VIA Rail

[littlewill1166]

4 Advantages of sitting in a rear facing seat on VIA plus one bonus

• Some people get motion sickness from sitting in them, and ask the service manager for a seat change leaving you with an empty seat next to you.
• If the train crashes into debris and goes into emergency, the front facing people come flying forward out of their seat (especially in the new leather ones). Meanwhile you're safely pushed backwards into your seat.
• In the current layout, they're closest to the exit allowing you to jump off the train quickly and make it to the front of the line of your next public transit connection.
• If you're sitting in business, you often get first pick for meals.
• Previously on the Sarnia trains Car 3 was a business car, and the crew would forget to stow away chocolate and snack mixes from the day before. So you would be able to grab some food from the galley when noone was looking.

 

[crs1026]

^I would not enjoy riding all the way from Toronto to Vancouver facing rearwards, but I have sat facing backwards so many times on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for short-haul and intercity trains (and Amtrak sleeping cars, and section sleepers in Canada) that it just isn't a big deal. I really think people need to give this a rest. There are no "average passengers" participating in this discussion and I don't think the views of folks here reflect the true marketability of such seats. They are fine.

The topic of rear-facing seats on VIA comes up almost as often on UT as the topic of public washrooms in TTC stations, with about the same level of consensus and resolution.

- Paul

 

[kEiThZ]

I was thinking about VIA's upcoming HFR RFP and wondering why they can't just use performance based contracting to get what they want, letting their prime just design the overall solution to meet their goals.

They have target travel times. TO in 3 hrs. TM in 4 hrs. MQ in 2.5 hrs. Why not just give those to a contractor along with other goals (in-service by 2030, departures every 20 mins after 5 years of service, zero emissions, etc) and let some big consortium with either DB, JR or SNCF as the major design a solution?

They have already committed to a federal EA, not normally needed on existing corridors. That would indicate they intend at least some new stretches. So might just be better to hand it to a consortium and let them phase it out. Nobody minds if Toronto-Peterborough and Ottawa-Montreal come into service by 2025 using diesel trains, while they work on Peterborough-Smiths Falls, Montreal-Quebec City and electrification (with possibly a new fleet) by 2030.

 

[crs1026]

^I would look to the Metrolinx experience with alternate procurement methods, and the pushback that bidders have shown over that format.

Many of the design decisions which the contractor would have to make while engineering the solution are beyond what a private consortium can profitably tackle or cares to get involved in. Some are justifiably public policy decisions that require public accountability (as disfunctional as democracy might be….)

For example, what if Consortium X decided that a specific curve in Anytownship needed to be eased. Who approaches the town and announces that the redesigned row necessitates expropriation, has to encroach on the town’s rec center, possibly cutting down a line of mature trees in the process? Who handles the interface with objecting residents? The expropriation litigation? It’s not as simple as “conventional” land development…. which is anything but simple.

One can put a performance contract around what bridge to build or how much to bank a curve…. but how to plan the crossing of the major watersheds, such as the Trent rail bridge for instance, is a political discussion and inherently incompatible with a narrow profit/loss perspective. Contractors won’t touch those issues.

The two natural bidders for that kind of performance contract are CN and CP. But the price point at which they would be interested is probably well beyond the cost of having VIA do the work.

It’s possible we may end up with a more common contract to operate and maintain, but selecting the site and building the base infrastructure is best done by the public sector entity, as Metrolinx is finding out.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

PS: If Ottawa’s business case deliberations are as thorough as we are led to believe, there must be a list and analysis of alternatives to the proposed HFR plan. As a matter of due diligence in comparing alternatives, one of those options quite reasonably ought to have been to have asked CN, “Hey, how much would you charge us to upgrade the Kingston line to give us 3:59 back, and throw in 2:55 to Ottawa?”

I pity the poor staffer who was sent on that mission…. no doubt they were first laughed out of the room, and then handed an astronomical asking price, Their continuing reputation at CN HQ was probably shot.

But hey, no harm in asking.

- Paul

 

[Bordercollie]

PS: If Ottawa’s business case deliberations are as thorough as we are led to believe, there must be a list and analysis of alternatives to the proposed HFR plan. As a matter of due diligence in comparing alternatives, one of those options quite reasonably ought to have been to have asked CN, “Hey, how much would you charge us to upgrade the Kingston line to give us 3:59 back, and throw in 2:55 to Ottawa?”

I pity the poor staffer who was sent on that mission…. no doubt they were first laughed out of the room, and then handed an astronomical asking price, Their continuing reputation at CN HQ was probably shot.

But hey, no harm in asking.

- Paul

Even if CN's position would change on Upgrading the Kingston SUB, we would need to enact legislation mandating they they guarantee ontime performance on that line and failure to do so would result in $X per minute of delays over an X period. Plus the amount paid to upgrade the corridor would need to be more than what they make transporting freight on that line.

It would likely be cheaper to pay CP to double track the Belleville SUB and allow them to share the tracks with CN to allow some of the capacity to be spread out over both lines, allowing VIA to avoid building new stations, and have shorter trip times.

Neither of those are likely to happen, which is why they decided to build their own corridor.

 

[Darwinkgo]

So the best of best worlds is the government designs a solution it is ok with, and allows bidders to propose optimizations which either improve service for the same price, or improve price for the same service or both. Then it isn't an unlimited variable optimization.

 

[kEiThZ]

For example, what if Consortium X decided that a specific curve in Anytownship needed to be eased. Who approaches the town and announces that the redesigned row necessitates expropriation, has to encroach on the town’s rec center, possibly cutting down a line of mature trees in the process? Who handles the interface with objecting residents? The expropriation litigation? It’s not as simple as “conventional” land development…. which is anything but simple.

This could always be gated into the contract no? Various design phases. Breakdown of contractual responsibilities. Etc.

Personally, I don't see the issue with a prime contractor having to pursue easements in a design or get the government to expropriate on their behalf. Isn't this what would happen anyway if we simply had a firm to exclusively do the corridor design? They'll end up telling the government what to expropriate anyway. And the government would have to do all that before handing a corridor right back to the builder.

 

[kEiThZ]

Neither of those are likely to happen, which is why they decided to build their own corridor.

Exactly. We really need to get past this viewpoint that they will ever cooperate. Not because they are purposely obstructionist. Simply because it's not in their business interests to do so. We need to acknowledge that and move on.

Maybe we can negotiate something for the trains that are needed to run out of Kingston. But trying to build the primary passenger corridor for a third of the country's population around the good graces of the freight cos would be some true insanity.

 

[crs1026]

This could always be gated into the contract no? Various design phases. Breakdown of contractual responsibilities. Etc.

Personally, I don't see the issue with a prime contractor having to pursue easements in a design or get the government to expropriate on their behalf. Isn't this what would happen anyway if we simply had a firm to exclusively do the corridor design? They'll end up telling the government what to expropriate anyway. And the government would have to do all that before handing a corridor right back to the builder.

It could be done, certainly. The question is whether it would lead to a longer, more iterative contract negotiation.

I hope that at this point, after the $79M study and now the $491M derisking starting, that VIA has a pretty good set of basic blueprints and a contract spec. Sure, some parts may have to be rolled out for consultation, and it makes sense to let bidders suggest some better ideas, hopefully the design has some flex. I would be reluctant to let the procurement drag on longer than it needs to, however.

Just for an example - take the hypothetical Pickering Airport. Now that Ottawa has the land, it's easy to put out an RFP for design, build, finance, maintain, operate... whatever one cares to put in the contract. But imagine if Ottawa didn't have any land, and the RFP simply read "DBFOM for a X,000 foot runway within Y kms of downtown Oshawa". There might be proponents willing to scout a site, and competing proposals generated.... but the decisionmaking process would be a nightmare.

Realistically, any bidder on HFR would be likely to land on the Havelock Alexandria and Trois Rivieres lines, and so the bids will just be different views of how to best extract performance from that route. If VIA doesn't already have some engineers' clever and actionable opinions on how to do that....we've wasted a lot of time.

- Paul

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Exactly. We really need to get past this viewpoint that they will ever cooperate. Not because they are purposely obstructionist. Simply because it's not in their business interests to do so. We need to acknowledge that and move on.

Maybe we can negotiate something for the trains that are needed to run out of Kingston. But trying to build the primary passenger corridor for a third of the country's population around the good graces of the freight cos would be some true insanity.

Build the line first, and when you are no longer beholden to them for what truly mattered you'd be a far better position to negotiate.

AoD

 

[reaperexpress]

Build the line first, and when you are no longer beholden to them for what truly mattered you'd be a far better position to negotiate.

I'm wondering if this is part of the rationale for showing the CP Winchester subdivision on the HFR maps. If VIA estimates that an express train running along the VIA HFR tracks and the Winchester Sub could match the speed of an express train along the CN Kingston sub, they would be less at the mercy of the freight companies. If VIA isn't happy with the cost/performance of CN, they can move the express service over to CP, or vice versa.

 

[Allandale25]

^ I'm not an expert like this, but why can't they just build along the Winchester Sub, but have it wired/completely separate track (with passing tracks) from CP? Isn't the issue with CN's Kingston Sub that VIA/CN are highly integrated?

 

[MisterF]

^ I'm not an expert like this, but why can't they just build along the Winchester Sub, but have it wired/completely separate track (with passing tracks) from CP? Isn't the issue with CN's Kingston Sub that VIA/CN are highly integrated?

It would still be in the CP right of way so CP would ultimately have to sign off on whatever Via proposes. The freight railways have always been fiercely protective of their corridors to ensure that they can expand in the future. Building a new line outside CP's right of way would require expropriation from all the landowners on the route.

 

[robmausser]

^ I'm not an expert like this, but why can't they just build along the Winchester Sub, but have it wired/completely separate track (with passing tracks) from CP? Isn't the issue with CN's Kingston Sub that VIA/CN are highly integrated?

Any work in any corridor not owned by VIA requires basically them to hand the project off to that owner, in this case CP.

CP will do all the work themselves in the corridor. They will overcharge VIA, as they have with GO in the past, up to 800% as found by the Ontario Auditor General.

They will own the tracks and determine what can be done with them and not etc.

Its weird to me when people are like "why cant VIA just build in X's corridor?"

It would be like the government coming and saying "We are going to build another house on your property, thats ok right?"