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VIA Rail

Reecemartin said:
I moved heaven and earth to do this one same day! Canada's National Rail Carrier VIA has unveiled its new fleet, and the trains are among the nicest I’ve ever seen, come for a tour with me in this latest video!
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Really great video!

The little things you notice

- Really like….. the handholds on the seatbacks, the doorless overhead luggage racks (transparent, so you can see what you’re leaving behind !), how the doors protect the step area from snow, the whole layout and decor….a lot of attention to detail in a lot of little things

- Really, really don’t like….. window spacing and quad seats that have a window pillar down the middle

- Unknowns - couldn’t really see the luggage/bike storage in the video, wondering where the handbrakes are located (irrelevant detail to passengers, but if you’ve ever had to set a few….)…. are those vestibule trapdoors manual or powered? …. how are disabled passengers boarded at low-platform stations?

Great video and an encouraging first look at the new trains.

- Paul


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cplchanb said:
Noticed that they field mounted an extension to the plow at the front end. Is that a temporary attachment?
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If it’s a post-production mod, it’s a sensible one. That’s a spot whereyou want an easily removable and replaceable edge ….it will get dinged and bashed to heck in regular service, and you want to be able to replace it without having to replace the entire pilot. The extended edge is likely desirable to reduce snow accumulation under the engine.

- Paul
 
turini2 said:
Hopefully HFR (and dedicated tracks) can follow sooner rather than later!
Good thing about the Siemens design - you could replace the locomotive with an electric one or a bi-mode when tracks get electrified.
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Money on that it will never happen in our life time, or the useful life of these trains...
 
something interesting in UT's article is that the new trains will apparently result in about a 5% increase in train speeds over today, even without HFR. Which is very interesting to me, I wasn't aware the new trains would result in faster travel times.
 
cplchanb said:
Noticed that they field mounted an extension to the plow at the front end. Is that a temporary attachment?
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It's not field-mounted, it was installed at the factory.

This way if they hit anything substantial, they can easily replace that smaller portion of the plow rather than the whole thing. It also allows for easy adjustment in height - it needs to be maintained between 6 and 12 inches above the top of the rail.

hw621 said:
New trains cannot be operated at top speed due to track quality...sad!
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No different than in the US. Or England. Or Germany. Or......

Dan
 
innsertnamehere said:
something interesting in UT's article is that the new trains will apparently result in about a 5% increase in train speeds over today, even without HFR. Which is very interesting to me, I wasn't aware the new trains would result in faster travel times.
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Despite being rated for more-or-less the same power as the current locos, the reality is that the new locos will actually have substantially more power available for traction than the older locos.

Dan
 
innsertnamehere said:
something interesting in UT's article is that the new trains will apparently result in about a 5% increase in train speeds over today, even without HFR. Which is very interesting to me, I wasn't aware the new trains would result in faster travel times.
Click to expand...
Bit better acceleration and ability to sustain slightly higher track speeds. But how useful is that if they end up behind a freight train?
 
Allandale25 said:
www.stratfordbeaconherald.com

Via Rail's recent schedule change in Stratford disappoints passengers

One month after celebrating the arrival of a new GO Train, a recent change to the departure time of Stratford’s only Via Rail train has dampened the mood of some lo…
www.stratfordbeaconherald.com www.stratfordbeaconherald.com
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Even without the insane timetable constraints imposed by GO's current schedule and by the skeleton state of the infrastructure West of Georgetown, I still find it unrealistic to expect the schedule of a once-daily train to simultaneously satisfy the needs of all the communities it serves along its almost five hour long journey...
 
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As we discussed earlier (thanks @Urban Sky for the link) VIA 84 had to be moved later because with the decreasing track quality the travel time from London to Kitchener has now grown considerably longer than it was when the schedule was written. Prior to the schedule change on 15 November, it was physically impossible for the train to arrive in Kitchener less than about 20 minutes late, and the train was commonly more than 30 minutes late, causing it to block the first westbound GO train at Georgetown.

VIA tried a quick fix about a year ago by cutting the dwell time in London to allow the train to depart there earlier (thereby breaking the timed connection with VIA 70), but that was nowhere near enough. With the other constraints at London and at Georgetown, the train simply doesn't fit into that time slot anymore now, that it takes 2h12 to get from Kitchener to London.

If Stratford wants the old schedule back, they need to campaign for the track quality to be brought at least back to the level it was a few years ago when the old schedule was written. Whining to VIA will not do anything because the old schedule is physically impossible to achieve now. And it has been for a year, so surely Sharon McDonald, a "semi-regular rider" would have noticed that over the past year there was literally a 0% on-time performance with the old schedule, but with the new schedules trains are often on-time?
 
To those in the know. Would VIA use the new trains on the Seneterre and Jonquiere services eventually? Or is the fleet strictly restricted to Quebec-Windsor?
 
kEiThZ said:
To those in the know. Would VIA use the new trains on the Seneterre and Jonquiere services eventually? Or is the fleet strictly restricted to Quebec-Windsor?
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The easy answer is that 32 trainsets will only be sufficient to cover the Corridor service. Also, the on-board amenities (think: Business Class, but no insufficient storage for bulky cargo like canoes) are a clear mismatch with passenger needs on a remote service...
 
reaperexpress said:
As we discussed earlier (thanks @Urban Sky for the link) VIA 84 had to be moved later because with the decreasing track quality the travel time from London to Kitchener has now grown considerably longer than it was when the schedule was written. Prior to the schedule change on 15 November, it was physically impossible for the train to arrive in Kitchener less than about 20 minutes late, and the train was commonly more than 30 minutes late, causing it to block the first westbound GO train at Georgetown.

VIA tried a quick fix about a year ago by cutting the dwell time in London to allow the train to depart there earlier (thereby breaking the timed connection with VIA 70), but that was nowhere near enough. With the other constraints at London and at Georgetown, the train simply doesn't fit into that time slot anymore now, that it takes 2h12 to get from Kitchener to London.

If Stratford wants the old schedule back, they need to campaign for the track quality to be brought at least back to the level it was a few years ago when the old schedule was written. Whining to VIA will not do anything because the old schedule is physically impossible to achieve now. And it has been for a year, so surely Sharon McDonald, a "semi-regular rider" would have noticed that over the past year there was literally a 0% on-time performance with the old schedule, but with the new schedules trains are often on-time?
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How much longer until Metrolinx buys the corridor so they retain control of the corridor?
 
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