VIA Rail

[crs1026]

Now, let's see more of this, where VIa can run more trains on other routes. Is there a Subdivision that cannot hold the capacity for 2 more trains, one going in either direction?

It’s more complicated than that. First there is track condition, which may limit speeds. Ditto crossings. Then there is crossing protection which may need upgrading. Then there is signalling, or lack thereof. Lastly there is freight traffic. Suppose the line has two roadswitchers, one leaving each end first thing in the morning. Can they clear enroute? There may not be siding capacity where it is required. All of this is fixable - just bring money. Cash, up front.

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

It’s more complicated than that. First there is track condition, which may limit speeds. Ditto crossings. Then there is crossing protection which may need upgrading. Then there is signalling, or lack thereof. Lastly there is freight traffic. Suppose the line has two roadswitchers, one leaving each end first thing in the morning. Can they clear enroute? There may not be siding capacity where it is required. All of this is fixable - just bring money. Cash, up front.

- Paul

I know all of that and more pllay a role to capacity. So, my question is, taking all into consideration, is there a subdivision incapable of fitting 2 more daily trains?

 

[smallspy]

I know all of that and more pllay a role to capacity. So, my question is, taking all into consideration, is there a subdivision incapable of fitting 2 more daily trains?

Any subdivision can fit 2 more daily trains.

The question you should be asking is whether those subdivisions can handle 2 daily PASSENGER trains. Freight doesn't get tired or call to complain when its train is late. A passenger train needs to have an attainable schedule, operating at reasonable hours, and within a reasonable possibility of reliability.

Dan

 

[micheal_can]

Any subdivision can fit 2 more daily trains.

The question you should be asking is whether those subdivisions can handle 2 daily PASSENGER trains. Freight doesn't get tired or call to complain when its train is late. A passenger train needs to have an attainable schedule, operating at reasonable hours, and within a reasonable possibility of reliability.

Dan

Ok, is there a subdivision that cannot fit 2 daily passenger trains?

 

[robmausser]

Ok, is there a subdivision that cannot fit 2 daily passenger trains?

You are asking an oversimplified question that will never get a proper answer because you are leaving out too many variables.

So the answer is yes, there is not a subdivision that can fit 2 daily passenger trains at all, because the question on its merits is ignorant.

 

[crs1026]

Any subdivision can fit 2 more daily trains.

The question you should be asking is whether those subdivisions can handle 2 daily PASSENGER trains. Freight doesn't get tired or call to complain when its train is late. A passenger train needs to have an attainable schedule, operating at reasonable hours, and within a reasonable possibility of reliability.

To amplify this, here’s an example.
Say VIA goes to CP and says, we’d like to add two trains Edmonton-Calgary.
aCP’s response might well be along the lines of,
“Two trains? No problem.
But just to be clear, our hotshot intermodal Train 114 leaves Edmonton Intermodal at XX:00 every day, and nothing, repeat nothing, will be allowed to impede it on its way to Calgary. And by the way, it’s usually 12,000 feet long, and doesn’t fit in any sidings. And also, it has a counterpart train 113 that runs the other direction, and it’s just as important. And just as long.
Now, when are you thinking your train might run?”

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

To amplify this, here’s an example.
Say VIA goes to CP and says, we’d like to add two trains Edmonton-Calgary.
aCP’s response might well be along the lines of,
“Two trains? No problem.
But just to be clear, our hotshot intermodal Train 114 leaves Edmonton Intermodal at XX:00 every day, and nothing, repeat nothing, will be allowed to impede it on its way to Calgary. And by the way, it’s usually 12,000 feet long, and doesn’t fit in any sidings. And also, it has a counterpart train 113 that runs the other direction, and it’s just as important. And just as long.
Now, when are you thinking your train might run?”

- Paul

Well, in theory, you simply have the Via chase it. That means that the over siding train is actually clearing the way for the Via to not have to side either.

You are asking an oversimplified question that will never get a proper answer because you are leaving out too many variables.

So the answer is yes, there is not a subdivision that can fit 2 daily passenger trains at all, because the question on its merits is ignorant.

I ask a simple question, because the answer can be simple. For example, if there is a subdivision that is at capacity, then the answer is no due to capacity. Basically, I am looking for a reason besides desire to run them as to why it can't happen. Realize that the minute one subdivision cannot carry 2 more trains is the minute we can agree that it should not be looked into. Another challenge might be thru ability. So, both subs can take 2 more trains, but the train would need to sit in the yard for a few hours to line it up to the next sub.

Asking simplified questions allows the answerer to give you the best answer as they are not constrained to a narrow answer.

 

[robmausser]

To amplify this, here’s an example.
Say VIA goes to CP and says, we’d like to add two trains Edmonton-Calgary.
aCP’s response might well be along the lines of,
“Two trains? No problem.
But just to be clear, our hotshot intermodal Train 114 leaves Edmonton Intermodal at XX:00 every day, and nothing, repeat nothing, will be allowed to impede it on its way to Calgary. And by the way, it’s usually 12,000 feet long, and doesn’t fit in any sidings. And also, it has a counterpart train 113 that runs the other direction, and it’s just as important. And just as long.
Now, when are you thinking your train might run?”

- Paul

Its worse than that. Most freight companies dont adhere to a strict schedule. So the answer really would be

"well, you can run 2 passenger trains at X times, but theres no guarantee we wont be putting a freight train through at that time. It all depends."

 

[crs1026]

Well, in theory, you simply have the Via chase it. That means that the over siding train is actually clearing the way for the Via to not have to side either.

Its worse than that. Most freight companies dont adhere to a strict schedule. So the answer really would be
"well, you can run 2 passenger trains at X times, but theres no guarantee we wont be putting a freight train through at that time. It all depends."

Chasing a freight train that runs at 45-50 mph is not going to attract many passengers.

Precision Scheduled Railroading preaches running to schedule, but that doesn’t mean to the minute. Especially if the train that is to be chased is coming a long way and may have many operational challenges along the way. So yeah, the schedule applies, until it doesn’t, and then anything is possible.

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

Chasing a freight train that runs at 45-50 mph is not going to attract many passengers.

Precision Scheduled Railroading preaches running to schedule, but that doesn’t mean to the minute. Especially if the train that is to be chased is coming a long way and may have many operational challenges along the way. So yeah, the schedule applies, until it doesn’t, and then anything is possible.

- Paul

Point is, we know that things are going to slow it down. However, if we can plan it out as best as we can, there should be minimal delays. Running at that speed would be better than nothing, and could show that there is a demand for it.

 

[littlewill1166]

Point is, we know that things are going to slow it down. However, if we can plan it out as best as we can, there should be minimal delays. Running at that speed would be better than nothing, and could show that there is a demand for it.

Demand is strongly correlated with frequency and price. Running one train daily between Edmonton and Calgary will yield something similar to what happened when VIA ended service to Sarnia on 85/88 and people will probably end up taking the bus instead (as they do today). Unless Edmonton to Calgary is double-tracked and there are at least 4 daily frequencies, there's no way this will work.

 

[micheal_can]

Demand is strongly correlated with frequency and price. Running one train daily between Edmonton and Calgary will yield something similar to what happened when VIA ended service to Sarnia on 85/88 and people will probably end up taking the bus instead (as they do today). Unless Edmonton to Calgary is double-tracked and there are at least 4 daily frequencies, there's no way this will work.

I would think 4 a day each way could be done, but someone here might be able to show me how busy the line is. Maybe they do 2 daily, each on CN and CP lines?

 

[crs1026]

Our Prime Minister released Mandate letters to his Cabinet Ministers today.

The letter to Transport Minister Marc Garneau reads in part:

• In your capacity as Minister responsible for VIA Rail, work with the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities to create high frequency rail for the Toronto-Quebec City corridor;
• Work with VIA Rail to make opportunities to travel to Canada’s National Parks more accessible and affordable

The letter to Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Catherine McKenna reads:

• Support the Minister of Transport, in his capacity as Minister responsible for VIA Rail, to create high frequency rail for the Toronto-Quebec City corridor.
• Make the federal commitment to fund public transit permanent and rise with the cost of construction over time. Ensure that new federal investments in public transit are used to support zero-emission buses and rail systems starting in 2023 and work with municipalities to address any exceptional circumstances.

Interesting and actually pretty explicit direction to move HFR forward.

- Paul

 

[DSC]

I would think 4 a day each way could be done, but someone here might be able to show me how busy the line is. Maybe they do 2 daily, each on CN and CP lines?

You need to look at DEMAND not only at what is 'technically' feasible. There are SIX bus trips each weekday and trains hold far more people. When I was in AL this year my friends told us they never take the (very comfortable) bus going from Calgary to Edmonton as 'the drive's not bad" but more importantly they need cars when they arrive.

 

[Urban Sky]

Okay, let's continue my previous post, which at this point has become more or less reduced to a dialogue between @micheal_can and myself, but let's re-visit that 6th point one more time:

#6 About VIA's mandate

See all the colours? Some are green, some are yellow, and some are red. Toronto to Vancouver i Yellow - Green. That is what I meant. Not the black/red thinking.

Yet, you wrote "What surprised me was that the Canadian is not in the red." without anything which would have suggested that you were referring to anything I had posted (let alone: to the colouring of my table) rather than using an accounting reference ("to be in the red"). If you want your comments to be understood correctly, be clear on what you are actually replying to...

We should figure out why it dropped.

The cost-recovery rate of the Canadian has indeed dropped slightly between 2017 and 2018:

Compiled from: VIA Rail Annual Reports 2010-2018

However, the more important question is why the cost-recovery of the Canadian increased from 45% in 2012-2014 to 65% in 2017 and there are two main changes in that period: First, the previous federal government off-peak frequency (i.e. between early October and late April) was cut from 3 trains per week to only 2 in October 2012. Second, VIA Rail launched Prestige Class in 2014. The fact that cost-recovery stayed virtually unchanged after the frequency was cut (during low season) and then increased by 20 percentage-points in only 3 years following the introduction of Prestige Class (with passenger revenues increasing from $40.7 million in 2012 and $47.1 million in 2014 to $75.9 million in 2017), shows that ridership is rather insensitive to a decrease in frequency, while revenues have seen a strong boost from catering towards the higher-end segments of international tourism (by positioning the Canadian as a competitor to cruises). As neatly shown by the figure below, this strategic switch has caused revenues and yield (revenue per passenger-mile) to roughly double, while the costs to the taxpayer (even in absolute figures!) stayed stable and ridership only decreased moderately:

Compiled from: VIA Rail Annual Reports 2010-2018

There is a plan to put HFR between the 2 cities that seem to have the lower ridership. Yet, it is still being suggested, and it is still a good idea. The numbers are not the whole story.

Again, I have no idea what you meant with this statement and especially with "the 2 cities that seem to have the lower ridership", but it becomes quite apparent that you don't trust numbers much...


#9 About expanding transcontinental VIA services

Lets really look at those 4 things.


Fleet

Get more.
Either they locate old ones, refurbish them and put them into service.
Or....
Get new ones. You could have a manufacture, like Bombardier who likely owns the rights to the car designs, build new ones to the original designs, but have them built updated for today.

Now, you would have enough rolling stock to run it daily both ways. In fact, with building new cars, you can replace the old ones. Metal does fatigue over time. Those cars are over 50 years old. That means the metal has been under stress for 50 years. Replacing them with new, but still streamline cars would be a good way to not only increase rolling stock, but increase reliability of that rolling stock.

VIA Rail is already undergoing a fleet renewal on the Corridor (yes, it's a 1:1 replacement of existing seating capacity, at least for as long as HFR is not approved) and there realistically won't be a fleet renewal (let alone: expansion) project for outside the Corridor before the new Corridor trains are delivered, which means that new fleet for non-Corridor services is at least a decade away, possibly much more if the lead time until funding for the Corridor fleet is any indication...

Mandate

List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The 4th largest metro, Calgary is not served by rail. The next largest city is the 15th one; Victoria, which actually is if they return the train to Vancouver Island. I would say that Via has not fulfilled it's mandate fully if a major city such as Calgary, with a population over 1.3 million do not have access to rail. The next city that isn't served; Victoria has a population of 350,000. That i a city 4 times as small.

There is nowhere in VIA's mandate which says that cities larger than a certain size require passenger service. A prescribed minimum service level only exists for services which link "communities without year-round ground transportation access" with the next major city (e.g. Churchill with Winnipeg). However, this doesn't mean that the province of Alberta can't fund intercity rail services between Calgary and Edmonton...

Market

Bus =/= Train, or, does subway = bus? The argument for bustification is silly at best.

The only things silly here are your bizzare equations.

The Corridor is still slower than car and plane, but it is well used and well served. Why? Because it exists, and it fills a need.

Because VIA's Corridor services are in fact not significantly slower slower than the car and plane, and faster than the bus, due to railway lines which are built for speeds in the 100-160 km/h spectrum (i.e. above official highway speed limits). In Western Canada, however, trains are unlikely to exceed 100 km/h and frequent meets with freight trains inflate the travel times to that above intercity buses (before they were driven out of the market, due to lack of sufficient demand to operate them without losses).

So, the market could be there. Again, 1.3 million not served is a fairly good market.

By your logic, a small car like the Smart or a children's book written in German should have much higher sales in the United States than in Germany, because the population of the United States is five times as large as that of Germany. Unfortunately, the word "market" (in the economic sense) is not a synonym for "population" and refers to the volume of transaction demanded by individuals or companies which have a need for a certain category of product or service (in this case: intercity travel) and cities in Western Canada appear to generate much less trips between them than their Corridor counterparts...

Ignoring Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto, cities over 50,000 are:
The Southern route would serve:
[...]
Total: 2,028,000

The current route
[...]
Total 1,704,000

A difference of over 324,000 This does not include the smaller places, but the southern route is more populated.

I would say a net higher population is a market that exists that is not served.

The only thing your lists show is that the CP route serves more population centers than the (more Northern) CN route, which is a revelation which will only surprise people who are completely ignorant of the Canadian geographic and demographics (or the routings of CN's and CP's transcontinental lines)...

Funding

This took me about a half hour to look up and type. This clearly shows that a mandate and market do exist. What does not exist is the money, and the agreement to run on CP tracks.

I have clearly shown that which you said did not exist, for the most part does.exist. We just need a government to see this, and put it in place.

No, the only thing you have clearly demonstrated is how little you grasp the challenges which passenger rail expansion efforts face in your country.


***


Unfortunately, I only have space to introduce two new points:


#11 About requiring a minimum siding length (equal to maximum train lengths)

I can answer that... yes. The main reason VIA goes into the siding is the trains they meet do not fit.

Imagine you were a corporation with profit-oriented shareholders and the government places a cost (e.g. fines for non-compliance) if you own sidings are shorter than the longest train you operate. Would you a) extend all your sidings to match your longest train length, b) reduce your train lengths to not exceed the length of your shortest siding or c) analyse all sidings which are currently "too short" to determine for which sidings it would be profitable to extend it to be allowed to keep it and to eliminate all other sidings?

Given that the Canadian currently fits in all sidings (even in those where almost no freight train fits), it would suffer most from such a short-sighted and counter-productive law, whereas the elimination of sidings has little negative effects on freight trains which have outgrown them...

#12 About the design speed of Highways in North America

Just you. The normal design standards for freeways in most of North America are 110-130 kph.

Indeed, if Highways in North America were designed for speeds of 160 km/h and more, their medians would be preferred alignments for HSR and other fast passenger rail services. Unfortunately, they aren't:

Putting Rail Lines in Highway Medians

***

I'm afraid that's all what I have time and space for today, but to be continued...