VIA Rail

[Urban Sky]

^Those Hansard transcripts that were cited earlier were interesting - at one point a Senator (who was clearly very well primed by the airline industry) made the claim that the air infrastructure in Canada, and specifically in the T-O-M corridors, was self-funding and running in the black. (The inference being that Ottawa is anti-airline if it chooses to subsidise VIA in a way that hurt air travel demand). This may be partly true from some narrow perspective, but investment in the air sector is government subsidised, in the same way and for the same reasons. eg Perhaps GTAA or Dorval is self funding on an avoidable cost basis from user fees, but I doubt the airport in Churchill Man ever will be.

I created this calculation four years ago (I thought I had posted it already back then, but couldn't find it when searching through my posts), which suggests that if airlines had to pay the same taxation other motorists (cars and even trains) pay to fuel their vehicles, this would amount to more than $40 million per year in the Corridor alone (i.e. in direct competition to intercity rail):

Unfortunately, I didn't really write down the sources (though I looked up all flights on the respective airline's websites), but I did make the following notes:

However, your observation that the airline industry would actively lobby against any subsidised intercity rail project which forms a serious competition to their own business has a very important implication for HSR and that is that the government may probably not fund any project which brings the travel time between Montreal and Toronto under 4 (or even: 3) hours (i.e. into regions where intercity rail becomes highly competitive against the airplane) unless the intercity network already brakes even (meaning that its operation is no longer subsidised). As I've highlighted three days ago (in Post #5,016 ), the dramatic improvement of the financial performance on the Corridor (where the cost-recovery rate improved exactly 10 %-points within 3 years) was driven by a significant increase in train-miles (+9.1%) and seat-miles (+23.2%), thus in scheduled service and available seat capacity or in simpler terms: higher frequencies and higher fleet utilisation.

This makes the case for a medium-scale infrastructure project which is able to make intercity rail profitable by significantly increasing train and (in conjunction with the option included in the current fleet replacement) passenger capacity to levels which allows intercity rail operations to become profitable and attract the capital funding required for HSR. HFR will require an investment of $4 billion in its most basic form, but if VIA's claim of eliminating the annual Corridor subsidy of approximately $150 million currently, this investment would yield a direct return of 3.8%, while providing a significantly improved service to Canada's taxpayers and visitors...

If this line becomes the backbone for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal, it needs to be futureproofed to permit sensible upgrades over the years. When VIA says, we aren't aiming for High Speed, they are saying, this line has very little upside and is not scalable. That's not sensible.

I have to agree with other posters that VIA has chosen this route because it is the most doable under current budgets, regulatory regimes and public/poltitical attitudes. The reality that the line is unwanted by freight railroads makes its acquisition cheap and easy. We can debate relative construction costs (I accept VIA knows things we don't) but it's the old maxim - never buy the cheapest thing available on the market, it is never the cheapest over the longer term. The next most expensive option is not that much more costly, and it brings greater benefits.

If this line isn't scalable for the long term, just don't do it, at any price.

Understanding that HSR is not currently on the table, I still lean to investments which will create the shortest travel time, and which are most compatible with an HSR future.

I understand these concerns, but if we only focus on investments which are HSR-proof, then what can we actually build now to get the frequencies we need? Also, the question of "future-proofing" does not just work HFR vs. HSR, it also works Higher-Speed Rail vs. "full" HSR, as the F-200 scenario described in the Ecotrain study was assumed to be designed for a minimum radius of 2,500 meters (2,000 m with tilting trains), whereas the E-300 was to be designed for a minimum radius of 6,000 meters. As you might imagine, the resulting alignments differ significantly in certain areas (especially: Dorion - Casselman and Napanee - Port Hope)

Note: The F-200 alignment is shown in red, whereas the E-300 alignment is shown in blue and a more detailed map can be found in Deliverable 9 (Appendix I) of the Ecotrain Study
Source: Ecotrain Study (Deliverable 5, p.64)

Given that the infrastructure cost premium of E-300 over F-200 is only 18.6% for Quebec-Toronto ($14.04 billion vs. $11.84 billion in 2017 values, see Post #5,002 for these and all other figures mentioned in this paragraph) or 21.6% for Quebec-Toronto ($9.41 billion vs. $7.73 billion), while reducing travel times between Montreal and Toronto for an additional 51 minutes (2:47 vs. 3:38 hours) or 23.4%, there seems indeed to be little reason to settle for a Higher-Speed Rail rather than a High-Speed Rail future. This is even more the case as two-thirds of the cost premium fall on electrification.

Understanding that HSR is not currently on the table, I still lean to investments which will create the shortest travel time, and which are most compatible with an HSR future.

I have identified the need for investment to resolve Coteau in my previous posts. Be that in-situ or with a by-pass.

I was unaware Brockville was a comparable problem but would support the same.

Okay, so let's identify the sections where investments will reduce travel times for the current services and remain "most compatible with an HSR future":

Note: ROW sections eventually shared with HSR are highlighted in green, whereas existing and new ROW sections which will not be eventually shared with HSR are shown in yellow and red, respectively.
Compiled with: distances obtained from historic CN/CP timetables or measured with Google Earth and routings obtained from The Globe And Mail (for HFR) and the Ecotrain Study (Deliverable 5).

You can check yourself, but I can only identify 3 segments which meet both criteria:

1. The Montreal Subdivision from Gare Centrale to Dorval Est (14 km, owned by CN)
2. The Alexandria/Beachburg/Smith Falls Subdivisions from Casselman West to SmithsFalls North (104 km, owned by VIA)
3. The Kingston Subdivision from Port Hope West to Toronto Union (94 km, of which: 60 km owned by CN and 34 km owned by Metrolinx)

Combined, these 3 sections account for only 212 km (or 33.5% of the total distance between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto) and the CN-owned part of the Kingston Subdivision only accounts for 60 km. Even worse, these 60 km omit the nodes (Coteau, Brockville) which are presumably the choke-points of the Kingston Sub, while none of the triple-tracked sections falls into this part which will be hopefully used by HSR one day. I would therefore like to know from you and from @crs1026 how you are planning to reach the frequencies required to justify HSR investments (by demonstrating that the Corridor is commercially viable for InterCity rail) without massively investing into infrastructure which will no longer require these enhancements once the HSR line we are all hoping for will finally open...

 

[lenaitch]

Still on my wish list. It would be great to ride the rails to distant wilderness stations and then ride motorcycles into the country.

Interesting. I knew they transported autos to Florida but did not know it included motorcycles. Might be a bunch heading down to Bike Week in Daytona. I don't know for certain but VIA is probably prevented by their operating mandate from operating freight cars. The shipping of 'camp equipment' on the Sudbury-White River route is accomplished by RDCs with baggage space. Motorcycles probably aren't on their rate list because they are uncommon. I would imaging if you wanted to ship a dirt bike to your camp they would probably accommodate. Any use of freight cars (like the autoracks AMTRAC uses) would require terminal facilities not normally available at passenger stations.

The big problem with bikes is they are inherently unstable when not moving and have to have multi-point tie-downs. I have only done it on ferries and the rider is responsible and is on a space where passengers are allowed (until underway). I'm not sure that would apply on a railway freight car so it would have to be loaded by staff (time+money) or use some kind of dedicated pallet like in the video. The ONR transports automobiles on open flat deck 'chain cars', everything else goes in box cars. I don't know if they have ever shipped anything larger than a dirt bike (why would you bother?).

You can still ship automobiles by CN or CP. A former neighbour moved back to the Edmonton area and they shipped one of their cars. It was picked up at their door, loaded somewhere near Toronto, rail to Edmonton they delivered to their new house. I am assuming all of this was done by a load broker service.

Not sure I would do it - the journey is the adventure!

 

[44 North]

I understand these concerns, but if we only focus on investments which are HSR-proof, then what can we actually build now to get the frequencies we need? Also, the question of "future-proofing" does not just work HFR vs. HSR, it also works Higher-Speed Rail vs. "full" HSR, as the F-200 scenario described in the Ecotrain study was assumed to be designed for a minimum radius of 2,500 meters (2,000 m with tilting trains), whereas the E-300 was to be designed for a minimum radius of 6,000 meters. As you might imagine, the resulting alignments differ significantly in certain areas (especially: Dorion - Casselman and Napanee - Port Hope)

Note: The F-200 alignment is shown in red, whereas the E-300 alignment is shown in blue and a more detailed map can be found in Deliverable 9 (Appendix I) of the Ecotrain Study
Source: Ecotrain Study (Deliverable 5, p.64)

Mm, that's a mighty fine map. Something about keeping the shaded relief adds a new dimension...all maps like these should include it since it perfectly shows the lay of the land.

 

[Urban Sky]

Mm, that's a mighty fine map. Something about keeping the shaded relief adds a new dimension...all maps like these should include it since it perfectly shows the lay of the land.

I'll provide the more detailed maps from Deliverable 9 of the Ecotrain Study here (F-200 in red and E-300 in blue, though they seem to have mixed it up on the Montreal sheet), even though they unfortunately don't include any reliefs:

• Quebec to west of Trois-Rivières
  

• West of Trois-Rivières to Montreal
  

• Montreal
  

• Montreal to Ottawa
  

• Ottawa to Belleville
  

• Belleville to Toronto
  

 

[crs1026]

However, your observation that the airline industry would actively lobby against any subsidised intercity rail project which forms a serious competition to their own business has a very important implication for HSR and that is that the government may probably not fund any project which brings the travel time between Montreal and Toronto under 4 (or even: 3) hours (i.e. into regions where intercity rail becomes highly competitive against the airplane) unless the intercity network already brakes even (meaning that its operation is no longer subsidised). As I've highlighted three days ago (in Post #5,016 ), the dramatic improvement of the financial performance on the Corridor (where the cost-recovery rate improved exactly 10 %-points within 3 years) was driven by a significant increase in train-miles (+9.1%) and seat-miles (+23.2%), thus in scheduled service and available seat capacity or in simpler terms: higher frequencies and higher fleet utilisation.

This makes the case for a medium-scale infrastructure project which is able to make intercity rail profitable by significantly increasing train and (in conjunction with the option included in the current fleet replacement) passenger capacity to levels which allows intercity rail operations to become profitable and attract the capital funding required for HSR. HFR will require an investment of $4 billion in its most basic form, but if VIA's claim of eliminating the annual Corridor subsidy of approximately $150 million currently, this investment would yield a direct return of 3.8%, while providing a significantly improved service to Canada's taxpayers and visitors...


I understand these concerns, but if we only focus on investments which are HSR-proof, then what can we actually build now to get the frequencies we need? Also, the question of "future-proofing" does not just work HFR vs. HSR, it also works Higher-Speed Rail vs. "full" HSR, as the F-200 scenario described in the Ecotrain study was assumed to be designed for a minimum radius of 2,500 meters (2,000 m with tilting trains), whereas the E-300 was to be designed for a minimum radius of 6,000 meters. As you might imagine, the resulting alignments differ significantly in certain areas (especially: Dorion - Casselman and Napanee - Port Hope)

(snip)

Combined, these 3 sections account for only 212 km (or 33.5% of the total distance between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto) and the CN-owned part of the Kingston Subdivision only accounts for 60 km. Even worse, these 60 km omit the nodes (Coteau, Brockville) which are presumably the choke-points of the Kingston Sub, while none of the triple-tracked sections falls into this part which will be hopefully used by HSR one day. I would therefore like to know from you and from @crs1026 how you are planning to reach the frequencies required to justify HSR investments (by demonstrating that the Corridor is commercially viable for InterCity rail) without massively investing into infrastructure which will no longer require these enhancements once the HSR line we are all hoping for will finally open...

Thanks for reminding me of the Ecotrain study too.... while it was more of a study than a BCA, it sure compiled a ton of analyses and data that is worth rereading.

While you probably said it a dozen times, I had never really absorbed HFR as a strategic step towards an HSR proposal. I have always assumed that HFR might be the only project that we will see in our lifetime. Hence my fixation on whether it is good enough to be the all-or-nothing solution for Ontario/Quebec.

Now I grasp a little better why HFR proposes a fairly "conventional" 95 mph-ish single track line..... HFR may be potentially disposable some day. Perhaps we have been polishing a cannonball.... the less invested in HFR, the less we write off when HSR arrives. Ecotrain clearly would not want to run via Havelock.

The question becomes....how long will that take? I would say HFR has to be good enough for 20-25 years, because
- 8-10 years of profitable operation will be needed to satisfy enough people (especially government and investors) that HFR's profitability is a "proven fact"
- The process of then proposing, designing, funding, and building HSR will be another decade.
- The regulatory and legislative environment must shift. Note how much of the Ecotrain routing assumes cooperation from freight railways, at least in terms of right of way sharing. Air will change its views when terminal capacity maxes out at Pearson/Trudeau, and airlines feel pressure to shed local connections to maintain longer distance capacity at airports. That 8-10 years of profitable HFR will lead to legislative review, but that could take years.

Ecotrain did not contemplate VIA's HFR route. However, with time one might find a better way through the territory west of Perth to Tweed that might be cost competitive to a new end to end HSR alignment. Once we accept that HSR will bypass population, Havelock 2.0 is as good a route as any for that. So I would not see investment in that line as "lost". Half of my reservation about HFR thru Havelock has been more about whether VIA can actually extract what it says it can from its fairly modest HFR envelope....

That brings me back to my fixation with maintaining service to existing Lakeshore communities. If we are heading towards HSR on any other alignment, there will still have to be a parallel local service along the lakeshore. (Consider Avignon TGV as a case study in "be careful what you ask for".... its architecturally impressive TGV station is at a distance from downtown and surrounded by parking lots similar to a GO station....the last mile implications undo plenty of the allure of TGV).

If VIA's 'frequency matters most" premise is valid, this has to apply to the Lakeshore service.... to maximise its economics, it must not be token or rationed, there must be reasonable frequency and potential for growth. If nothing else happens, Ontario will eventually look to connecting Toronto with Cobourg-Belleville-Kingston in the same manner it has been flirting with Niagara, Kitchener, and London. There is a practical limit to true GO commuter service, but a regional service is justified for the growing communities outside the commuter belt.

The implication of that is - we still need to upgrade the Kingston line for mixed passenger/freight so that the "reasonable frequency" is not in conflict with freight. It might remain partly comingled with CN.... but.....anything build on the Lakeshore to ease freight conflicts will not be "lost investment" as that local service will be sustained over the long term.

Ultimately, that local service might look a lot like HFR... a single track separate from the 2-track CN freight line, running along one side of it, with its own short sidings every so many miles. (South side works better IMHO so that the freight has its Belleville access without crossing over anywhere between there and Liverpool). Others suggested investment to extend the York Sub east from Liverpool. I would add tripling the segment from Belleville west to about Brighton, and some additional track for CN in between. Coteau is a sustainable investment.

HFR needs to have a 20-mileish "demonstration segment" somewhere that is build to standards for higher- end HSR in terms of curves, grade separation, and civil standards. The purpose being to be able to validate cost and gain operating experience. With HFR-quality equipment, speed may only be 125 mph, which would save a few minutes. The real value is to be able to point to what it looks like and to prove it can work in Canada.

The obvious place for that demonstration might be on one side of Ottawa, either to mitigate the need for upgrading the Smiths Falls Sub, or as part of an Ottawa-Montreal upgrade.... getting O-M to full HFR even before Havelock is ready is a really good idea.

However, if HSR is just not in the cards for another generation or more - a single track HFR along the Kingston route could serve both the HFR agenda, and provide the local lakeshore service also. And the Gananoque bypass might be more cost-effective as opposed to maintaining a longer and slower Kingston-Brockville-Smiths Falls for both local and through trains...it could be a standalone "toll road" built privately and charging VIA on a per-use basis, effectively competing with CN for the routing. If those numbers don't work, I would wave the white flag on that idea.

- Paul








-

 

[littlewill1166]

Slightly off topic, but VIA hiked it's South-Western-Ontario fares about 10% today. I know the old TSA with CN expired at the end of 2018, does anyone know if that might have something to do with the fare increase?

 

[Urban Sky]

While you probably said it a dozen times, I had never really absorbed HFR as a strategic step towards an HSR proposal. I have always assumed that HFR might be the only project that we will see in our lifetime. Hence my fixation on whether it is good enough to be the all-or-nothing solution for Ontario/Quebec.

You are right: HFR is not the "big bang" project HSR proponents are hoping for, just the missing step towards it, and I'm happy to hear I no longer have to try to explain it to you...

Now I grasp a little better why HFR proposes a fairly "conventional" 95 mph-ish single track line..... HFR may be potentially disposable some day. Perhaps we have been polishing a cannonball.... the less invested in HFR, the less we write off when HSR arrives. Ecotrain clearly would not want to run via Havelock.

[...]

Ecotrain did not contemplate VIA's HFR route. However, with time one might find a better way through the territory west of Perth to Tweed that might be cost competitive to a new end to end HSR alignment. Once we accept that HSR will bypass population, Havelock 2.0 is as good a route as any for that. So I would not see investment in that line as "lost". Half of my reservation about HFR thru Havelock has been more about whether VIA can actually extract what it says it can from its fairly modest HFR envelope....

Indeed and that's why I hope it can get build while focusing the bypasses, electrification and major realignments onto Montreal-De Beaujeu and Casselman-Ottawa-Smiths Falls (i.e. the segments which will hopefully become upgraded to HSR one day. However, I don't see any chance that HSR would skip a city of the importance (university and tourist city) and strategic location (half-way between Toronto and Montreal, next to Thousand Islands, Prince Edward county and not far from the first border crossing to the east of Toronto), even though I believe that keeping the investment into the Havelock Subdivision modest would reassure Kingston that it won't get bypassed by HSR. Nevertheless, Havelock won't become suddenly superfluous with HSR, as I think that a city the size and importance of Peterborough (its CMA with 122k people is not that much smaller than Kingston or Trois-Rivières) and leisure destinations like Sharbot Lake will continue to justify service comparable to what you can currently observe elsewhere on the Corridor, while the route itself will remain strategic for detours in case of a line disruption along the HSR corridor...

The question becomes....how long will that take? I would say HFR has to be good enough for 20-25 years, because
- 8-10 years of profitable operation will be needed to satisfy enough people (especially government and investors) that HFR's profitability is a "proven fact"
- The process of then proposing, designing, funding, and building HSR will be another decade.
- The regulatory and legislative environment must shift. Note how much of the Ecotrain routing assumes cooperation from freight railways, at least in terms of right of way sharing. Air will change its views when terminal capacity maxes out at Pearson/Trudeau, and airlines feel pressure to shed local connections to maintain longer distance capacity at airports. That 8-10 years of profitable HFR will lead to legislative review, but that could take years.

Indeed, it will take a long period, but at least the wait will be much more bearable (and the eventual proceeding to HSR much more certain) with HFR service standard than with the Status Quo...

That brings me back to my fixation with maintaining service to existing Lakeshore communities. If we are heading towards HSR on any other alignment, there will still have to be a parallel local service along the lakeshore. (Consider Avignon TGV as a case study in "be careful what you ask for".... its architecturally impressive TGV station is at a distance from downtown and surrounded by parking lots similar to a GO station....the last mile implications undo plenty of the allure of TGV).

I'm also no fan of these greenfield satellite stations either, though Kingston's current station could also be placed better (maybe closer to Princess Street, which is served by much more frequent bus service than the train station itself). Generally, I'm more a fan of downtown stations from which you can explore the city (such as Drummondville, Saint-Hyacinthe. Brockville, Belleville, Guelph, Kitchener, Brantford or London) and which could be still served by HSR through a connector linking onto the legacy rail corridor (maybe every 2 hours), while through-traffic would bypass the city core by staying on the HSR line.

I would argue that the frequencies shared by Kingston's mayor would be a very "reasonable frequency", especially considering that it actually matches the Status Quo for TRTO-KGON and KGON-MTRL, while providing significantly improvements to virtually all other origin-destination pairs:

Compiled from: official VIA Rail timetable (effective 2018/11/18)
Note: Count counts two departures to the same station within less than 30 minutes as one single departure. Also, train #51 (operating via Ottawa) was ignored for MTRL/DORV to KGON/TRTO, as train #61 offers a later departure and earlier arrival between these stations.

As you can see, there are four VIA stations between Brockville and Toronto (Gananoque, Napanee, Trenton Junction and Port Hope) which have no single direct connection to Montreal, of which two stations (Napanee and Port Hope) have direct connections to Ottawa in eastbound direction only.

Concerning the question of potential investments into the Kingston Sub, I found the following post on Skycraperpage very interesting:

Source: Post #1022 of the "VIA Rail network developments" thread on Skyscraperpage

HFR needs to have a 20-mileish "demonstration segment" somewhere that is build to standards for higher- end HSR in terms of curves, grade separation, and civil standards. The purpose being to be able to validate cost and gain operating experience. With HFR-quality equipment, speed may only be 125 mph, which would save a few minutes. The real value is to be able to point to what it looks like and to prove it can work in Canada.

The obvious place for that demonstration might be on one side of Ottawa, either to mitigate the need for upgrading the Smiths Falls Sub, or as part of an Ottawa-Montreal upgrade.... getting O-M to full HFR even before Havelock is ready is a really good idea.

Indeed, the obvious candidates to demonstrate the feasability of 125 mph electrified operations is Casselman-Ottawa-Smiths Falls (since that segment is mostly straight and already owned by VIA), while Montreal-Dorval-De Beujeu would be the candidate for demonstrating the benefits of investments into freight corridors (since it would already speed up existing MTRL-OTTW services) as both segments are assumed to eventually become part of an HSR alignment.

However, if HSR is just not in the cards for another generation or more - a single track HFR along the Kingston route could serve both the HFR agenda, and provide the local lakeshore service also. And the Gananoque bypass might be more cost-effective as opposed to maintaining a longer and slower Kingston-Brockville-Smiths Falls for both local and through trains...it could be a standalone "toll road" built privately and charging VIA on a per-use basis, effectively competing with CN for the routing. If those numbers don't work, I would wave the white flag on that idea.

- Paul

In order for the enormous cost (recall that we need to plan for a design speed of 300 km/h, which requires a minimum radius of 6000 meters) for any greenfield HSR segment to ever yield a sufficiently positive Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR), you need to get the train speeds as high as possible while ensure you have not made more improvements to the directly parallel legacy rail route as possible, in order to maximise the marginal benefit over the Status Quo. Unfortunately, this requires rolling stock which can actually reach "High" speeds (i.e. in excess of 125 mph), which you won't be able to justify before the upgrade to HSR standards of a substantial proportion of the total Montreal-Toronto route has been funded. A cynic might say that HFR shortens the travel time between Montreal&Ottawa and Ottawa&Toronto enough to build sufficient ridership to make HSR politically appealing, while the comparatively modest improvement between Montreal and Toronto makes sure that there is enough incremental improvement left to guarantee that the cost increment to reach full-HSR can still be justified...

Slightly off topic, but VIA hiked it's South-Western-Ontario fares about 10% today. I know the old TSA with CN expired at the end of 2018, does anyone know if that might have something to do with the fare increase?

Which fares did you check? Escape, Economy, Economy Plus, Business or Business Plus?

Just as elsewhere in the transportation industry, I would expect pricing to reflect demand and supply, which would rather suggest that the price hike (if there was one) reflects an increase in ridership than in cost. It is correct that cost is in the end the minimum price level a company might accept, but that refers to marginal (not: average) cost, which is negligible in an industry where costs are rather insensitive to the number of customers served...

 

[Bureaucromancer]

getting O-M to full HFR even before Havelock is ready is a really good idea.

I've always been a little surprised that nobody in power has latched onto a VERY frequent and reasonably fast O - M train with the idea of shifting Ottawa airport traffic to Dorval.

 

[Sandpit]

I've always been a little surprised that nobody in power has latched onto a VERY frequent and reasonably fast O - M train with the idea of shifting Ottawa airport traffic to Dorval.

Politics. The original plan for Mirabel was for it to be located about halfway between Montreal and Ottawa with a train linking the two. It would essentially be a shared Ottawa/Montreal airport (think BWI).

 

[littlewill1166]

Which fares did you check? Escape, Economy, Economy Plus, Business or Business Plus?

Just as elsewhere in the transportation industry, I would expect pricing to reflect demand and supply, which would rather suggest that the price hike (if there was one) reflects an increase in ridership than in cost. It is correct that cost is in the end the minimum price level a company might accept, but that refers to marginal (not: average) cost, which is negligible in an industry where costs are rather insensitive to the number of customers served...

I took a look at some of the old fare tables I had, and the fare increase seemed to impact the lower tier escape fares and the higher tier economy plus fares most. The fare codes and their corresponding fares are shown below.

 

[Bureaucromancer]

Politics. The original plan for Mirabel was for it to be located about halfway between Montreal and Ottawa with a train linking the two. It would essentially be a shared Ottawa/Montreal airport (think BWI).

And this was a plan that would have made actual sense. Can't have that

 

[Urban Sky]

I took a look at some of the old fare tables I had, and the fare increase seemed to impact the lower tier escape fares and the higher tier economy plus fares most. The fare codes and their corresponding fares are shown below.

View attachment 169368

Just out of interest: which route is that and where did you find that table (or the fare classes contained in it)?

 

[littlewill1166]

Just out of interest: which route is that and where did you find that table (or the fare classes contained in it)?

It's for Toronto-London, fares/fare classes are from reservia. The old fares from codes H, G, and N were from the yellow tickets you get at the station I had laying around from the summer so they might not be the most accurate. But all the other fares/fare codes are fairly recent.

 

[crs1026]

You are right: HFR is not the "big bang" project HSR proponents are hoping for, just the missing step towards it, and I'm happy to hear I no longer have to try to explain it to you...

HSR or not HSR, I'm easy......I just want to ride something really good in my lifetime

It does make a big difference if one looks at HFR as an enabling transitional investment rather than a terminal system design. Just so long as one recognises that the Havelock route presents some pretty firm upper limits on what's possible in places.

I would argue that the frequencies shared by Kingston's mayor would be a very "reasonable frequency", especially considering that it actually matches the Status Quo for TRTO-KGON and KGON-MTRL, while providing significantly improvements to virtually all other origin-destination pairs:

If VIA can pull this off, I'm a very happy camper.....but again, it's a big leap of faith that both CN and the Ottawa bureaucracy, and Cabinet, for that matter, won't impede it. I will keep an open mind, but if I were advising the affected Mayors, I'd be telling them to get it in writing. And watch like a hawk.

Concerning the question of potential investments into the Kingston Sub, I found the following post on Skycraperpage very interesting:
View attachment 169342
Source: Post #1022 of the "VIA Rail network developments" thread on Skyscraperpage

- To the point about being easy to build east of Kingston....If we agree that both HFR and HSR will end up on a Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal route, with HSR more closely linked to Kingston, then we don't need a large investment between Brockville and Coteau...the strategy of investing solely to stay ahead of freight growth, maintain/build frequency, and maintain/modestly improve travel time for local service is sound.
- I'm still holding a conspiracy theory about CN's own interests east of Toronto. They may have more track than they need presently, absent VIA. If VIA reduces to the local business, it frees up some capacity until CN business grows more. And if HSR is 25 years away, why not help CN remove a couple of bottlenecks, provided the terms are reasonable over all. The shareholders may indeed ask why, if HFR is profitable, is CN not seeing this as an opportunity. Management will likely insist on separating freight from passenger, but some more creative options may be in both parties' interest eventually.

I assume that VIA has had enough discussion with CP already to believe that CP agrees in principle to share where HFR requires it (Leaside to Agincourt, Glen Tay to Smiths Falls). If that agreement is in the cards, and works out well, it should not be too hard to apply that spirit to sharing the Winchester line.

Similarly, HFR between De Beaujeu and Turcot will draw out issues of comingling... given bridges, and electrification, and various needs of CP CN and AMT, it's not as simple as just adding two tracks for VIA. It's a big ask under the prevailing regulatory and business mindset - but again, I will keep an open mind

- Paul

 

[JohnnyRenton]

That brings me back to my fixation with maintaining service to existing Lakeshore communities. If we are heading towards HSR on any other alignment, there will still have to be a parallel local service along the lakeshore. (Consider Avignon TGV as a case study in "be careful what you ask for".... its architecturally impressive TGV station is at a distance from downtown and surrounded by parking lots similar to a GO station....the last mile implications undo plenty of the allure of TGV).

To me, the perspective that local service doesn't much matter for VIAs future is a sure fire way to ensure that any future proposal ends up getting binned. Local service (which also includes service to suburban areas of large metros) is critical making any future network upgrades a success, as well as ensuring that there is enough public support to push forward investment in passenger rail. And as you mentioned, there are lots of examples of how agencies have over estimated just how far people are willing to travel for a faster, newer service (not just in rail, but the same can be seen with airports as well).

I have so much more I want to say about this. That will have to wait until I have time to put together a proper post. Needless to say I would argue that the way to attract interest, and ultimately public funding, in intercity passenger rail is to give people something they would actually use, which means catering to the needs, taste, and culture of Canadians. That doesn't just mean modernization and faster trains, it also means local.