VIA Rail

[robmausser]

It is if you only have a single unit in the DMU (or should it be DSU (Diesel Single Unit)?) and 2 coaches (thus twice as many coaches as units) as @robmausser was saying.

If the coaches have powered wheels, but not an engine, in other words its a single motor DMU with electric traction power on all vehicles, then its different than a locomotive hauled train as you get traction power on all (or most) wheels. This allows for better acceleration profiles and energy efficiency.

Furthermore, a full sized loco has to be designed to haul a very large consist, even if its only hauling two or three coaches. DMU's are typically designed to haul a smaller train, so the engine is typically smaller and lighter, there is substantial weight savings throughout.

If you wanted more than a 3-car consist, you could link together another DMU (potentially) but as you said, once you get into 5 car, 6 car DMU's its more beneficial to use a loco hauled unit.

 

[roger1818]

If the coaches have powered wheels, but not an engine, in other words its a single motor DMU with electric traction power on all vehicles, then its different than a locomotive hauled train as you get traction power on all (or most) wheels. This allows for better acceleration profiles and energy efficiency.

Then they are no longer standard coaches but EMU units. I did mention this option earlier:

There are some DMUs where there is a power pack car that is a diesel generator and the other units have electric traction motors in them (thus not "just regular carriages").

Furthermore, a full sized loco has to be designed to haul a very large consist, even if its only hauling two or three coaches. DMU's are typically designed to haul a smaller train, so the engine is typically smaller and lighter, there is substantial weight savings throughout.

If you wanted more than a 3-car consist, you could link together another DMU (potentially) but as you said, once you get into 5 car, 6 car DMU's its more beneficial to use a loco hauled unit.

No arguments from me there. What I am questioning is:

1. At what threshold it makes sense to use a DMU vs conventional train?
2. Will VIA have enough trains of that size (especially if they can increase their modal share) to make it worth buying a separate class of trainset?
3. Do DMUs make as much sense for VIA, where they are expected to have their trainset last 30+ years rather than replace them every 15 years?

 

[kEiThZ]

Then provide a more authoritative source that proves your point

Once again. Prove me wrong.

That's not how this works. You are the one making the assertion. Burden of proof is on you. We have examples where more than 3 car DMUs are used routinely. You say this is uneconomical despite real-life examples of just such a practice. So furnish the evidence that shows this to be the case. Unless you want us to believe that the rail operators elsewhere running more than 3 car DMUs are purposefully deploying uneconomical trainsets.

I have repeatedly said that there may be O&M reasons why operating a small trainset loco pulled fleet may be cheaper. What I don't buy is your allusion that there's a hard crossover point as low as 3 cars, all based on the rough idea that maintaining three power packs is more expensive than one.

Also, once we start discussing deploying a unique type (DMU or otherwise) from the Kingston hub, it's not exactly a small type anymore. That's a hub that's going to require at least 12-15 trainsets based on what the mayor of Kingston suggests the schedule might be. So if similar trains are deployed on a few other operations, we're in a unit count that would be more than half of what the current Siemens order is.

 

[Allandale25]

Brief VIA Rail reference in the Fall Economic Statement.

 

[ManyQuestions]

Obviously we are speculating, but a couple of theories - having the second track gives flexibility should trains have to be held out of the terminal area if the terminal isn’t ready for them, or when AMT needs the track. Possibly CP does anticipate some further interest in the line by AMT or VIA, and is leaving well enough alone until those plans mature.... especially if capital costs can be passed to these agencies.



Taking then two rail lines together (east of Dorion, anyways) it’s rather silly that anyone would have to add a fifth track to a four track corridor. The limiting factor is the institutional firewalling created by CP owning two lines, and CN owning two lines, and the two railways refusing to coproduce.

Yes, there are lots of spots where a third track could be added, but only in part. Obviously, the river crossings would be hugely expensive. There are some good fills. And there are urban areas where a third track might encroach on property.

The lens we are using should be - how much triple tracking can VIA afford within the limited envelope ($150M - $200M) that the HFR BCS allows. The CP idea removes the need for CN to pay CN for more track at Coteau.... if CP needs just as much money to reroute HFR, then there is no business case for doing so.



Agree, but this gets complicated. On hourly service, each train will encounter a meet every 30 minutes. Try planning the schedule such that there is no meet between De Beaujeu and Ballantyne.... now cascade that down the entire line and see how many sidings you will need further west at your 30-minute points.



If they don’t need the infrastructure for their own use, it’s already gone. The question is, how much infrastructure must be added to absorb HFR, and who pays for that. Sure, the mainline has empty periods, but if the intent is that a) HfR will take precedence over freight, and b) freight will not be impacted, you are adding a lot of infrastructure to keep everything out of others’ way. CP already has curfew periods to accommodate AMT. The money will have to be pretty good to service the added capital and incent CP for the added headaches.

- Paul

Single track operation between De Beaujeu and Ballantyne may be possible, but likely should not be prioritized. All routes between these points contain ample space for easily adding additional tracks along much of their lengths. It could easily be significantly cheaper to construct long sections VIA-controlled double track with highspeed turnouts to allow trains to pass each other there rather than within the central parts of the city. Furthermore, long sections of VIA double track could signifiante negate the compounding of delays arising from congested inner city trackage. There is room for additional tracks along most of the route from De Beaujeu to Saint Henri. It would make sense to conduct some kind of track expansion and realignment as a primary method of adding capacity. The Train de l'Ouest study is likely of interest for evaluating the cost of it, I understand that it was based on adding AMT (pre EXO) owned trackage between the CP and CN lines through the west island. However, the major issue in both that plan and the new VIA HFR plan is how to handle the separation of trains from Côte Staint-Luc yards. Some form of grade separation between passenger and freight will likely be required and could easily consume a major portion of the budget and cause major construction disruptions.

 

[Bordercollie]

Would be interesting to know if Rocky demanded any sort of exclusivity from Stadler to prevent VIA from being able to acquire an identical coach.

If VIA had also ordered some bilevels from Stadler it might have cascaded enough stock off West Coast service to allow some of the spending on the refresh of the HEP stock to be forgone, and provide a robust rolling stock complement for Montreal long haul services. But that wouldn't have allowed the sprinkling of job announcements to various refurbishment shops. Amtrak is still saying they intend to replace some Superliner Is, and whatever they pick may be an opportunity for VIA to piggyback on a modified option order.

I don't know why a double decker type train was not chosen for the corridor fleet but it makes sense from an economic perspective. VIA pays railways on per axle, and the more bums you can fit between those axles should make operating costs lower.

I don't think RMR could make Stadler make the design exclusive, with such a small order.

How do those bombardier multi levels ride at 90mph? GO transit only gets up to about 70mph so we don't get to ride Bi-levels at those higher speeds.

 

[Urban Sky]

I just noticed that not all of the all-stop Ottawa-Toronto trains stop in Smith Falls. Is this because of scheduling conflicts with CP due to the at grade crossover?

I'd have to guess which trains you mean with "all-stop Ottawa-Toronto trains", but almost all which somehow qualify already stop in SMTF (note that there are 12 intermediary stations between OTTW and TRTO: FALL, SMTF, BRKV, GANA, KGON, NAPN, BLVL, TRNJ, CBRG, PHOP, OSHA and GUIL):

In the regular schedule:

• Train 48 (TRTO@18:40, OTTW@23:16) stops at all 12 stations
• Train 643 (OTTW@08:40, TRTO@13:16) stops at 11 stations (no stop in GANA) [operates on Saturday and Sunday only]
• Train 54 (TRTO@17:40, OTTW@22:07) stops at 9 stations (no stop in GANA, BRKV and SMTF) [operates Monday to Friday]
• Train 59 (OTTW@18:26, TRTO@23:07) stops at 9 stations (no stop in GANA, NAPN and PHOP)

I assume you are referring to train 54, but that train is followed by train 48 which stops in SMTF and operates only one hour later.

That said, there have been indeed conflicts with CP about stops at SMTF, but these have been resolved by moving the station from the CP mainline to a new station in Montague (just one kilometer north). One scheduling constraint which remains at SMTF is that the station also doubles at a siding which doesn't have any platform access, which means that you need to ensure that there is plenty of time between two subsequent station stops (at least between trains running in opposite directions), to avoid that a late train causes two trains with scheduled station stop in SMTF reach the station at the same time...

It would be interesting to know what the traditional through ridership was through London, versus the transfer ridership. I wonder if ridership followed the changes in service, or vice versa.

I would expect that VIA would try to keep the maximum people in a single seat. Logically, with today's population that would imply some T-K-L-W runs.

I don't think this matters as TRTO will always remain orders of magnitudes more important as destination than any other station. If the northern and southern route offered comparable travel times, then the clear preference would be to route through train via the northern route, but as long as the time penalty is anywhere close to the full hour at present, it will always be the southern route...

You are correct, my concern is completely without supporting data.....except.....for the 1981 timetable you cited for Toronto-London. Where are all those trains today? Forty intervening years where VIA was trimmed back, and back again, is my point.

It's "use it or lose it": had VIA not been forced by budget cuts to cut frequencies in 1981, 1990 and 2012, I'd assume that VIA would still operate nine frequencies per day on the southern and five frequencies on the northern route, as every new timetable period is a process in which the previous timetable is the default new timetable and every change needs to be negotiated between VIA and the host railroad.

I'm sticking by my conspiracy theory. CN is remarkably accommodating of VIA east of Toronto, but that is very likely because they appreciate that a tribunal would not accept their desire to shed the sole passenger route that links Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. But when VIA has its own parallel route, and the question is serving the smaller communities rather than the main cities.....they may feel they have more leverage.

Compared to today, CN gains significant operational improvements on the Kingston Sub with HFR, as the VIA trains will decrease in frequency (by eliminating duplication between MTRL-TRTO and OTTW-TRTO frequencies), operate at slower average speeds (due to more stops) and have wider gaps inbetween them. At the same time it is difficult for a host railroad to retaliate against legal or political action taken by its tenant if that tenant has a corridor on which said host railroad doesn't control the dispatching. Also have a look at what is said here about Section 152 of the CTA:

Smith said Via did have some protections in legislation, before CN was privatized in 1995. At that point, all mention of passenger rail was removed from the act so it wouldn’t hinder CN being sold, Smith said.

“Sometime later I was successful in persuading people that we should put in section 152 (of the Canada Transportation Act,” Smith said. “It gives Via Rail the right to go to the Canadian Transportation Agency with complaints about service from the railway.”

But Via has only taken advantage of that once. Gormick said he understands why.

“(Via Rail complained about) CP when they didn’t want to honour an agreement about the number of trains going through a junction in Smiths Falls (Ontario). They took them to the CTA and Via Rail won,” Gormick said. “But they won’t do it with CN because 83 per cent of all their train miles are run on CN.”

Gormick said that Via Rail is concerned that if Via Rail complains to the CTA over one route, CN will retaliate.

I can't comment on VIA's relationship with CN (other than that it is already much more cooperative and constructive than certain "passenger rail advocates" let it appear), but I think we can agree that having a dedicated passenger corridor linking VIA's three busiest stations will alter the power relation with its most important host railroad...

And, I'm not confident that VIA has contractual language that would maintain the 100/95 mph top speed after HFR. Or prevent CN from taking some sections of double track out of service, particularly east of Brockville.

As far as I remember only P42 locomotives and LRC cars are allowed to reach 100 mph and there are hardly any corridor trains which are formed by just these two fleet types, but anyways, the more often Lakeshore services stop, the less the top speed would matter anyways, even if CN were to downgrade the tracks to Track Class four (i.e. 80 mph for passenger trains). Similarly, I don't see CN going down to single-track anywhere along the Kingston Sub, as it would be impossible to do so with drastic impacts on their own freight operations. Freight traffic on the Kingston Sub is much more intense than on the Winchester/Belleville Subs and than passenger traffic that eliminating some of the only 10-12 passenger trains per day between Brockville and Coteau will barely make a difference...

While CN runs plenty of freight on the Kingston line, they run higher volumes on the rest of their transcontinental network with plenty of single track. They will want full return on any excess capitalization that supports VIA.

Freight trains on the Kingston Sub are much shorter, faster and more frequent than out west - and I would expect CN to have very good reasons for operating in that way...

We can agree to differ on this.... a cheap bottle of wine bought today will have aged to perfection before we know. It's a safe wager

I don't mind having opinions, I'm just getting tired of unsubstantiated speculation presented as "this is going to happen"...

I may not have made that point well. VIA does a clever job of spreading local stops across its trains, such that a particular train stops only once or twice, thereby preserving the express timings and effectively giving the local stops "express" service. Post HFR, I imagine there will be few express timings. As already discussed, the timings will suffer. The question is, does that slower timing matter?

In absence of the necessity to serve the primary markets, which will shift the focus from aggressive trip times to increased connectivity between the various cities along the Lakeshore. Therefore, average speed will be lower, which will naturally decrease friction between passenger and freight operations (by decreasing their speed differential).

I'm strictly a guy in the bleachers, but I'm still hung up on trip time. Highway timings are highly variable with lots of horror stories.... but auto users have a funny way of remembering their best driving time and believing their next trip will be that good. VIA needs to provide service which is demonstrably faster than the auto, period, or the auto will prevail.

- Paul

HFR will be highly time-competitive against the car. As for the Lakeshore services, the issue is not travel time - it's the lack of reliability and frequencies (especially on the intermediary markets) and on both counts, post-HFR service will provide massive improvements which will easily outweigh the additional stops...

I have attached the speed/time and speed/distance graphs below. The recording was only started as the train left Gare Centrale on the viaduct but before it reached the Lachine canal.
View attachment 285938
View attachment 285939

As you can see, this travel time was achieved despite several slowdowns that could likely be removed with the ~150m dollars for this leg of HFR.

You can go on Reservia and replace the train number and date (in the URL) with the journey for which you recorded the speed. Despite what you recorded, you can safely assume that your train never exceeded 100 mph (and probably not even 95 mph)...

By the way, you can always verify your (or any) train's current speed on TSI mobile:

Follow your train in real time

Be informed of our departures and arrivals: follow your train in real time.

tsimobile.viarail.ca

 

[kEiThZ]

HFR will be highly time-competitive against the car.

I would agree with this on most trips. But I'm not sure it's highly competitive on the longer trips (Toronto to Montreal, or Ottawa to Quebec City). Trips pushing 4-5 hrs, it's only a bit faster than a car. It'll the fares, schedules and reliability that make these longer trips work.

As for the Lakeshore services, the issue is not travel time - it's the lack of reliability and frequencies (especially on the intermediary markets) and on both counts, post-HFR service will provide massive improvements which will easily outweigh the additional stops...

Will reliability improve substantially with Lakeshore service still using CN track with no priority?

And while I can see substantial gains for most communities, this seems to be proportionally less gains on frequencies for Kingston. And a longer trip time. But a better spaced scheduler and departure ms originating in Kingston.

 

[roger1818]

That's not how this works. You are the one making the assertion. Burden of proof is on you. We have examples where more than 3 car DMUs are used routinely. You say this is uneconomical despite real-life examples of just such a practice. So furnish the evidence that shows this to be the case. Unless you want us to believe that the rail operators elsewhere running more than 3 car DMUs are purposefully deploying uneconomical trainsets.

I did and you used hand waving to dismiss it. I am asking you to disprove my evidence.

I have repeatedly said that there may be O&M reasons why operating a small trainset loco pulled fleet may be cheaper. What I don't buy is your allusion that there's a hard crossover point as low as 3 cars, all based on the rough idea that maintaining three power packs is more expensive than one.

What do you beleive the crossover point to be? I do expect that the crossover point will vary depending on a variety of factors, but there should be an average.

Also, once we start discussing deploying a unique type (DMU or otherwise) from the Kingston hub, it's not exactly a small type anymore. That's a hub that's going to require at least 12-15 trainsets based on what the mayor of Kingston suggests the schedule might be. So if similar trains are deployed on a few other operations, we're in a unit count that would be more than half of what the current Siemens order is.

Even if you assume that DMUs are best for trains to/from Kingston (I am still not convinced that Kingston-Toronto wouldn't be better served by conventional, bidirectional trains), your assertion that VIA would need 12-15 trainsets is an overestimate. Assuming the 3 legs are run completely independently (no sharing of trains between legs for optimisation).

Kingston-Toronto:
The pre-Covid schedule had the first train out of Kingston at 5:32 and the last one at 21:15, which is just under a 15:43 span. Eastbound, the span was only 12:55, so lets take the rounded average of the two and say 14:30. With 12 trains a day, that would be a train every 1:18. If you assume a maximum 3 hour travel time (train 651, which stopped at every station, was just under that), that is a 6 hour round trip (plus a bit of dwell time at the ends). So by the time the first train gets back to Kingston, 4 other trains would have departed and there is 30 minutes remaining for dwell times at either end (15 minutes each end), so 5 trainsets is all that is needed.

Kingston-Ottawa:
If you assume the same span as Kingston-Toronto of 14:30 and 6 trains a day, the interval would be 2:51. The slowest train was Train 643 at 2:16. That is 25 minutes less than the interval, so 2 trainsets would be adequate.

Kingston-Montreal:
Once again, if you assume the same span as Kingston-Toronto of 14:30 and 6 trains a day, the interval would be 2:51. If you ignore train 51 (which travels via Ottawa), the slowest train was train 64, with a travel time of 2:50. That is too close to the interval to be done with 2 trainsets, but could easily be done with 3.

That is a total of 10 trainsets (not the 12-15 you said.) and with a bit of schedule optimization between the three legs, you might even be able to cut that down even more (or keep it the same to increase the frequency of peak departures). Is 10 trainsets (plus a couple for use elsewhere in the country) enough to justify buying and maintaining a completely new type of trainset? I am not sure, especially considering the Siemens trainsets will be more efficient than what we are using today (especially compared to the Renaissance trains).

If Siemens was able to make Venture cars into sleepers for VIA for use on the Ocean, and VIA ordered a couple extra small Siemens trainsets for use in Northern Quebec, VIA's Montreal maintenance facility could be optimized to work on only Siemens Chargers and Ventures. That would certainly be worth something and could compensate for the extra cost of operating short conventional trains to Kingston and in Northern Quebec.

 

[cplchanb]

I would agree with this on most trips. But I'm not sure it's highly competitive on the longer trips (Toronto to Montreal, or Ottawa to Quebec City). Trips pushing 4-5 hrs, it's only a bit faster than a car. It'll the fares, schedules and reliability that make these longer trips work.

IMO toronto to montreal or ottawa to QC must go under 4 hours in order to be competitive with car and bus. Not only do you factor in the costs but also the convenience factor as well. with car people can still drive around whereever they want to at the destination while youre stuck at the train station once you arrive unless you take a cab or other forms of transit, both which will add time and cost to the final journey. The speed of the train will be needed to offset the inconveniences of additional connector trips. iirc back in the lrc days, sub 4 hr trips were a norm. What does via need to do to restore that type of speed?

 

[smallspy]

Would be interesting to know if Rocky demanded any sort of exclusivity from Stadler to prevent VIA from being able to acquire an identical coach.

If VIA had also ordered some bilevels from Stadler it might have cascaded enough stock off West Coast service to allow some of the spending on the refresh of the HEP stock to be forgone, and provide a robust rolling stock complement for Montreal long haul services. But that wouldn't have allowed the sprinkling of job announcements to various refurbishment shops. Amtrak is still saying they intend to replace some Superliner Is, and whatever they pick may be an opportunity for VIA to piggyback on a modified option order.

VIA would not be interested in the Stadler design as it currently is. The cars are taller than the Superliners which already have enough potential sizing headaches on VIA's network.

Should Stadler modify the original design to make it a better physical fit than perhaps it may be an option. There may be issues with this, however - they may not own the design.

Dan

 

[dowlingm]

I don't know why a double decker type train was not chosen for the corridor fleet but it makes sense from an economic perspective. VIA pays railways on per axle, and the more bums you can fit between those axles should make operating costs lower.

Can't use 'em in Montreal Central as they have no low floor platforms there, and now a high floor platform is going into Ottawa too.

 

[gweed123]

Can't use 'em in Montreal Central as they have no low floor platforms there, and now a high floor platform is going into Ottawa too.

Could the doors not be placed on the intermediate level instead of the lower level? That would line up with the high platforms, would it not?

Bi-levels are certainly intriguing, but they would make food and drink service a fair bit more complicated.

 

[kEiThZ]

I did and you used hand waving to dismiss it.

Because I don't count an opinion in a blog, without any numbers to substantiate their claim as "evidence".

It was literally just a random dude who writes about trains saying that about 4 seems to be optimal because that's what the Irish use. And then, for some reason, you cut that down to 3.

I am asking you to disprove my evidence.

When you present evidence, we can discuss it.

What do you beleive the crossover point to be? I do expect that the crossover point will vary depending on a variety of factors, but there should be an average.

Since we're going on opinion, I'd say 3-5 is probably about it. It depends on the operating profile of a given route and whether or not unpowered/undriven carriages are included in the consist. For a dozen DMUs out of a Kingston hub? I think DMUs could well be economical up to 4 cars.

Even if you assume that DMUs are best for trains to/from Kingston (I am still not convinced that Kingston-Toronto wouldn't be better served by conventional, bidirectional trains), your assertion that VIA would need 12-15 trainsets is an overestimate.

The pre-Covid schedule

First off, DMUs are probably great for the Kingston hub because of the number of stops they are including. Being able to accelerate back to cruising speed quickly is certainly an asset when the route has a stop every 30 km on average. Next, I based my math on your post from Kingston's mayor about 12 trains a day to Toronto and 6 each to Ottawa and Montreal, and assuming reciprocal service at the start of each day.

https://twitter.com/x/status/890579315255123968

Given that the average trip time of these trains is 2.5 hrs +/- 15 min, with turn around times, a very generous estimate is 3 hrs per run or 6 hrs per roundtrip. That's at least 4-5 trainsets for Toronto-Kingston and 2-3 each for Kingston-Ottawa and Kingston-Montreal. Toss in a spare or two and another for the maintenance pipeline and it's easily in the 12-15 range.

That is a total of 10 trainsets

In a world with no spares and no longer term maintenance scheduling.....

If Siemens was able to make Venture cars into sleepers for VIA for use on the Ocean, and VIA ordered a couple extra small Siemens trainsets for use in Northern Quebec, VIA's Montreal maintenance facility could be optimized to work on only Siemens Chargers and Ventures. That would certainly be worth something and could compensate for the extra cost of operating short conventional trains to Kingston and in Northern Quebec.

Fuel and other running costs (would CN cut a deal for less heavier rolling stock?) are usually much higher than maintenance costs. So the savings from commonality would have to be substantial along with minimal efficiency gains from deploying DMUs for this to be true.

Is 10 trainsets (plus a couple for use elsewhere in the country) enough to justify buying and maintaining a completely new type of trainset?

Look at how many types VIA has now. In a world where they are down to just Chargers, Venture coaches and a DMU fleet, their operations and workforce would be substantially more streamlined than today. What this is then down to debating is specifically going even further to exactly one model of locomotive and one family of coaches.

 

[dowlingm]

Could the doors not be placed on the intermediate level instead of the lower level? That would line up with the high platforms, would it not?

For a commuter car like the AMT Multilevels yes but the diagrams in PRIIA 305-001 Revision C.1 (Next Generation Equipment Committee spec for Superliner/Surfliner/California Car successor - if someone can figure out where Nippon Sharyo went wrong and can build one) don't look to me like they allow for it

VIA would not be interested in the Stadler design as it currently is. The cars are taller than the Superliners which already have enough potential sizing headaches on VIA's network.

Dan, where were you thinking between VMC and TMC that a pinch point might arise on such a car? I had (somewhat carelessly) assumed that VIA had plate K clearance to work with on its existing Western routes and was assuming single level only east of TMC.