VIA Rail

[Adjei]

Paywall free: https://archive.is/CBfQB

It seems we are backwards here at times. What is wrong with Air Canada joining the bid? Why must there be some ulterior motive? Aren't airlines partnering with high speed trains all the time in Europe and no one bats an eye to it.

 

[Urban Sky]

It seems we are backwards here at times. What is wrong with Air Canada joining the bid? Why must there be some ulterior motive? Aren't airlines partnering with high speed trains all the time in Europe and no one bats an eye to it.

Because we don’t want to allow one airline to dictate which of its competitors may leverage HFR at which conditions and which ones don’t? (Especially given that they are already the dominant player here)

An airline collaborating with a railroad in a codeshare agreement increases competition, whereas an airline co-owning a railroad has the opposite effect.

 

[PinkLucy]

Sorry to beat the dead horse. How did they deliver the code?

It was a few months back, I didn’t pay that much attention to the details. They spoke to each passenger individually, verifying their ticket info, and to get the credit, you had to call VIA … I think he had to give the date and train number. So not a code per se I guess but information on how to get the credit. He did call and did get the credit for his next trip so whatever they told him to say worked.

 

[roger1818]

The difference between a passenger and a train crew is that the train crew have a mode of communication with Via Rail that allows them to know what the status of the situation is. In other words, the crew would know when food, water, alternative transportation or another train is on its way. The passengers do not know this.

This is the one time @Urban Sky is wrong.

And when they know that food and water isn’t coming even after they begged and pleaded?

I’m curious how many people on this forum believe that they are perfect have never, ever made a bad decision that they later regretted?

 

[roger1818]

Because we don’t want to allow one airline to dictate which of its competitors may leverage HFR at which conditions and which ones don’t? (Especially given that they are already the dominant player here)

An airline collaborating with a railroad in a codeshare agreement increases competition, whereas an airline co-owning a railroad has the opposite effect.

Exactly! Air Canada has a codeshare agreement with SNCF, which increases their penetration into France. Air Canada co-owning HxR, gives them the opportunity to block other airlines from having that same opportunity in Canada.

 

[Mihairokov]

How bad do you find winter delays to be? Consider taking it out west but the schedule doesn't leave much of a buffer for getting home on time

I don't find them all that different than delays at other times of year. If anything, there have been a lot of days where depending on the weather i'm more than happy to sit on the train than slide around on the 401.

 

[Admiral Beez]

There's a lot to read on several pages here. Can someone save me a min and tell me what was wrong with the train anyway, and is it something that’s being addressed on the fleet?

 

[micheal_can]

And when they know that food and water isn’t coming even after they begged and pleaded?

I’m curious how many people on this forum believe that they are perfect have never, ever made a bad decision that they later regretted?

So, what would I do if I were on it?
It was in cell phone range. So, I would be alternating between calling the Via customer service line and 911. I would use my annoying personality as an advantage. "Please stop calling 911,this is not an emergency"
"Not until we are off this train"
"If you don't stop,we will send a police to arrest you"
"Please do."

In all seriousness, I would not be lashing out at the train crew. They are doing the best they can.

 

[Urban Sky]

There's a lot to read on several pages here. Can someone save me a min and tell me what was wrong with the train anyway, and is it something that’s being addressed on the fleet?

Refer to the second part of my post below (not sure about that “13:35” reference, as I believe that must have been a lot later):

Just to share two comments from Groups.io, the first one from @TerryJohnson:

I’m sure there will be a comparison of what was promised after the December 22 fiasco and what happened here.

I’ve said this before: Stuff happens. A good crew can keep everyone mostly happy until the toilets overflow. Then all bets are off. The contingency plan must be calibrated to ensure that relief equipment arrives or passengers are detrained before that happens.

That there wasn’t a mutiny is really quite surprising. Amtrak has a load of people detrain themselves and go wandering around on live track in a similar situation on the Wolverine.

Having a contingency plan that works requires the one thing VIA hasn’t got though, which is adequate funding to do things like keep relief locomotives and crews around.

I hope there is also a deep dive on why equipment keeps leaving MMC with problems, or being held for last-minute maintenance that really should have been caught the night before.

Terry Johnson
Chatham, Ontario


The second comment:

The dead Siemens TS10, originally broke down at Fortier due to air line issues, was temporarily fixed by CN yardmaster from Joffre and released to continue with 15 mph restriction, then it broke down again at Laurier-Station, engine couldn’t be started with air line issues and blocking mainline at Laurier-Station. VIA 24 was expected to push dead 622 to Quebec City but that didn’t work out at all.

VIA sent out rescue crew on 308 at 12 am in the morning, made to Laurier-Station, coupled on to the dead set and headed west towards MMC, stranded at Saint-Eugène as CN closed tracks due to earthquake, that crew ran out of hours, another crew was called to take over and finally get back on move at 13:35.


***

I have a hard time identifying how any of these four (!) separate and subsequent issues could have been anticipated or avoided…

Edit: you may also want to have a look at this excellent analysis of the GPS tracking data by @reaperexpress:

VIA Rail

Completely agree. VIA should start referring to Ottawa Station as "Ottawa Tremblay Station". The same way they do "Toronto Union". Similar to how it should be "Ottawa Fallowfield", although that would then turn my attention to an implied "Toronto Guildwood" 😛

urbantoronto.ca

 

[nfitz]

It was near Laurier Station? A short walk to an A&W, and a grocery store? And only a 30-minute cab-ride to downtown Quebec City? I don't think there's a station there any more - but doesn't the road parallel the track for many miles?

Isn't that single-tracked? So where's the safety concerns of getting out of the train?

The more I hear, the more questions I have. You'd think the train was in the middle of a remote forest from the reports.

 

[Allandale25]

https://www.news10.com/top-stories/amtrak-service-between-albany-montreal-to-resume/?utm_source=t.co&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=referral

Amtrak service between Albany, Montreal to resume on September 9th.​

 

[Urban Sky]

It was near Laurier Station? A short walk to an A&W, and a grocery store? And only a 30-minute cab-ride to downtown Quebec City? I don't think there's a station there any more - but doesn't the road parallel the track for many miles?

Isn't that single-tracked? So where's the safety concerns of getting out of the train?

The more I hear, the more questions I have. You'd think the train was in the middle of a remote forest from the reports.

Check the documentation provided by @reaperexpress : the train stopped at multiple locations throughout the day and the answers to your questions will vary wildly between these locations…

As for your suggestion about getting cabs: you would first have to get a cab from wherever they are (certainly not in Laurier-Station!) to the train and then you’d absolutely need police (and quite a few officers!) to ensure order and safety when there are about 50 exasperated and desperate passengers for each available seat in the cab. Oh, and good luck telling dozens of angry passengers why they are not amongst the lucky ones to board the taxi which has just arrived to pick up passengers…

 

[nfitz]

That all sounds as bad as the VIA excuses that screwed their passengers over. They chose to do sweet frig all. There were options. Including busing - you'd only need 4 or 5 buses for that many. Or did the incompetent fools at VIA cancel their standing bus contracts for emergencies?

I'm surprised they didn't need police (what are there no police in Quebec) to deal with the passengers going out the emergency windows, to pee. After 8 hours, that would have been happening on a GO train. But perhaps you need snakes on the train for that to happen.

 

[Urban Sky]

That all sounds as bad as the VIA excuses that screwed their passengers over. They chose to do sweet frig all. There were options. Including busing - you'd only need 4 or 5 buses for that many. Or did the incompetent fools at VIA cancel their standing bus contracts for emergencies?

I don’t know what contracts VIA had in your days, but to extend a contract, you need both parties to agree and given the current state of the labour markets for bus drivers, bus companies will be very reluctant to commit resources to someone who requires multiple buses at very low frequencies but extremely short notice.

As I wrote over on Skyscraperpage:

There is a severe driver shortage in the entire road transportation industry. Every bus company will think twice before committing drivers and buses at extremely short notice to a very occasional customer, which could easily come and bite them back if something unforeseen happens which affects their regular contracts negatively…

To evacuate a single train, you’d need 3-5 buses. To cover the entire corridor within a 2-hours drive, you need to contract bus companies in the Victoriaville, Brockville/Cornwall, Belleville/Cobourg and London area. As a rough estimate, a single bus driver costs a bus company some $100k per year and the ownership and maintenance of a single bus $200k.

That said, such emergency bus service would have been useless during the December 2022 winter meltdown (as most roads were closed) or the October 2023 incident where a Siemens train was stuck for very similar reasons as last weekend at an inaccessible location just outside Gare Centrale.

Maintaining significant resources for at-most annual events will always be difficult to justify for a company which deploys less than 30 Corridor trains at any given time, which is why I argue that evacuating trains at not easily accesible areas should be a government responsibility…

Maybe before calling my former colleagues “incompentent fools” and accusing me of making “excuses”, you may want to actually do some more elaborate research or finally acknowledge that things quickly look much less obvious once you actually start to consider how feasible your proposed “solutions” really are. The main difference between you and the “incompetent fools” is that they actually consider the implications of potential actions instead of shouting equally-obvious-as-impractical suggestions from the sidelines.

Thank you and please stop wasting my time with your immature rants…

 

[reaperexpress]

It was a few months back, I didn’t pay that much attention to the details. They spoke to each passenger individually, verifying their ticket info, and to get the credit, you had to call VIA … I think he had to give the date and train number. So not a code per se I guess but information on how to get the credit. He did call and did get the credit for his next trip so whatever they told him to say worked.

My last trip to Toronto was 2h late so I was eligible for a 50% credit, which I have sinced used to book myself a trip to Montreal. There was no need to get any code during my delayed trip, the code in question is the booking confirmation number that you already have when you book the ticket. Like you said, you can only redeem the credit by phone, but once I got in touch with an agent it was very quick. I gave the booking number and they basically said, "yep that's a trip that was more than an hour late, how would you like to use your $52 credit?". I bought a $56 ticket to Montreal and paid the remaining $4 with my Via Préférence points.

Even in the case of train 622 where Via made an exception to their refund policy (they gave full refunds in addition to a 100% credit instead of just a 50% credit), passengers still wouldn't need anything more than the confirmation number since that already tells the Via customer service agent whether or not you were on train 622 on the August 31st.

On that topic, they should probably update the policy such that if your train is more than 4h late you get more than just the 50% credit that you're eligible for delays greater than 1h, so they don't need to manually make exceptions to the policy each time something like this happens and employees are thus able to appease customers more while they're actually on the train. In this case, customers stranded in the train were told that they would only receive a 50% credit, which is pretty insulting for someone experience a traumatic trip that will probably discourage them from ever taking Via again.

That all sounds as bad as the VIA excuses that screwed their passengers over. They chose to do sweet frig all. There were options. Including busing - you'd only need 4 or 5 buses for that many. Or did the incompetent fools at VIA cancel their standing bus contracts for emergencies?

In the CityNews article Via said that they tried to book buses but none of the companies were able to send a bus. Maybe you should read some more into what actually happened before jumping to conclusions.