VIA Rail

[littlewill1166]

They could likely shave off 10-15 minutes by upgrading the track between Glencoe and Chatham to Continuous welded rail instead of jointed rail. Makes for a better ride too.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/government-of-canada-and-via-rail-announce-extensive-chatham-windsor-railline-improvements-538868941.html

^ Apparently they already did, but it's still bumpier than the Dundas/Oakville subs. I guess it's because the limit is 90 mph, vs 75 mph on Dundas/Oakville since I've noticed something similar on the Kingston sub where trains also travel at 90 mph.

Again: you would have only 8 trains per day benefitting from this and only passengers going all the way to Windsor (or Glencoe) - which is considerably less busy than Ottawa...

At Glencoe, 76 often has to double stop because the passing siding ends just south of the station platform and 73 is constantly delayed. By the time 76 arrives in London, it's often 20 minutes late. Since it missed its slot, it's put behind a slow-moving freight train from Sarnia until Woodstock adding another 10-minute delay. By the time it gets to Aldershot it's 30 minutes late and has to wait for a GO Train to pull into the station. Since it missed its slot, 76 gets put behind another GO train until it reaches the quad-track section of the Oakville-sub where it arrives at Union Station 40-minutes late chronically. Train 76 then turns into 48. If 76 is delayed enough, 48 to Ottawa gets delayed as well.

If Glencoe was twin-tracked, it could easily save 5 minutes and reduce the possibility of downstream delays.

To sum things up, seemingly short delays in one part of the network can easily cascade into much larger delays downstream. Thus, you must look at the big picture when making decisions regarding network improvements.

Below is a satellite image of Glencoe station and the surrounding area.

Red = Existing Track
Green = Existing Platform
Blue = Siding Extension

 

[Urban Sky]

View attachment 337518View attachment 337519

At Glencoe, 76 often has to double stop because the passing siding ends just south of the station platform and 73 is constantly delayed. By the time 76 arrives in London, it's often 20 minutes late. Since it missed its slot, it's put behind a slow-moving freight train from Sarnia until Woodstock adding another 10-minute delay. By the time it gets to Aldershot it's 30 minutes late and has to wait for a GO Train to pull into the station. Since it missed its slot, 76 gets put behind another GO train until it reaches the quad-track section of the Oakville-sub where it arrives at Union Station 40-minutes late chronically. Train 76 then turns into 48. If 76 is delayed enough, 48 to Ottawa gets delayed as well.

If Glencoe was twin-tracked, it could easily save 5 minutes and reduce the possibility of downstream delays.

To sum things up, seemingly short delays in one part of the network can easily cascade into much larger delays downstream. Thus, you must look at the big picture when making decisions regarding network improvements.

Below is a satellite image of Glencoe station and the surrounding area.

Red = Existing Track
Green = Existing Platform
Blue = Siding Extension

View attachment 337524

Agreed, but as your analysis shows, the delays of 73 (and its cascading effects on 76 and 48) have little to nothing to do with the track quality of the VIA-owned segment of the Chatham Sub...

I didn't follow this. Why would upgrading the physical track reduce capacity?

I was talking about the challenges of justifying the expenses of track upgrades with so few trains and passengers benefitting, not about how these upgrades would affect capacity...

 

[Bordercollie]

By having a locomotive on each end saves time for not having to wye the train but by doing that have they increased the mileage and wear and tear on the locomotives?

When the P42's where ordered to replace the LRC locomotives, did they do a 1 to 1 ratio?

But I guess also that not every LRC trainset had two locomotives either.

 

[littlewill1166]

By having a locomotive on each end saves time for not having to wye the train but by doing that have they increased the mileage and wear and tear on the locomotives?

When the P42's where ordered to replace the LRC locomotives, did they do a 1 to 1 ratio?

But I guess also that not every LRC trainset had two locomotives either.

VIA Rail Canada 900-920 - CPTDB Wiki

cptdb.ca

"These locomotives replaced the 7 LRC locomotives still in service and the 7 FP9Au's left on the roster. The 7 remaining P42DC's were used to replace some of the F40PH's that had been retired due to accidents."

 

[nfitz]

Then how about increasing the speeds from 60 to 80-90mph?

I wouldn't think the track and railbed is currently built for that. But if you built it for it, you could use jointed rail.

 

[Bordercollie]

It's great that the Union station construction is finished but the VIA departure area is still a disaster. The way that we board trains needs to change. There should be a check in counter and then you should go to your gate to board.

The washrooms are always broken and there are homeless people living in there.

The washrooms smell like pee, and it is not a good reflection of our flagship station.

The GO concourse is much nicer, and is much more customer friendly.

 

[Bordercollie]

I rode train 71 to windsor and there was a person taking notes about the train speaking with the train service master.

The service master was telling the lady taking notes that the non rebuilt coaches are not cleaned properly and that the washrooms are in horrible condition.

He said that the rebuild HEP coaches make a world of difference, but he mentioned that the maintenance people are not taking steps to properly clean the cars while they are parked overnight.

She must be doing some kind of audit and taking feedback from the crew on how to improve the service.

Interesting that they do that. I guess direct feedback from the crew to maintenance doesn't get passed on?

Are we about half way through on rebuilding the HEP corridor fleet? They also updated the digital number boards on both rebuilt and non rebuilt HEP II cars while they were parked during covid it looks like.

 

[kEiThZ]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1421214771970445314

 

[TerryJohnson]

Agreed, but as your analysis shows, the delays of 73 (and its cascading effects on 76 and 48) have little to nothing to do with the track quality of the VIA-owned segment of the Chatham Sub...




I was talking about the challenges of justifying the expenses of track upgrades with so few trains and passengers benefitting, not about how these upgrades would affect capacity...

The ridership from Chatham and Windsor is constrained by frequency and schedule as much as anything. If we had five or six round trips per day and got the running time down below 4h again, there would be a commensurate rise in ridership. As things stood before the pandemic, ridership was good and growing, even though you could either get up before the crack of dawn for #70, or take #72 which arrives in Toronto late enough in the day that it is not really helpful for day-trip purposes and misses first pitch if you're going to the ball game. Coming west, the huge schedule gaps between 71, 73 and 75 means its really important to plan a journey around the train, rather than plan a journey and take the train.

The analysis above of the Glencoe siding situation is good, although complicated if we want both trains to make a station stop. Starting from the principle that investments should be designed to make CN dispatchers happy by improving freight fluidity and keeping VIA trains on-time and in their slots is a good way to keep passengers happy. In my experience, 73 is also often held out on the Strathroy Sub main track at Komoka awaiting 76, thereby tying up both tracks until 76 shows up. That causes avoidable inconvenience to both freight and passengers. A siding at the old Komoka station location would at least allow a late-running 73 to get out of the way of CN without going all the way to Glencoe and delaying 76.

 

[reaperexpress]

Then how about increasing the speeds from 60 to 80-90mph?

The speed on the VIA portion (west of Chatham) is already 100 mph (161 km/h), and if I'm not mistaken, the CN portion is already 80 mph (129 km/h).

The analysis above of the Glencoe siding situation is good, although complicated if we want both trains to make a station stop. Starting from the principle that investments should be designed to make CN dispatchers happy by improving freight fluidity and keeping VIA trains on-time and in their slots is a good way to keep passengers happy. In my experience, 73 is also often held out on the Strathroy Sub main track at Komoka awaiting 76, thereby tying up both tracks until 76 shows up. That causes avoidable inconvenience to both freight and passengers. A siding at the old Komoka station location would at least allow a late-running 73 to get out of the way of CN without going all the way to Glencoe and delaying 76.

I don't think we need to maintain so many scheduled stops at Glencoe. Ridership (and potential ridership) from that station is minimal, to the point that trains often don't have any boardings or alightings. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that if two trains are scheduled to meet at or near Glencoe, only one of them is scheduled to stop. The potential benefit to thru passengers would far outweigh the disbenefit to the people in/around Glencoe.

 

[TerryJohnson]

I don't think we need to maintain so many scheduled stops at Glencoe. Ridership (and potential ridership) from that station is minimal, to the point that trains often don't have any boardings or alightings. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that if two trains are scheduled to meet at or near Glencoe, only one of them is scheduled to stop. The potential benefit to thru passengers would far outweigh the disbenefit to the people in/around Glencoe.

I could argue that if Glencoe and the surrounding villages has half-decent transit into London and Chatham, a train stop would be unnecessary. However, if they had half decent transit into Glencoe and more trains called there, providing a decent set of travel options, then the on/offs there would be rather better. There's also something to be said for having a stop outside London, because a much of the advantage of not driving into Toronto is lost if you have to drive into London and fork out for expensive downtown parking before catching the train.

Balancing service coverage over end to end travel time is a bit easier if intermediate stops don't take so long, but we're stuck with low-level platforms at most locations for the foreseeable future...

 

[Bordercollie]

The speed on the VIA portion (west of Chatham) is already 100 mph (161 km/h), and if I'm not mistaken, the CN portion is already 80 mph (129 km/h).



I don't think we need to maintain so many scheduled stops at Glencoe. Ridership (and potential ridership) from that station is minimal, to the point that trains often don't have any boardings or alightings. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that if two trains are scheduled to meet at or near Glencoe, only one of them is scheduled to stop. The potential benefit to thru passengers would far outweigh the disbenefit to the people in/around Glencoe.

I just felt that it was slow because there was a problem with two crossings where someone damaged the wires resulting in someone being required to flag the crossing.

At the same time there was damage to the signal system resulting in a slow order from Glencoe to Chatham.

 

[drum118]

The past year has come with its fair share of challenges, but as the country begins to reopen, we’re looking forward to regaining a sense of normalcy—together. We know that we haven’t been in touch as often, but we’re happy to be able to share some positive news. We kept moving forward with our modernization projects, and our brand-new fleet will begin to arrive in the Québec City–Windsor corridor in late 2022. The new fleet was designed to offer our passengers a more comfortable, accessible, sustainable and reliable travel experience, and we can’t wait to share more. Here is a first sneak peek below. Stay tuned for more information, and we hope to see you soon! ​

Building the train of tomorrow didn’t start yesterday. Our teams have been working on it for 4 years. How long will our new trains last? 30 years or 9,600,000 km. A cleaner fleet equipped with state-of-the-art diesel engines. 1 brand new train is nice. But 32 in the next few years is even better!

 

[OntarioOnTheMove]

Another announcement about improving passenger service to the southwest today, but more noteably, this one took place in Brantford.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1423277429125226496

Government of Canada to explore opportunities to enhance passenger rail services in Southwestern Ontario

The Government of Canada is committed to working towards enhancing and modernizing intercity passenger rail services in a way that will best meet the transportation needs of travellers, as outlined in the vision for Transportation 2030.

www.canada.ca

 

[Bordercollie]

Another announcement about improving passenger service to the southwest today, but more noteably, this one took place in Brantford.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1423277429125226496

Government of Canada to explore opportunities to enhance passenger rail services in Southwestern Ontario

The Government of Canada is committed to working towards enhancing and modernizing intercity passenger rail services in a way that will best meet the transportation needs of travellers, as outlined in the vision for Transportation 2030.

www.canada.ca

How about starting with increasing train trips on the corridor now? I heard that they are bringing back trains that were suspended during covid sometime in August.