Bordercollie
Senior Member
I mean West of Toronto
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Looks like there are low shunt issues on BNSF as well. Does nobody talk to each other before spending millions on new equipment?
crs1026
Superstar
So do I. Trains don't cycle back and forth between Toronto and Windsor.
Suppose (hypothetically) a typical cycle calls for a train to go Montreal to Toronto, and on to Windsor. Next day it goes Windsor to Ottawa and on to Montreal. Next day it goes Montreal to Toronto and return. Next day it goes Montreal to Toronto to Windsor. That's a four day cycle. It requires four trainsets. If you supply that cycle with two Venture trains and two non-Ventures, all the seating charts and reservation details get messy.
- Paul
Trackside_Treasure
Active Member
Which set had locked wheels and where is it now? Was this a recent thing or the one that was stopped temporarily in Sarnia?
Re: allocation of Venture sets.- as Paul has already noted, it's not as if each set stays captive between one pair of Corridor cities. That would be a lot easier, and possibly allow better allocation of equipment based on passenger loads, but it doesn't readily allow for servicing nor the need for VIA (thanks to MX) to use Union Station tracks as run-through tracks for many VIA Corridor trains - much like GO trains do from Lakeshore West to East, I suppose.
Currently, Ventures run through from Sarnia-Toronto-Ottawa, Montreal-Ottawa-Sarnia, Ottawa-Toronto-Ottawa, Montreal-Quebec-Montreal, and even Montreal-Toronto-Windsor each day, mostly two runs per day but occasionally three! This seems to be what allows VIA to run with so few sets of equipment of any kind, once-a-week trips for maintenance, and they've had to rearrange their rotation due to unacceptable delays throwing it off, due to CN's crossing speed reductions. We're also still waiting for the TMC servicing building to be complete, and in a way it's already obsolete as neither of the augmented eight-unit sets will fit inside.
And slowdowns on the CN Kingston Sub are actually 45 mph, not 55 mph. Slower, longer trips!!!
Re: allocation of Venture sets.- as Paul has already noted, it's not as if each set stays captive between one pair of Corridor cities. That would be a lot easier, and possibly allow better allocation of equipment based on passenger loads, but it doesn't readily allow for servicing nor the need for VIA (thanks to MX) to use Union Station tracks as run-through tracks for many VIA Corridor trains - much like GO trains do from Lakeshore West to East, I suppose.
Currently, Ventures run through from Sarnia-Toronto-Ottawa, Montreal-Ottawa-Sarnia, Ottawa-Toronto-Ottawa, Montreal-Quebec-Montreal, and even Montreal-Toronto-Windsor each day, mostly two runs per day but occasionally three! This seems to be what allows VIA to run with so few sets of equipment of any kind, once-a-week trips for maintenance, and they've had to rearrange their rotation due to unacceptable delays throwing it off, due to CN's crossing speed reductions. We're also still waiting for the TMC servicing building to be complete, and in a way it's already obsolete as neither of the augmented eight-unit sets will fit inside.
And slowdowns on the CN Kingston Sub are actually 45 mph, not 55 mph. Slower, longer trips!!!
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Just order the shunt enhancers and be over with.
Trackside_Treasure
Active Member
It remains to be seen whether Canadian railways like CN and VIA will follow Amtrak's lead and implement OSEs, or attempt to continue speed reductions or other measures to mitigate the loss-of-shunt issues that apparently persist.
If OSE implementation were to go forward, this would involve testing, regulatory approval and a stepwise implementation process. Any list of standardized protocols for the implementation of OSEs on passenger trains will have to include several key recommendations. Such trains would be light weight consists in passenger and commuter service of less than 400 trailing tons and 32 axles. Antennae would have to be mounted on both the A and B trucks of the leading equipment. Antennae would be of a proper shape for specific truck types, both trucks' OSEs functioning together in parallel with the rail, and centred over the rail. Locomotive engineers would need a visible fault indicator if the antennae or system became faulty. There would have to be inspection at least semi-annually, with records kept.
If OSEs become the gold standard for preventing loss-of-shunt incidents, railways may actually prevent passenger train operators from operating non-OSE equipped equipment on their networks.
Not only is Siemens unhappy with CN's speed reductions on VIA, they haven't even started designing an OSE for Venture cab car use yet!
Bordercollie
Senior Member
With all of those venture sets in service and with CN being one of the largest host railways it would only make sense to design a platform that works in the first place.
crs1026
Superstar
It would...... if CN is happy with the idea that VIA will remain as a tenant on their railway. Clearly, they want VIA gone and they see various tactics of not-so-passive aggression as helpful in convincing government to make VIA move on.
I don't know why the Venture procurement spec didn't have a line reading "compatible with CN's crossing protection regime"...... but here we are. Maybe positions on both sides are unrealistic.
- Paul
smallspy
Senior Member
What part of "they need to be certified" is not clear to you?
This is it. While institutionally they seem okay with the concept of VIA as an entity to have to deal with, it's incredulous to me that the actions of one single manager - who used to work at VIA, let's all be reminded - have managed to kneecap the whole of VIA's future.
Sure, they have long played this "passenger trains are irritating" game, and the lack-of-shunt line has been a bit of a joke within the industry too, but this is a whole new level. They have gone from passively agnostic to actively hostile.
Probably because it was never an issue for any of the previous passenger stock purchases that ever ran on CN. GO equipment, AMT, VIA......it's all been more-or-less okay with minor issues (for the installation of scrubbers in some cases).
No one had any reason to believe that CN would very suddenly change its tune considering the previous 50-plus years of experience.
Dan
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crs1026
Superstar
That single individual may have been the initial trigger.... but this issue has now wound its way through CN's legal department and undoubtedly the CN c-suite and boardroom. There is clearly internal consensus and high level support for CN's position.
My conspiracy theory is that the initiating individual has been given a lot of quiet "attaboys" for having been clever enough to find a lever that the rest of CN management hadn't. I doubt that the individual's annual bonus was reduced - heck, it might have been beefed up.
I wonder if some at Transport Canada even feel the same way. One has to assume that TC and CN talk to each other. Quite possibly the Minister and the CEO have discussed.
Well, this cuts both ways. The lower threshold for shunt impedance on CN lines has always been known - hence those workarounds in past eras. So yeah the issue may have been benign up til now, but the very existence of those past workarounds possibly should have triggered someone asking the question about whether the new equipment matches the performance of those other "exceptions" (Very much hindsight, I admit)
And... be careful what you ask for. Anyone who is musing about bringing back RDCs or some new brand of short train or EMU to bolster VIA or commuter line business development is clearly going to face the same technical barriers.
- Paul
smallspy
Senior Member
Sure. But at least some of that new equipment is heavier than the equipment that it will be replacing. Knowing everything that we know about shunt and CN's signal system, what knowledge was there that it wouldn't work? All of the indications were that there should be no problems. And yet, here we are.
Dan
Trackside_Treasure
Active Member
VIA has played its hand in two successive courts, clearly exposing CN's illogical application of its risk-aversion thinking by Mr Hoang Tran (ex-VIA) who has repeatedly defended his lack of knowledge and had it attaboy'ed by his bosses. CN and the Attorney-General have played strong hands in the 'not your jurisdiction' game in court. But the jurisdiction where this has all landed is Transport Canada, and the Minister's Ministerial Order is now 8 months old, looking rather toothless and forgotten, with no apparent action taken on the data CN supplied.
Watch for CN to convert these crossing speed reductions to Permanent Slow Orders, possibly soon. While this leaves some egg potentially on CN's face by showing that their GCP crossing protection (built by Siemens or whomever) is the weak spot in VIA's Venture implementation, after ten months of crossing speed reductions, the crews should no all the PSO locations by memory anyway! Up till now, enshrining these crossing speed reductions in something so permanent may have been seen as an admission by CN/VIA that 'we have a problem'. The fact that their joint Train Service Agreement is in perpetual limbo does not help the two railways' working relationship, no doubt.
TC has neither weighed in on the Onboard Shunt Enhancer procurement process for the Ventures, nor told CN it's just plain wrong with flimsy risk-averse evidence on the CN Drummondville Sub, but may be tacitly OK'ing CN's PSO plan as a solution. That would leave VIA with the thorny issue of revising its Venture schedules to enshrine the permanent late arrivals. Passenger complaints get louder and louder, trains stay late, and VIA looks as powerless as it is in the eyes of the euphemistic infrastructure owner. Or as we call it, CN.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
VIA is not the only victim here. Amtrak has the same issue and there has been no progress down south either.
And now BNSF has also mandated that Ventures cannot lead trains on their network until the shunt issue is resolved.
So isn't it the responsibility of the manufacturer to develop and test equipment so that when delivered to the customer that it will work?
That's like delivering electric trains with the wrong voltage requirements.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
As a citizen with little technical knowledge about shunts, I step back from this discussion and see an industry that can't and a government that won't. I look at the transportation systems in other "less developed" countries and I'm ashamed of Canada.
Trackside_Treasure
Active Member
The responsibility for introducing new passenger equipment is enshrined in the in-limbo Train Service Agreement (two passages below, though I did not wade through the entire TSA for this response. The manufacturer can develop and test the equipment, but it's still up to the customer (in this case VIA who is NOT the infrastructure owner, but instead a tenant) to implement it on CN. BNSF is no doubt piggybacking on CN's success trying to hamstring new passenger equipment implementation.