VIA Rail

[nfitz]

If by Correspondance A40 you mean Cote-de-Liesse station (ie, the station that the REM and Mascouche Lines will interchange at), it has a name: Cote-de-Liesse. It was only ever called Correspondance A40 during early planning when all they had was a rough alignment.

Cote-de-Liesse? That seems to be a poor choice to me. think in the mind of most Montrealers, Cote-de-Liesse runs from Dorval to Decarie. Most think of that section of "Cote-de-Liesse" as the A40 sliproad.

But perhaps the biggest issue, is that the station is over a half-kilometre to Cote-de-Liesse! That makes the Greenwood station name almost seem reasonable.

Though looking on the map - it's hard to see a decent name. Partially because there doesn't seem to be any vehicular access to the station (though I suppose extending Canora Road is a possibility). It's like the old York University GO station, stuck behind industrial buildings - hopefully there'll be a pedestrian pathway.

It doesn't look like a likely place to see a TOD. Obviously it wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the Repentigny commuter train. I think they'd have been better served to move the half-kilometre to the south - though that's a challenging spot with Cote-de-Liesse dead-ending at the tracks on both sides - similar to the old SRT stations at Lawrence East and and Ellesmere.

 

[smallspy]

Dan, is Sandite application a thing in Canada? Might be a way to work around the lack of locomotive sanders.

I've only heard of it being used in very limited testing applications in North America. Keep in mind though, the reason why its done in places like England specifically is due to the lack of sanding equipment on almost all rolling stock. That isn't the case here.

Dan

 

[ARG1]

Cote-de-Liesse? That seems to be a poor choice to me. think in the mind of most Montrealers, Cote-de-Liesse runs from Dorval to Decarie. Most think of that section of "Cote-de-Liesse" as the A40 sliproad.

But perhaps the biggest issue, is that the station is over a half-kilometre to Cote-de-Liesse! That makes the Greenwood station name almost seem reasonable.

Though looking on the map - it's hard to see a decent name. Partially because there doesn't seem to be any vehicular access to the station (though I suppose extending Canora Road is a possibility). It's like the old York University GO station, stuck behind industrial buildings - hopefully there'll be a pedestrian pathway.

It doesn't look like a likely place to see a TOD. Obviously it wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the Repentigny commuter train. I think they'd have been better served to move the half-kilometre to the south - though that's a challenging spot with Cote-de-Liesse dead-ending at the tracks on both sides - similar to the old SRT stations at Lawrence East and and Ellesmere.

You know I somehow only just noticed its named after the A40 Shoulder Streets. Fascinating.

 

[nfitz]

You know I somehow only just noticed its named after the A40 Shoulder Streets. Fascinating.

I hadn't even realized that Cote-de-Liesse went that far east, even though I've driven on it in TMR!

 

[Bojaxs]

It really has become the North American standard locomotive for intercity passenger railroads:

Any chance they will get anything other than Chargers?

Is VIA rail having reliability issues with the Chargers? What about the recent break down in Quebec?

I stumbled across this reddit thread and found it to be an insightful read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amtrak/comments/1eyph02/why_is_the_siemens_charger_the_most_popular_tier

 

[Northern Light]

VIA's on-time-performance reaches new low - 59%

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/via-rail-on-time-performance-1.7374337

 

[smallspy]

Is VIA rail having reliability issues with the Chargers? What about the recent break down in Quebec?

I stumbled across this reddit thread and found it to be an insightful read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amtrak/comments/1eyph02/why_is_the_siemens_charger_the_most_popular_tier

They are having teething issues, which is bound to happen with any new rolling stock.

Generally, the reliability of any fleet of equipment can be graphed as a bell curve, with lower reliability as it enters service, increasing to high reliability as the equipment becomes better known and the processes for maintaining it become settled, and then dropping back down to a lower value as the equipment ages.

Anyone who feels that they are "lemons" is simply being too hasty with their pronouncements. It will take time before we really know how good or bad the equipment is.

And for the record, if you look at older copies of the equipment being used elsewhere - for instance, Amtrak Midwest out of Chicago - the locos have proven to be far, far more reliable than the older ones they replaced.

Dan

 

[cplchanb]

VIA's on-time-performance reaches new low - 59%

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/via-rail-on-time-performance-1.7374337

queue the finger pointing with no action attached to it.... seriously if via is to survive the feds really need to reign in CN/CP in terms of scheduling and trackwork. but of course they wont have any spines or kickback incentives to do it...

 

[lenaitch]

I'm not sure it's advisable to use "feds" and "reign" in the same sentence. We have enough problems with accountability as it is.

 

[micheal_can]

I'm not sure it's advisable to use "feds" and "reign" in the same sentence. We have enough problems with accountability as it is.

Use whatever words you want. If something isn't done, Via will not even be viable on the Corridor.

 

[Bojaxs]

They are having teething issues, which is bound to happen with any new rolling stock.

Generally, the reliability of any fleet of equipment can be graphed as a bell curve, with lower reliability as it enters service, increasing to high reliability as the equipment becomes better known and the processes for maintaining it become settled, and then dropping back down to a lower value as the equipment ages.

Anyone who feels that they are "lemons" is simply being too hasty with their pronouncements. It will take time before we really know how good or bad the equipment is.

And for the record, if you look at older copies of the equipment being used elsewhere - for instance, Amtrak Midwest out of Chicago - the locos have proven to be far, far more reliable than the older ones they replaced.

Dan

But it was interesting to read that after the "winter issues" with the first batch of Chargers, Amtrak demanded from Siemens what's essentially a lifetime warranty on just about every future Charger sold to them. And now every other customer (MARC, EXO, etc.) is demanding the same thing from Siemens. Something Siemens's competitors aren't willing to offer. Is this sustainable in the long run?

 

[lenaitch]

Use whatever words you want. If something isn't done, Via will not even be viable on the Corridor.

It was an attempt at a play on words.

Take a breath.

 

[micheal_can]

It was an attempt at a play on words.

Take a breath.

What I am saying is if the Corridor trains are 50% on time, they will eventually be ignored as they are unreliable. That will mean that eventually, they will start costing more to operate. And in our political climate, that makes it ripe for the cutting.

 

[cplchanb]

What I am saying is if the Corridor trains are 50% on time, they will eventually be ignored as they are unreliable. That will mean that eventually, they will start costing more to operate. And in our political climate, that makes it ripe for the cutting.

esp with PP around he will take any excuse to cut the budgets.

 

[smallspy]

But it was interesting to read that after the "winter issues" with the first batch of Chargers, Amtrak demanded from Siemens what's essentially a lifetime warranty on just about every future Charger sold to them. And now every other customer (MARC, EXO, etc.) is demanding the same thing from Siemens. Something Siemens's competitors aren't willing to offer. Is this sustainable in the long run?

A TSSSA is not a warranty - far from it. It is simply an agreement that Siemens will handle all maintenance of the Airo trainsets, not Amtrak. And for a cost - Amtrak still has to pay for the service, for the parts, for the tools, etc. And more importantly, they have to pay for any changes that they want to make to the units. A TSSSA can actually be problematic as it locks in component suppliers to the OEM - or at least who they approve - instead of being able to use third-party components which may actually be better.

For the record, the TSSSA for the regional units - Amtrak Midwest, Amtrak California, Amtrak Cascades, etc. - was 5 years long. Midwest is looking to extend it, I believe that the others are not.

Dan