VIA Rail

[reaperexpress]

The Canadian is a tourism product which exploits Economies of Scale by aggregating demand to just 2 (or 3) departures per week and its passengers are most likely to have chosen the ride over a cruise ship, which means it’s attracting new passengers with a high willingness to pay. This aggregation is unfortunately not an option for a Corridor night train and its passengers are most likely to have used a day train otherwise (like in your example from your work place), meaning that they would mostly shift existing rather than generate new demand.

As I mentioned before, I don't think there are any city pairs in the Corridor which would have the demand to support a night train. The only pairs which are the correct distance apart are Windsor-Montréal and Toronto-Québec, neither of which seems to have much demand.

But in the case of Toronto - New York, Toronto - Chicago or Montreal - New York, the trains would be linking two cities with millions of people each, with lots of existing flights and buses, so finding 200 people to fill a single train per day doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.

I don't think that the demand for night train overlaps much with the demand for daytime trains. Daytime trains are most competitive for trips under 5 hours by rail, while night trains are most competitive for trips more than 10 hours by rail. In Europe there is the confounding variable of HSR, for which a 5-hour trip is equivalent to a 10-hour overnight trip, but we don't have that here in North America, nor are there any imminent plans to have cross-border HSR.

In my example, the employees currently take the train because the trips in question are Toronto-Ottawa and Montréal-Ottawa, which are both way too short for an overnight service anyway. If the cities were 10 hours apart by rail, those employees would definitely be taking flights. Which is my point. Overnight trains don't really compete with conventional intercity rail. They compete with flights and HSR, the latter of which doesn't exist in Canada or in the US outside of the NEC.

Indeed, some of the report‘s predictions might not have materialized, but its description of the challenges are still very pertinent.

But in any case, there is no fleet of Sleeper cars currently available and I struggle to see how sleeper facilities could possibly fit into VIA‘s new Corridor fleet consisting of 32 identical Siemens trainsets with five Venture cars hauled by a Charger locomotive…

Some of the challenges in the EU are pertinent, such as the labour and vehicle utilisation questions, while others are irrelevant such as the incompatible electrification systems, the higher emissions per passenger, or the need to have a roster of locomotives.

As I mentioned above and in previous posts, all the biggest opportunities I see are cross-border to major US cities. So the trains would be maintained by Amtrak along with the rest of their long-distance fleet at hubs such as New York and Chicago. Given that the proposed overnight services would be capturing new demand for rail, Amtrak (with help from states and provinces) would most likely need to order more coaches to operate them.

Although I really hope the Northlander order has specified a different seat because the economy seats on the VIA Ventures do not really recline far enough for overnight travel in them to be attractive.

This is the one case where I think a Venture sleeper coach makes sense. I don't think the sets' business class coach makes any sense for an overnight service such as the planned Northlander. Instead those coaches could be retrofitted with something along the lines of the NightJet's mini-cabins, perhaps with 24 mini-cabins plus 5 two-bedroom cabins. That way they would be able to attract some new tourism demand along the route, which I doubt an ordinary business class seat would.

The big challenge is obviously finding someone who can affordably retrofit such a small number of coaches, but ONR themselves are one of the top players for train retrofits, so there's a chance they could do it in-house with help from Siemens, who also produces those couchette coaches for ÖBB. Maybe the improved accommodations would create enough tourism demand to warrant ordering additional coaches to extend trains to 4 coaches rather than 3.

My thinking was that this would require a fleet provisioned for for cross-border / single-night services. That could either be a variant of the Venture/Airo family, using the Viewliners once the Airos and a new long-distance fleet displace them from other duties, or a version of the new long-distance fleets. There are a lot of variables between now and new LD fleets arriving, but I was simply suggesting that future procurement and redeployment decisions shouldn't always frame night train equipment as being unique or not being useable in daytime. We can challenge suppliers and be creative with legacy equipment to improve utilization.
That said, the use of unmodified daytime IC equipment for "fake night trains" in Europe is fast becoming notorious.

I think the Toronto - Chicago service could be an add-on to Amtrak's upcoming order for bilevel long-distance coaches. The Toronto - New York and Montréal - New York services would presumably use Viewliner coaches since the long-distance fleet that is operated out of New York.

 

[Rainforest]

As I mentioned before, I don't think there are any city pairs in the Corridor which would have the demand to support a night train. The only pairs which are the correct distance apart are Windsor-Montréal and Toronto-Québec, neither of which seems to have much demand.

But in the case of Toronto - New York, Toronto - Chicago or Montreal - New York, the trains would be linking two cities with millions of people each, with lots of existing flights and buses, so finding 200 people to fill a single train per day doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.

Actually, Montreal to New York (596 km) is only marginally further than Montreal to Toronto (542 km).

Toronto to New York (790 km) and Toronto to Chicago (825 km) are longer indeed. Anyway, would have to adjust the travel speed and departure / arrival times to make the service attractive, if that's possible at all.

For example, Toronto to New York would prefer to run on such a schedule that the customs check at Niagara occurs in the evening for outbound / morning for inbound, rather than in the middle of night. Toronto to Chicago would be the hardest, since the border crossing occurs in the middle of the trip.

 

[Urban Sky]

Since there is so much enthusiasm about restoring single-night night train on this side of (or across) the border, I would like to share here a little overview which I posted originally on Skyscraper Page, describing the Nightjet network as of December 2021:

***

A little operational overview over ÖBB's Nightjet empire

Since there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm about the renaissance of night trains in Europe and replicating the success of the Nightjet here in Canada, I went through their timetable PDF to disect and analyze their network.

Just to give you an idea of how vast their network is, it connects 13 countries (FR, BE, NL, DE, CH, I, A, CZ, PL, SK, HU, SL and HR):

Source: ÖBB Nightjet timetable 2022

However, let's go into more details:

Compiled from: ÖBB Nightjet timetable 2022 and (for distances) European Rail Timetable Winter 2020/2021 edition

Just a few things I noted:

Frequencies
Out of the 28 routes offered (56 trains), all but 4 services run daily year-around. The exceptions are:

• Vienna-Paris (3 times daily weekly, but expected to go daily once more trainsets are delivered to ÖBB)
• Vienna-Bruxelles (same as with Vienna-Paris)
• Vienna-Livorno (twice per week, in summer months only)
• Vienna-Split (same as with Vienna-Livorno)

Timings, distances and speeds
All Nightjet connections depart at their origin between 17h30 and 23h30 (median: 20h17) and arrive at their destination between 06h30 and 11h30 (median: 09h04), with travel times ranging from 8.5 to 16 hours (median: 12h32). The distance covered by rail ranges between 565 and 1,222 km (median: 882 km), which results in an average speed ranging from 55 to 89 km/h (median: 74 km/h).

Partnerships with other railroads
Only 21 routes (42 trains) of the 28 routes featured in their schedule are actually Nightjet services. The remaining 7 routes are operated by the following partner railroads:

• HZ: Munich-Zagreb, Munich-Rijeka, Zürich-Zagreb
• ČD: Zürich-Prague
• MAV: Berlin-Budapest, Munich-Budapest
• PKP: Vienna-Warszawa

splitting and merging
Out of the 28 routes, only 5 actually operate as a full train (think of the Canadian or the Ocean), whereas the remaining 23 routes are operated in six different service groups, with varying levels of operational interdependence and complexity:

Y-shape:
The Zürich-Hamburg service is attached to the Zürich-Berlin service South of Göttingen (think of VIA trains 50/60, 52/62 or its Montreal-Jonquiere/Senneterre service), while operating as two separate North of Göttingen:

• Zürich-Göttingen-Berlin (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Göttingen-Hamburg (and v.v.)

Zürich-Graz/Zagreb operates in the same way:

• Zürich-Schwarzach St.Veith-Graz (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Schwarzach St.Veith-Zagreb (and v.v.)

X-shape: The Vienna-Milan and Munich-Rome services exchange cars in Villach, thus offering four routes with only two trains:

• Vienna-Villach-Milan (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Villach-Rome (and v.v.)
• Munich-Villach-Rome (and v.v.)
• Munich-Villach-Milan (and v.v.)

The expanded X-shape: Vienna/Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Hamburg/Amsterdam operates in a traditional X-shape, except that a fifth train (the Vienna-Brussels train) is attached to the Vienna-Amsterdam train East of Bonn:

• Vienna-Nürnberg-Bonn-Amsterdam (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Nürnberg-Bonn-Brussels (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Nürnberg-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Bonn-Amsterdam (and v.v.)

More complex operation patterns
On the surface, the Graz/Budapest-Breclav-Berlin service forms a "Y", to which the Vienna-Bohumin-Warsaw service has been attached. However, there are a two more car groups involved, even though they are not mentioned in the Nightjet schedule:

• NJ: Graz-Vienna-Breclav-Bohumin-Berlin (and v.v.)
• PKP: Vienna-Breclav-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav-Bohumin-Berlin (and v.v.)
• ČD: Prague-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)

The crazy one
This one involves two trains which operate in opposite directions (Munich-Budapest and Vienna-Zürich). However, when the two meet in Salzburg, both trains drop a total of four different car groups to form a new train, which gets subsequently split in Villach and Ljubljana:

• Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Zürich (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Villach-Venice (and v.v.)
• Prague-Linz-Salzburg-Zürich (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-(Vienna)-Budapest (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Ljubljana-Zagreb (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Ljubljana-Rijeka (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Venice (and v.v.)

Piggybacking on existing intercity trains
Quite a few night train connections are actually just Sleeper (and sometimes also: Seating) cars attached to regular intercity trains. For instance, the following three train services are attached to overnight intercity trains operated by Deutsche Bahn:

• Zürich-Göttingen-Berlin (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Göttingen-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Amsterdam (and v.v.)

Other car groups are attached to regular daytime intercity trains operated by partner railroads for parts of their journey:

• ČD: Prague-Linz[-Salzburg-Zürich] (and v.v.)
• SŽ: Rijeka-Ljubljana[-Villach-Salzburg-Munich] (and v.v.)
• PKP: Warsaw-Bohumin[-Breclav-Vienna] (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav[-Bohumin-Berlin] (and v.v.)

***

All of the above allows ÖBB to offer a network length of more than 50,000 km, while only incurring Locomotive Engineer and Track Access costs for half of that mileage.

But what does that mean for Canada?

Basically, the Nightjet model would be very difficult to replicate in Canada, because it combines a point-to-point network like that of a budget airline with the bundling of multiple services not that dissimilar from how CP operated its Toronto-Buffalo-Boston/NYC/Philadelphia/Pittsburgh/Cleveland Sleeper car services back in the 1950s. However, it's difficult to imagine a network where a sufficient number of viable branches overlap to make a service work. The only service I can spontaneously imagine is an X-shaped Toronto/Montreal-Albany-NYC/Boston service, but that would certainly fall onto Amtrak's turf, not VIA's...

 

[Northern Light]

Since there is so much enthusiasm about restoring single-night night train on this side of (or across) the border, I would like to share here a little overview which I posted originally on Skyscraper Page, describing the Nightjet network as of December 2021:

***

A little operational overview over ÖBB's Nightjet empire

Since there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm about the renaissance of night trains in Europe and replicating the success of the Nightjet here in Canada, I went through their timetable PDF to disect and analyze their network.

Just to give you an idea of how vast their network is, it connects 13 countries (FR, BE, NL, DE, CH, I, A, CZ, PL, SK, HU, SL and HR):

Source: ÖBB Nightjet timetable 2022

However, let's go into more details:

Compiled from: ÖBB Nightjet timetable 2022 and (for distances) European Rail Timetable Winter 2020/2021 edition

Just a few things I noted:

Frequencies
Out of the 28 routes offered (56 trains), all but 4 services run daily year-around. The exceptions are:

• Vienna-Paris (3 times daily, but expected to go daily once more trainsets are delivered to ÖBB)
• Vienna-Bruxelles (same as with Vienna-Paris)
• Vienna-Livorno (twice per week, in summer months only)
• Vienna-Split (same as with Vienna-Livorno)

Timings, distances and speeds
All Nightjet connections depart at their origin between 17h30 and 23h30 (median: 20h17) and arrive at their destination between 06h30 and 11h30 (median: 09h04), with travel times ranging from 8.5 to 16 hours (median: 12h32). The distance covered by rail ranges between 565 and 1,222 km (median: 882 km), which results in an average speed ranging from 55 to 89 km/h (median: 74 km/h).

Partnerships with other railroads
Only 21 routes (42 trains) of the 28 routes featured in their schedule are actually Nightjet services. The remaining 7 routes are operated by the following partner railroads:

• HZ: Munich-Zagreb, Munich-Rijeka, Zürich-Zagreb
• ČD: Zürich-Prague
• MAV: Berlin-Budapest, Munich-Budapest
• PKP: Vienna-Warszawa

splitting and merging
Out of the 28 routes, only 5 actually operate as a full train (think of the Canadian or the Ocean), whereas the remaining 23 routes are operated in six different service groups, with varying levels of operational interdependence and complexity:

Y-shape:
The Zürich-Hamburg service is attached to the Zürich-Berlin service South of Göttingen (think of VIA trains 50/60, 52/62 or its Montreal-Jonquiere/Senneterre service), while operating as two separate North of Göttingen:

• Zürich-Göttingen-Berlin (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Göttingen-Hamburg (and v.v.)

Zürich-Graz/Zagreb operates in the same way:

• Zürich-Schwarzach St.Veith-Graz (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Schwarzach St.Veith-Zagreb (and v.v.)

X-shape: The Vienna-Milan and Munich-Rome services exchange cars in Villach, thus offering four routes with only two trains:

• Vienna-Villach-Milan (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Villach-Rome (and v.v.)
• Munich-Villach-Rome (and v.v.)
• Munich-Villach-Milan (and v.v.)

The expanded X-shape: Vienna/Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Hamburg/Amsterdam operates in a traditional X-shape, except that a fifth train (the Vienna-Brussels train) is attached to the Vienna-Amsterdam train East of Bonn:

• Vienna-Nürnberg-Bonn-Amsterdam (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Nürnberg-Bonn-Brussels (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Nürnberg-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Bonn-Amsterdam (and v.v.)

More complex operation patterns
On the surface, the Graz/Budapest-Breclav-Berlin service forms a "Y", to which the Vienna-Bohumin-Warsaw service has been attached. However, there are a two more car groups involved, even though they are not mentioned in the Nightjet schedule:

• NJ: Graz-Vienna-Breclav-Bohumin-Berlin (and v.v.)
• PKP: Vienna-Breclav-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav-Bohumin-Berlin (and v.v.)
• ČD: Prague-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)

The crazy one
This one involves two trains which operate in opposite directions (Munich-Budapest and Vienna-Zürich). However, when the two meet in Salzburg, both trains drop a total of four different car groups to form a new train, which gets subsequently split in Villach and Ljubljana:

• Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Zürich (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Villach-Venice (and v.v.)
• Prague-Linz-Salzburg-Zürich (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-(Vienna)-Budapest (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Ljubljana-Zagreb (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Ljubljana-Rijeka (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Venice (and v.v.)

Piggybacking on existing intercity trains
Quite a few night train connections are actually just Sleeper (and sometimes also: Seating) cars attached to regular intercity trains. For instance, the following three train services are attached to overnight intercity trains operated by Deutsche Bahn:

• Zürich-Göttingen-Berlin (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Göttingen-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Amsterdam (and v.v.)

Other car groups are attached to regular daytime intercity trains operated by partner railroads for parts of their journey:

• ČD: Prague-Linz[-Salzburg-Zürich] (and v.v.)
• SŽ: Rijeka-Ljubljana[-Villach-Salzburg-Munich] (and v.v.)
• PKP: Warsaw-Bohumin[-Breclav-Vienna] (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav[-Bohumin-Berlin] (and v.v.)

***

All of the above allows ÖBB to offer a network length of more than 50,000 km, while only incurring Locomotive Engineer and Track Access costs for half of that mileage.

But what does that mean for Canada?

Basically, the Nightjet model would be very difficult to replicate in Canada, because it combines a point-to-point network like that of a budget airline with the bundling of multiple services not that dissimilar from how CP operated its Toronto-Buffalo-Boston/NYC/Philadelphia/Pittsburgh/Cleveland Sleeper car services back in the 1950s. However, it's difficult to imagine a network where a sufficient number of viable branches overlap to make a service work. The only service I can spontaneously imagine is an X-shaped Toronto/Montreal-Albany-NYC/Boston service, but that would certainly fall onto Amtrak's turf, not VIA's...

Tremendous work/post! The effort is appreciated, as always!

 

[DSC]

Since there is so much enthusiasm about restoring single-night night train on this side of (or across) the border, I would like to share here a little overview which I posted originally on Skyscraper Page, describing the Nightjet network as of December 2021:

***

A little operational overview over ÖBB's Nightjet empire

Since there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm about the renaissance of night trains in Europe and replicating the success of the Nightjet here in Canada, I went through their timetable PDF to disect and analyze their network.

Just to give you an idea of how vast their network is, it connects 13 countries (FR, BE, NL, DE, CH, I, A, CZ, PL, SK, HU, SL and HR):

Source: ÖBB Nightjet timetable 2022

However, let's go into more details:

Compiled from: ÖBB Nightjet timetable 2022 and (for distances) European Rail Timetable Winter 2020/2021 edition

Just a few things I noted:

Frequencies
Out of the 28 routes offered (56 trains), all but 4 services run daily year-around. The exceptions are:

• Vienna-Paris (3 times daily, but expected to go daily once more trainsets are delivered to ÖBB)
• Vienna-Bruxelles (same as with Vienna-Paris)
• Vienna-Livorno (twice per week, in summer months only)
• Vienna-Split (same as with Vienna-Livorno)

Timings, distances and speeds
All Nightjet connections depart at their origin between 17h30 and 23h30 (median: 20h17) and arrive at their destination between 06h30 and 11h30 (median: 09h04), with travel times ranging from 8.5 to 16 hours (median: 12h32). The distance covered by rail ranges between 565 and 1,222 km (median: 882 km), which results in an average speed ranging from 55 to 89 km/h (median: 74 km/h).

Partnerships with other railroads
Only 21 routes (42 trains) of the 28 routes featured in their schedule are actually Nightjet services. The remaining 7 routes are operated by the following partner railroads:

• HZ: Munich-Zagreb, Munich-Rijeka, Zürich-Zagreb
• ČD: Zürich-Prague
• MAV: Berlin-Budapest, Munich-Budapest
• PKP: Vienna-Warszawa

splitting and merging
Out of the 28 routes, only 5 actually operate as a full train (think of the Canadian or the Ocean), whereas the remaining 23 routes are operated in six different service groups, with varying levels of operational interdependence and complexity:

Y-shape:
The Zürich-Hamburg service is attached to the Zürich-Berlin service South of Göttingen (think of VIA trains 50/60, 52/62 or its Montreal-Jonquiere/Senneterre service), while operating as two separate North of Göttingen:

• Zürich-Göttingen-Berlin (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Göttingen-Hamburg (and v.v.)

Zürich-Graz/Zagreb operates in the same way:

• Zürich-Schwarzach St.Veith-Graz (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Schwarzach St.Veith-Zagreb (and v.v.)

X-shape: The Vienna-Milan and Munich-Rome services exchange cars in Villach, thus offering four routes with only two trains:

• Vienna-Villach-Milan (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Villach-Rome (and v.v.)
• Munich-Villach-Rome (and v.v.)
• Munich-Villach-Milan (and v.v.)

The expanded X-shape: Vienna/Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Hamburg/Amsterdam operates in a traditional X-shape, except that a fifth train (the Vienna-Brussels train) is attached to the Vienna-Amsterdam train East of Bonn:

• Vienna-Nürnberg-Bonn-Amsterdam (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Nürnberg-Bonn-Brussels (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Nürnberg-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Bonn-Amsterdam (and v.v.)

More complex operation patterns
On the surface, the Graz/Budapest-Breclav-Berlin service forms a "Y", to which the Vienna-Bohumin-Warsaw service has been attached. However, there are a two more car groups involved, even though they are not mentioned in the Nightjet schedule:

• NJ: Graz-Vienna-Breclav-Bohumin-Berlin (and v.v.)
• PKP: Vienna-Breclav-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav-Bohumin-Berlin (and v.v.)
• ČD: Prague-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)

The crazy one
This one involves two trains which operate in opposite directions (Munich-Budapest and Vienna-Zürich). However, when the two meet in Salzburg, both trains drop a total of four different car groups to form a new train, which gets subsequently split in Villach and Ljubljana:

• Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Zürich (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Villach-Venice (and v.v.)
• Prague-Linz-Salzburg-Zürich (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-(Vienna)-Budapest (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Ljubljana-Zagreb (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Ljubljana-Rijeka (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Venice (and v.v.)

Piggybacking on existing intercity trains
Quite a few night train connections are actually just Sleeper (and sometimes also: Seating) cars attached to regular intercity trains. For instance, the following three train services are attached to overnight intercity trains operated by Deutsche Bahn:

• Zürich-Göttingen-Berlin (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Göttingen-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Amsterdam (and v.v.)

Other car groups are attached to regular daytime intercity trains operated by partner railroads for parts of their journey:

• ČD: Prague-Linz[-Salzburg-Zürich] (and v.v.)
• SŽ: Rijeka-Ljubljana[-Villach-Salzburg-Munich] (and v.v.)
• PKP: Warsaw-Bohumin[-Breclav-Vienna] (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav[-Bohumin-Berlin] (and v.v.)

***

All of the above allows ÖBB to offer a network length of more than 50,000 km, while only incurring Locomotive Engineer and Track Access costs for half of that mileage.

But what does that mean for Canada?

Basically, the Nightjet model would be very difficult to replicate in Canada, because it combines a point-to-point network like that of a budget airline with the bundling of multiple services not that dissimilar from how CP operated its Toronto-Buffalo-Boston/NYC/Philadelphia/Pittsburgh/Cleveland Sleeper car services back in the 1950s. However, it's difficult to imagine a network where a sufficient number of viable branches overlap to make a service work. The only service I can spontaneously imagine is an X-shaped Toronto/Montreal-Albany-NYC/Boston service, but that would certainly fall onto Amtrak's turf, not VIA's...

Minor correction. Typo, It is currently 3 times weekly.

• Vienna-Paris (3 times daily, but expected to go daily once more trainsets are delivered to ÖBB)

 

[reaperexpress]

Actually, Montreal to New York (596 km) is only marginally further than Montreal to Toronto (542 km).

True, but the baseline travel time is about 10 hours due to the poor track conditions as well as the curvy track alignment. Currently the train captures hardly any of the demand between the two cities (literally none at the moment, since it's cancelled until 11 September), due to the long travel times.

Amtrak is already planning to add a second daily round trip from Montréal to New York once the customs preclearance facility opens in Montréal. My suggestion is that one of the two trains should run overnight, so that it can capture demand currently dissuaded by the long travel times.

Toronto to New York (790 km) and Toronto to Chicago (825 km) are longer indeed. Anyway, would have to adjust the travel speed and departure / arrival times to make the service attractive, if that's possible at all.

For example, Toronto to New York would prefer to run on such a schedule that the customs check at Niagara occurs in the evening for outbound / morning for inbound, rather than in the middle of night. Toronto to Chicago would be the hardest, since the border crossing occurs in the middle of the trip.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, I'm assuming that pre-clearance facilities are built in Montréal and Toronto before the corresponding overnight services would be introduced. Stopping at the border to clear customs late at night or very early in the morning would probably make the services annoying enough to not be viable.
The Toronto services would therefore be quite far in the future, with Detroit Central station and Niagara Falls Ontario station being higher on the list for pre-clearance facilities.

 

[reaperexpress]

Since there is so much enthusiasm about restoring single-night night train on this side of (or across) the border, I would like to share here a little overview which I posted originally on Skyscraper Page, describing the Nightjet network as of December 2021:

***

A little operational overview over ÖBB's Nightjet empire

Since there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm about the renaissance of night trains in Europe and replicating the success of the Nightjet here in Canada, I went through their timetable PDF to disect and analyze their network.

Just to give you an idea of how vast their network is, it connects 13 countries (FR, BE, NL, DE, CH, I, A, CZ, PL, SK, HU, SL and HR):

Source: ÖBB Nightjet timetable 2022

However, let's go into more details:

Compiled from: ÖBB Nightjet timetable 2022 and (for distances) European Rail Timetable Winter 2020/2021 edition

Just a few things I noted:

Frequencies
Out of the 28 routes offered (56 trains), all but 4 services run daily year-around. The exceptions are:

• Vienna-Paris (3 times daily weekly, but expected to go daily once more trainsets are delivered to ÖBB)
• Vienna-Bruxelles (same as with Vienna-Paris)
• Vienna-Livorno (twice per week, in summer months only)
• Vienna-Split (same as with Vienna-Livorno)

Timings, distances and speeds
All Nightjet connections depart at their origin between 17h30 and 23h30 (median: 20h17) and arrive at their destination between 06h30 and 11h30 (median: 09h04), with travel times ranging from 8.5 to 16 hours (median: 12h32). The distance covered by rail ranges between 565 and 1,222 km (median: 882 km), which results in an average speed ranging from 55 to 89 km/h (median: 74 km/h).

Partnerships with other railroads
Only 21 routes (42 trains) of the 28 routes featured in their schedule are actually Nightjet services. The remaining 7 routes are operated by the following partner railroads:

• HZ: Munich-Zagreb, Munich-Rijeka, Zürich-Zagreb
• ČD: Zürich-Prague
• MAV: Berlin-Budapest, Munich-Budapest
• PKP: Vienna-Warszawa

splitting and merging
Out of the 28 routes, only 5 actually operate as a full train (think of the Canadian or the Ocean), whereas the remaining 23 routes are operated in six different service groups, with varying levels of operational interdependence and complexity:

Y-shape:
The Zürich-Hamburg service is attached to the Zürich-Berlin service South of Göttingen (think of VIA trains 50/60, 52/62 or its Montreal-Jonquiere/Senneterre service), while operating as two separate North of Göttingen:

• Zürich-Göttingen-Berlin (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Göttingen-Hamburg (and v.v.)

Zürich-Graz/Zagreb operates in the same way:

• Zürich-Schwarzach St.Veith-Graz (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Schwarzach St.Veith-Zagreb (and v.v.)

X-shape: The Vienna-Milan and Munich-Rome services exchange cars in Villach, thus offering four routes with only two trains:

• Vienna-Villach-Milan (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Villach-Rome (and v.v.)
• Munich-Villach-Rome (and v.v.)
• Munich-Villach-Milan (and v.v.)

The expanded X-shape: Vienna/Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Hamburg/Amsterdam operates in a traditional X-shape, except that a fifth train (the Vienna-Brussels train) is attached to the Vienna-Amsterdam train East of Bonn:

• Vienna-Nürnberg-Bonn-Amsterdam (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Nürnberg-Bonn-Brussels (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Nürnberg-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Innsbruck-Nürnberg-Bonn-Amsterdam (and v.v.)

More complex operation patterns
On the surface, the Graz/Budapest-Breclav-Berlin service forms a "Y", to which the Vienna-Bohumin-Warsaw service has been attached. However, there are a two more car groups involved, even though they are not mentioned in the Nightjet schedule:

• NJ: Graz-Vienna-Breclav-Bohumin-Berlin (and v.v.)
• PKP: Vienna-Breclav-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav-Bohumin-Berlin (and v.v.)
• ČD: Prague-Bohumin-Warsaw (and v.v.)

The crazy one
This one involves two trains which operate in opposite directions (Munich-Budapest and Vienna-Zürich). However, when the two meet in Salzburg, both trains drop a total of four different car groups to form a new train, which gets subsequently split in Villach and Ljubljana:

• Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Zürich (and v.v.)
• Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Villach-Venice (and v.v.)
• Prague-Linz-Salzburg-Zürich (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-(Vienna)-Budapest (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Ljubljana-Zagreb (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Ljubljana-Rijeka (and v.v.)
• Munich-Salzburg-Villach-Venice (and v.v.)

Piggybacking on existing intercity trains
Quite a few night train connections are actually just Sleeper (and sometimes also: Seating) cars attached to regular intercity trains. For instance, the following three train services are attached to overnight intercity trains operated by Deutsche Bahn:

• Zürich-Göttingen-Berlin (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Göttingen-Hamburg (and v.v.)
• Zürich-Amsterdam (and v.v.)

Other car groups are attached to regular daytime intercity trains operated by partner railroads for parts of their journey:

• ČD: Prague-Linz[-Salzburg-Zürich] (and v.v.)
• SŽ: Rijeka-Ljubljana[-Villach-Salzburg-Munich] (and v.v.)
• PKP: Warsaw-Bohumin[-Breclav-Vienna] (and v.v.)
• MAV: Budapest-Breclav[-Bohumin-Berlin] (and v.v.)

***

All of the above allows ÖBB to offer a network length of more than 50,000 km, while only incurring Locomotive Engineer and Track Access costs for half of that mileage.

But what does that mean for Canada?

Basically, the Nightjet model would be very difficult to replicate in Canada, because it combines a point-to-point network like that of a budget airline with the bundling of multiple services not that dissimilar from how CP operated its Toronto-Buffalo-Boston/NYC/Philadelphia/Pittsburgh/Cleveland Sleeper car services back in the 1950s. However, it's difficult to imagine a network where a sufficient number of viable branches overlap to make a service work. The only service I can spontaneously imagine is an X-shaped Toronto/Montreal-Albany-NYC/Boston service, but that would certainly fall onto Amtrak's turf, not VIA's...

Thanks again for sharing this fantasic post! I was wondering what the average speed of NightJet services would be like. On the one hand they run at up to 200 km/h, but on the other hand they often spend a lot of time shunting coaches around in the middle of the route. An 80 km/h average is actually pretty impressive considering how much time they spend standing still.

 

[DSC]

Thanks again for sharing this fantasic post! I was wondering what the average speed of NightJet services would be like. On the one hand they run at up to 200 km/h, but on the other hand they often spend a lot of time shunting coaches around in the middle of the route. An 80 km/h average is actually pretty impressive considering how much time they spend standing still.

The speed is surely important for Overnight trains from A to B. Overnight trains work best when they depart in mid or late evening and arrive about 7 or 8 am. If this means they go slowly or park for an hour is not important. Nobody want to arrive at 5am.
.

 

[reaperexpress]

The speed is surely important for Overnight trains from A to B. Overnight trains work best when they depart in mid or late evening and arrive about 7 or 8 am. If this means they go slowly or park for an hour is not important. Nobody want to arrive at 5am.
.

That only means that the trip should not be shorter than 10 hours. Which is rarely the case here if you look at the travel times in the table. Many of the routes are 14 hours long, which means that in addition to your 8-hour sleep, you still have a 6-hour train ride to sit through. Cutting those 6 hours down is definitely beneficial.

 

[crs1026]

I have had plenty of overnight intercity rides in Berths, Roomettes, Slumbercoaches, Couchettes, and Cabins....and while I continue to do so for enjoyment, I cannot rate the experience all that highly as a mode of transportation.
For one thing, many people do not really sleep that well on trains, expecially on the first night. Secondly, track quality on this continent leaves much to be desired in many places. Thirdly, unless one is occupying a deluxe room with shower, one arrives feeling scruffy - certainly not how to prepare for a long day of serious business meetings.
There are markets where people are willing to ride overnight, and perhaps there are city pairs where enough riders are inclined to do so, but it's a rather bleary eyed clientele.
It's telling that sleeper trains generally have one or two sleepers tacked on the back of multiple day coaches - and not the reverse. Even at a premium fare, the sleeper needs a base of coach revenue to justify the train's economics. The number of passengers carried per evening does not represent a major dent in air travel so not a modal share generator.
I'm of the opinion that while sleeper trains are interesting to the enthusiast, and perhaps useful by some, they are a nice-to-have and not core infrastructure. Personally I would rather see VIA focus on other initiatives such as better stations, and possibly even more routes or more frequent service during the day.

- Paul

 

[just east of the creek]

I have had plenty of overnight intercity rides in Berths, Roomettes, Slumbercoaches, Couchettes, and Cabins....and while I continue to do so for enjoyment, I cannot rate the experience all that highly as a mode of transportation.
For one thing, many people do not really sleep that well on trains, expecially on the first night. Secondly, track quality on this continent leaves much to be desired in many places. Thirdly, unless one is occupying a deluxe room with shower, one arrives feeling scruffy - certainly not how to prepare for a long day of serious business meetings.
There are markets where people are willing to ride overnight, and perhaps there are city pairs where enough riders are inclined to do so, but it's a rather bleary eyed clientele.
It's telling that sleeper trains generally have one or two sleepers tacked on the back of multiple day coaches - and not the reverse. Even at a premium fare, the sleeper needs a base of coach revenue to justify the train's economics. The number of passengers ocarried per evening does not represent a major dent in air travel so not a modal share generator.
I'm of the opinion that while sleeper trains are interesting to the enthusiast, and perhaps useful by some, they are a nice-to-have and not core infrastructure. Personally I would rather see VIA focus on other initiatives such as better stations, and possibly even more routes or more frequent service during the day.

- Paul

I have ridden a couple of these trains a few times and one could quibble on some details I.e. i have no problems sleeping. However I would 100% agree with the authors last two lines. Currently sleeper trains in Canada are primarily for tourists of one type or another, and yes they could use some continuing improvements in routing and speed to enhance the experience. But beyond that VIA has a long list of improvements to focus on before it should be contemplating any discussions about sleeper trains.

 

[Aylmer]

I think there's an interesting aspect of night trains that is a bit less obvious; Beyond the demand between the terminal cities (eg, Montreal to Toronto), it enables connections on either end that are impractical with daytime services.

Speaking only from my point of view, I'll tolerate about 5-6hrs of daytime train travel before it starts to feel impractical. On the daytime network, that means that it's impractical to travel from one side of Montreal to the other side of Toronto (eg Quebec City to London) or even to points within either metro area when accounting for local transport (eg Vaughn to Laval).

But an overnight connection both cuts out 4.5-6 hours of daytime travel, and splits the remainder over two different days.

So a London-Quebec goes from a lumbar-testing 11 consecutive daytime hours (say, 9am-8pm) to two short daytime trips (9-11pm, 7-10am).

Trips within a metro area also become far more competitive. Going from Square One to Carrefour Laval calls for some 7-8hrs of travel during the day, or two 1hr local jogs on either end of a night service.

Again, only speaking for myself here, if there were a night train in the Corridor with good connections, a lot more possible destinations on and off VIA's network would come within practical reach. And considering the costs of hotels these days, even a hefty fare would be worth it.

 

[Bureaucromancer]

My mind continuously goes to the idea of establishing a more airline like overnight service as in a business plus class with lie flat, possibly pod style, seats. This should be cheaper to run than something that requires full linen service, more familiar to customers than European style couchettes service and creates a less specialized fleet than introducing traditional short haul room focused sleepers.

 

[crs1026]

That only means that the trip should not be shorter than 10 hours. Which is rarely the case here if you look at the travel times in the table. Many of the routes are 14 hours long, which means that in addition to your 8-hour sleep, you still have a 6-hour train ride to sit through. Cutting those 6 hours down is definitely beneficial.

Personally, I would say that the perfect sleeper train would depart around 20:30- 21:00, because tourists don't have that many options for shelter after dinner, and any first-mile transfer is less intimidating at that earlier hour, especially in major cities.... sitting around waiting for boarding until 23:00 ish is tedious - and may be intimidating if station amenities or security is less than ideal.

Arrival at 07:30- 08:00 is fine, particularly if there is breakfast available in or near the depot.... so no need for substantial food service on the train. Nobody is likely to want to sleep in.

I did once schlep my carryon bag to the ballpark in Winnipeg - and to my amazement, they let me in with it - because the Canadian wasn't due until 23:00ish. Great place to watch a game, easy walk to the depot afterwards.

- Paul

 

[roger1818]

Amtrak is already planning to add a second daily round trip from Montréal to New York once the customs preclearance facility opens in Montréal. My suggestion is that one of the two trains should run overnight, so that it can capture demand currently dissuaded by the long travel times.

The Montrealer operated as a sleeper train up until it was cancelled in 1995 (my wife and I were booked on it for our honeymoon and had to pivot when it was cancelled a few months before our wedding). Its replacement (the Vermonter) runs as a daytime train, so it could be a challenge to have it revert back to running overnight, as that wouldn't serve Vermont very well (who pays to subsidise the train).

As I mentioned in my previous posts, I'm assuming that pre-clearance facilities are built in Montréal and Toronto before the corresponding overnight services would be introduced. Stopping at the border to clear customs late at night or very early in the morning would probably make the services annoying enough to not be viable.
The Toronto services would therefore be quite far in the future, with Detroit Central station and Niagara Falls Ontario station being higher on the list for pre-clearance facilities.

I just don't see preclearance ever happening in Toronto. It is just too far from the boarder for trains to operate without any other stops in Canada to allow domestic travel. Having said that, I think changing the Maple Leaf to a sleeper train makes a lot of sense, even if they have to stop to clear customs in Niagara Falls. A departure of around 20:00 would allow customs to be cleared by 22:00, still allowing a somewhat reasonable departure from Buffalo. Northbound, arriving at the boarder around 7:30 would still likely allow the train to arrive in Toronto by 9:30.

This schedule would allow the train to be an early morning train to Toronto and NYC and an evening train out of both Toronto and NYC. Having an X configuration with trains to/from Montreal and Boston would further enhance its flexibility.