nfitz
Superstar
The express shuttle bus from Union to Eireann Quay isn't that slow.
Personally from out in the east end, we use taxis most of the time.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Personally from out in the east end, we use taxis most of the time.
evandyk
Senior Member
A trip of 450 km is rarely going to be quicker taking a train vs flying, even with the time it takes to go to the airport and get through security. HSR could make it competitive, but a slow old Via will never. You take the train because it's more comfortable and you spend more time sitting in your seat and less time going through security and walking to the gate etc.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Something I don't get about the venture luggage racks is that there are no nets.
I thought that after the Burlington accident TSB required VIA to put nets in the baggage areas to prevent stuff from flying all over the place.
I thought that after the Burlington accident TSB required VIA to put nets in the baggage areas to prevent stuff from flying all over the place.
drum118
Superstar
Unless trains are doing 250-300+ km/hr, it come a saw off for trains doing 200km. When traveling in Europe, I look at the travel time between X and Y and compare it to airplane travel time that it is faster to fly than take the train. Overnight trains are totally off my radar after 2 bad experience where I lost haft a day waiting for a new locomotive to replace a dead one with no water or lights.
I will drive to Ottawa and Montral than fly or take the train to them.
ScreamingViking
Active Member
And usually going downtown to downtown. I'm a train person so the trade-offs are easy for me, but having that more direct linkage is important to me.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Driving isn't without it's problems. At least one a month some part of the road is closed due to an accident. That can easily add an hour to your trip. Not to mention weather delays.
Jonny5
Senior Member
I think this can be summarised as a risk vs. return debate. VIA may require less effort than driving yourself, but there's a trade off in the initial waiting time, and the comforts of private travel vs. public, but most important is the risk on VIA of a rare catastrophic delay, which they seem not able to handle effectively. It's a puzzle, but if you want low-risk with some sacrifice of comfort, you drive. If you want to take on the high return of the convenience of VIA, you also take on the risk of a horrible delay experience, so it is perceived as a much higher risk compared to driving.
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Urban Sky
Senior Member
Indeed, the number of Toronto-Ottawa slots is capped at the 10 trains per direction and day VIA operated pre-Covid and with the reactivation of trains 42 and 55
Note: frequencies shown for 2025-09-29 include the now postponed reactivations of daily trains 42 and 55.
As I said above, Union Station is not the constraint here. Westbound, VIA had to sacrifice the old Train 43 (shown below as the OT-12 slot) to create Train 641 (OT-8) on 1234___ and a new Train 43 (OT-14) on 1____5_7:
Note: departures shown for 2025-09-29 include the now postponed reactivation of train 55 (OT-20).
If we look Eastbound, you would have to sacrifice one of the hourly departures between 12.30 and 6.30 pm - and I would assume that there is a good reason why VIA operates so many Ottawa-bound trains out of Toronto:
Note: departures shown for 2025-09-29 include the now postponed reactivations of train 42 (TO-12).
Same here, just that the bottleneck is called "Coteau" and not "Smiths Falls" (and, of course, that you have less options when deciding which train you'd be willing to sacrifice):
Just because there is apparently enough demand to operate a 50-seat vehicle in addition to its other departures does not mean that you can justify moving the departure of a 400-seat train to a similar slot...
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Northern Light
Superstar
Excellent info, as always @Urban Sky
Questions(s). for you, or @reaperexpress
1) Working with the existing infrastructure and freight schedules is there theoretical room for any additional slots for VIA, within the desirable time ranges that could be negotiated wiht CN/CP, in theory?
2) If not, what is the lowest level of infrastructure investment that would be required to open up new slots, (passing track, rail to rail grade separations, switches/turnounts, etc) and would there be any credible case for the investment, when considering dollars to sustained revenue/service gain
3) Would any of the above investments overlap, to a high certainty with any HSR plan, such that they could be considered an 'early work' advancing the later.
4) Finally, is there 'room' and any logic, to using a portion of the existing CP mainline (Bellevillle) route to bypass any congestion in the CN corridor for even a couple of slots a day? There are multiple crossings/connections between Oshsawa and Belleville.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Thanks! I made that timetable archive and database so that nobody else has to collect and dive through these timetables to make any such timetable analyses. As always, anyone interested in using that database can just let me know and I’ll create a sharable copy!
There are not really any capacity limits rather than that VIA only holds the rights to the number of slots they operated pre-Covid and any increase beyond that needs to be negotiated and CN and CP will extract something they value in return of any concession…
That’s subject to negotiation, but if you compare VIA’s operating budget with either Class I host railroad’s total revenues, it’s clear that VIA has little to offer to them…
From memory, the three main bottlenecks between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto are the respective yards in Coteau, Smiths Falls and Belleville. I would expect that any HSR route would avoid these bottlenecks…
To quote my own response to virtually the same question over at groups.io:
smallspy
Senior Member
While not either of the above, I feel like I can offer some perspective here.
Question 1 - While I think that sorting the current issues out with CN will go a long way towards helping this. As Urban Sky has correctly pointed out, VIA has maxed out its crossing slots through Smiths Falls, and considering how hard CP fought against it VIA is unlikely to get more. (Sure, they can try and negotiate this with CPKC, but I don't see this being successful.) VIA is already running an hourly service for a large part of the day east of Toronto - which means that most of the trains in service each day are in service at this time. It strikes me that there is some room to grow at the edges of the service period - early or later trains - by increasing the utilization of the trainsets. But it will be tricky to add much more service to the edges of the system (Ontario Southwestern, Québec City).
I think that your question 2 is unfortunately superseded by question 3 - no amount of money is going to be worth investing in the infrastructure or equipment if it will be of little-to-no benefit to VIA (or any passenger rail service) in the mid-to-long term. And considering the lead times required to acquire either, you run the risk even if the decision to go ahead with any improvements is made that you get no utility from it before ALTO goes live.
As for question 4 - my inclination is "no". It would require a substantial investment of both money and time in terms of getting agreements, training and certifying operators, certifying equipment (vis-a-vis speeds), infrastructure such as stations, etc.
And connections? You may want to check them again, as the ones that currently exist aren't conducive to providing an efficient passenger service. That's not to say that they couldn't be rebuilt (and in fact, both CN and CP have built temporary interchanges in times of duress), but it would also require a long and hard look at where it makes sense to so and what the impact on the respective operations will be.
Dan
Northern Light
Superstar
Thank you @smallspy and @Urban Sky for the thoughtful replies above.
On connections, I did comingle this with 'crossings' meaning points at which the lines cross on a map, I didn't ground truth (or aerial photo check) the viability of connections at each of these points.
I figured those of you more expert in such things would know that better than I ....
On connections, I did comingle this with 'crossings' meaning points at which the lines cross on a map, I didn't ground truth (or aerial photo check) the viability of connections at each of these points.
I figured those of you more expert in such things would know that better than I ....
crs1026
Superstar
The 2008-2009 expansion plan that Ottawa approved was cut back as costs mounted.... there must have been a next-highest- priority piece of that program that almost got built. The plans for those incremental pieces are no doubt sitting in a drawer somewhere and likely actionable on a short timeline.
Those next-to-do pieces may have higher price tags than the ones that were completed.
From watching various bits of train dispatching over the years, the segment immediately west of Belleville is definitely an impediment - but the missing piece may be the need for a bridge at Moira, to enable freights to clear the existing tracks further west and access the yard
Coteau is likely still high priority piece. I wonder about Liverpool- Darlington also, and again bridges are one key cost driver.
It makes a lot of sense to shift CN freights to the CPKC route to ease congestion (and avoid having to upgrade track speeds on CPKC to VIA requirements) - but few sidings on the CP route are long enough for CN's needs. CP uses fleeting to remove the need for longer sidings, it might take a lot of rearranging to freight achedules to i ject CN trains into that pattern. I suspect the institutional barriers rather than the track geometry is the bedrock here. A bridge too far, it seems.
I have wondered whether all that is needed on the Kingston line might be a few short sidings not unlike the Smiths Falls-Brockville portion, giving CN the ability to run opposing VIA trains on a single track rather than having both tracks occupied by passing VIA trains.
- Paul
micheal_can
Senior Member
I was surprised to learn that CPKC Belleville Sub was mainly single track. While there are some hurdles to using it, if we paid for double tracking the subdivisions between Toronto and Montreal,we could increase service on the Corridor. However, ,I doubt either company will allow HSR to be built along their lines. Honestly, the focus should be on HSR. Much else isn't really needed.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
I think that the implementation of Via's morning non-stop train to Montreal (Train 60) is problematic for a couple reasons.
First of all, it's coupled to Train 50, but since the schedule for 50 isn't being changed, there are no time savings on that trip. If skipping stops saves 30 minutes, the train will need to sit for 30 minutes in Brockville waiting for the scheduled departure time. So the change eliminates ridership from intermediate stations without gaining any ridership from the terminals. This is a short-term issue that could be resolved with a schedule update.
The more fundamental issue, is that trains 50 and 60 are the only trains from Toronto that arrive in Ottawa and Montreal in the morning.
Without train 50, the first train from Kingston doesn't arrive in Ottawa until 13:32 and the first train from Kingston and Cornwall to Montreal doesn't arrive until 14:00:
This schedule change basically eliminates the possibility for people from Kingston and Cornwall to take day trips to Montreal and Ottawa, which is a big deal. I can see why residents of those cities are upset.
Unless an additional morning train is added that makes all stops from Kingston to Montreal (which is unlikely given it would require cancelling an existing trip or negotiating an additional slot), I think it would make more sense to run the Train 60 non-stop from Toronto to Kingston, but still stop in Kingston and Cornwall.
I have no problem with running Train 68 non-stop since trains 66 and 668 are comparable alternatives.
First of all, it's coupled to Train 50, but since the schedule for 50 isn't being changed, there are no time savings on that trip. If skipping stops saves 30 minutes, the train will need to sit for 30 minutes in Brockville waiting for the scheduled departure time. So the change eliminates ridership from intermediate stations without gaining any ridership from the terminals. This is a short-term issue that could be resolved with a schedule update.
The more fundamental issue, is that trains 50 and 60 are the only trains from Toronto that arrive in Ottawa and Montreal in the morning.
Without train 50, the first train from Kingston doesn't arrive in Ottawa until 13:32 and the first train from Kingston and Cornwall to Montreal doesn't arrive until 14:00:
This schedule change basically eliminates the possibility for people from Kingston and Cornwall to take day trips to Montreal and Ottawa, which is a big deal. I can see why residents of those cities are upset.
Unless an additional morning train is added that makes all stops from Kingston to Montreal (which is unlikely given it would require cancelling an existing trip or negotiating an additional slot), I think it would make more sense to run the Train 60 non-stop from Toronto to Kingston, but still stop in Kingston and Cornwall.
I have no problem with running Train 68 non-stop since trains 66 and 668 are comparable alternatives.
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