train and long distances traveled makes batteries impractical.
However, for Metrolinx, if they can save about 50% in energy costs by not having to convert it to hydrogen and back. Directly feeding the electricity to the train (be it via catenary or other method) makes more economic sense on the main lines and batteries could be used on the less used branches.
VIA is somewhere in the middle. For their their regional and long distance trains, hydrogen would be a better option, but (according to their 2017 Corporate Plan), less than half (33 of their 73) of their locomotives are used on those routes. The remaining 40 (19 F40s and 21 P32s) are assigned to the Corridor, and that number stands to grow with HFR. For the Corridor, some combination of direct feed and batteries makes more economic sense.
crs1026
Superstar
^I wonder what constraints will be placed on VIA to use its HFR line for revenue other than people.
At one point Amtrak attempted, but abandoned, a package delivery service. Lots of mail/express trains on HSRish lines elsewhere.
I’m not saying such a service would be viable here, and it’s a distraction from getting HFR off the ground......but.... it’s a good test of whether VIA is being given a mandate to generate all possible revenue from the line, as a true bottom-line focused business should.
I would predict there would be screams if this happened, and the freight railways would be leading the protest. Probably airlines too.
While we pretend that Canada is a country of free markets, Canada’s standard model for privatised infrastructure is to packaged as a disguised semi- monopoly with a pair of competing private firms, with a cumbersome overbuilt regulatory process that is a meal ticket for lawyers. Watch as startup airlines or telco’s try to enter the market, and listen to the objections - impossible !
If we have a freight railway system that has been polished to perfection, with a commendable modal share and volume higher than the European Union..... then we have reached the point where the market will support new competitors, just as we are allowing new telco’s to challenge Rogers and Bell. And new startup airlines.
HFR will be built to a standard that precludes grain trains or even double stacks, but maybe it can partner with parcel services.....or establish a border connection that would bring some commodity brought there by a competing US railway. But will this be allowed?
Like I said, this thought is not likely to go anywhere... but just trying to put the mandate on paper and in law would be a good test of CN and CP’s true colours, and of government’s commitment to placing infrastructure in the hands of a competitive free market.
- Paul
At one point Amtrak attempted, but abandoned, a package delivery service. Lots of mail/express trains on HSRish lines elsewhere.
I’m not saying such a service would be viable here, and it’s a distraction from getting HFR off the ground......but.... it’s a good test of whether VIA is being given a mandate to generate all possible revenue from the line, as a true bottom-line focused business should.
I would predict there would be screams if this happened, and the freight railways would be leading the protest. Probably airlines too.
While we pretend that Canada is a country of free markets, Canada’s standard model for privatised infrastructure is to packaged as a disguised semi- monopoly with a pair of competing private firms, with a cumbersome overbuilt regulatory process that is a meal ticket for lawyers. Watch as startup airlines or telco’s try to enter the market, and listen to the objections - impossible !
If we have a freight railway system that has been polished to perfection, with a commendable modal share and volume higher than the European Union..... then we have reached the point where the market will support new competitors, just as we are allowing new telco’s to challenge Rogers and Bell. And new startup airlines.
HFR will be built to a standard that precludes grain trains or even double stacks, but maybe it can partner with parcel services.....or establish a border connection that would bring some commodity brought there by a competing US railway. But will this be allowed?
Like I said, this thought is not likely to go anywhere... but just trying to put the mandate on paper and in law would be a good test of CN and CP’s true colours, and of government’s commitment to placing infrastructure in the hands of a competitive free market.
- Paul
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ec_traindriver
New Member
Also, and I beg you to pardon my ignorance... but what exactly would be CP and CN's business case against leasing, or transferring, the ROW to a publicly-subsidized agency? From a commercial and practical point of view, nothing would change except the fact that engineers would have to call a "foreign" RTC. Also, the "loss" of ROW property would mean reducing operative costs, and everybody knows that infrastructure costs are among the biggest red figures in the bill at the end of the year.
According to a RAC report, in 2018, Canada's railways spent a combined 2.38 billion CA$ for the maintenance of its 49 422 km network (~ 48 160 CA$/km).
To make a comparison, the AAR estimated, for the same year, an expenditure of roughly 29 billion CA$ for the maintenance of the 225 000 km American network (~ 129 000 CA$/km), while Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), subsidiary of the state-owned holding company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), spent 6.5 billion CA$ for the maintenance of the 16 781 km railway network (~ 387 400 CA$/km). (The Italian figures shouldn't be surprising, considering that more than 70% of the network is electrified and 45% of it is double-track.)
Now, taking into account a core-network of roughly 2 103 km of Corridor lines, we could make three expenditure hypothesis: the first, with RAC costs/km, would see an annual government subsidy of 101.3 million CA$/year; the second, with ARR costs/km, would see an annual government subsidy of 271.3 million CA$/year; and the third, with the Italian ones, a subsidy of 814.7 million CA$/year.
Except for the Italian-scenario subsidy, which is clearly unrealistic considering the aforementioned characteristics of the Italian railway network, a publicly-owned Corridor infrastructure wouldn't really shake the economic stability of the government.
According to a RAC report, in 2018, Canada's railways spent a combined 2.38 billion CA$ for the maintenance of its 49 422 km network (~ 48 160 CA$/km).
To make a comparison, the AAR estimated, for the same year, an expenditure of roughly 29 billion CA$ for the maintenance of the 225 000 km American network (~ 129 000 CA$/km), while Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), subsidiary of the state-owned holding company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), spent 6.5 billion CA$ for the maintenance of the 16 781 km railway network (~ 387 400 CA$/km). (The Italian figures shouldn't be surprising, considering that more than 70% of the network is electrified and 45% of it is double-track.)
Now, taking into account a core-network of roughly 2 103 km of Corridor lines, we could make three expenditure hypothesis: the first, with RAC costs/km, would see an annual government subsidy of 101.3 million CA$/year; the second, with ARR costs/km, would see an annual government subsidy of 271.3 million CA$/year; and the third, with the Italian ones, a subsidy of 814.7 million CA$/year.
Except for the Italian-scenario subsidy, which is clearly unrealistic considering the aforementioned characteristics of the Italian railway network, a publicly-owned Corridor infrastructure wouldn't really shake the economic stability of the government.
roger1818
Active Member
Sure they could leverage the infrastructure, but if the energy costs twice as much, it might be worth the added infrastructure costs to save on operating costs.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Interesting concept. VIA does not have enabling legislation defining its mandate; it is what the government says it is, but I agree that I don't see it going anywhere. If for no other reason than the requirement for different rolling stock and handling and marshalling requirements. I can't see the mainline carriers caring much one way or the other since I am not aware that they are not in that game anyway, that I am aware of.
kEiThZ
Superstar
VIA isn't Japan Rail. And Canada isn't Japan. We could never afford to do what the Japanese did. Nor would Canadians ever tolerate this kind of bailout:
Japanese National Railway Settlement Corporation - Wikipedia
Do you have any ideas that would actually work in Canada? Or are you just here to wish we were Europe or Asia, because there's plenty of pages of that line is discussion rehashed every year.
ec_traindriver
New Member
I mean, English is not my first language, but I've clearly stated that was a digression. Haven't I?
