VIA Rail

[ssiguy2]

The idea of an Ottawa bypass while people in SWO suffer from both poor and unreliable service and pathetically long travel times. Why should VIA's 3rd busiest station get so much largess of dubious returns while VIA's 4th busiest station {London} get's squat.

Added to this idea of putting the Mon/Ott/Tor should be given 100% priority over anything else is also very short sighted especially with Biden in the White House. It's very clear that Biden is a big supporter of far superior and extensive inter-city rail services and certainly one of the routes that will be given priority is Chicago-Detroit. An expansion of these corridor and potential crossing to Windsor would bring in a LOT of new travellers as Chicago to Quebec essentially becomes one long corridor.

 

[nfitz]

There certainly should be improvement to SW Ontario services. The lack of any service improvements to London, Kitchener, Brantford, or restoring Hamilton service is unfortunate, while pushing this HFR scheme for other cities. (gosh, they've been playing with running some Montreal/Ottawa services through to the new suburban station at Aldershot for years now. Why not try extending one of those to the Hamilton Hunter Street terminal and see what that would do).

 

[kEiThZ]

The idea of an Ottawa bypass while people in SWO suffer from both poor and unreliable service and pathetically long travel times. Why should VIA's 3rd busiest station get so much largess of dubious returns while VIA's 4th busiest station {London} get's squat.

Except this is a strawman of your construction. Nobody has ever opposed improving service to a London. I'm pretty sure every regular on here has both advocated for and expects the next phase to go to London.

A big part of why TOM is being pitched for HFR is because there's an unused rail corridor available. There's no such thing to get to London. VIA has to wait for Metrolinx to sort out everything west of Union before they can come up with a reasonable plan. There's also the question of the Pearson hub and how any extension to the West would plug in there.

Added to this idea of putting the Mon/Ott/Tor should be given 100% priority over anything else is also very short sighted especially with Biden in the White House. It's very clear that Biden is a big supporter of far superior and extensive inter-city rail services and certainly one of the routes that will be given priority is Chicago-Detroit. An expansion of these corridor and potential crossing to Windsor would bring in a LOT of new travellers as Chicago to Quebec essentially becomes one long corridor.

Unless Biden is going to pay for rail from the border to Toronto, what the Americans want is irrelevant.

 

[roger1818]

Except this is a strawman of your construction. Nobody has ever opposed improving service to a London. I'm pretty sure every regular on here has both advocated for and expects the next phase to go to London.

Agreed! Stage 2 would almost certainly be an extension to London/Windsor (and Quebec if not included in Stage 1). Stage 3 would likely be improvements to the Lakeshore. Then there is also the Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton corridor, which could get inserted there somewhere. Further upgrades to increase capacity on the TOM corridor likely wouldn't happen until after all of those are done.

Unless Biden is going to pay for rail from the border to Toronto, what the Americans want is irrelevant.

In this case, I think you are misinterpreting @ssiguy2. It isn't about what the Americans want (I don't think Biden cares all that much if the Chicago-Detroit corridor is extended to Toronto or not), but it is an opportunity for VIA to get access to some huge markets. As you said though, getting dedicated tracks to London will be a challenge. Reliably getting a train from Windsor to Detroit could also be a challenge.

 

[kEiThZ]

In this case, I think you are misinterpreting @ssiguy2. It isn't about what the Americans want (I don't think Biden cares all that much if the Chicago-Detroit corridor is extended to Toronto or not), but it is an opportunity for VIA to get access to some huge markets.

I get what he's saying. I just don't agree that we should build all our plans around what the Yanks are doing.

Reliably getting a train from Windsor to Detroit could also be a challenge.

For very little return. Detroit is not going to generate more ridership than say London or Kingston. Just a function of cross-border demand and how difficult it is to travel in American border cities without a car.

 

[kEiThZ]

The lack of any service improvements to London, Kitchener, Brantford, or restoring Hamilton service is unfortunate, while pushing this HFR scheme for other cities.

So no building any improvements anywhere unless we plan for improvements everywhere?

 

[nfitz]

So no building any improvements anywhere unless we plan for improvements everywhere?

I'd agree with you, if they hadn't have tacked Montreal-Quebec onto it ... despite the availability of an HFR alignment from Toronto to Windsor through Kitchener.

 

[kEiThZ]

I'd agree with you, if they hadn't have tacked Montreal-Quebec onto it ... despite the availability of an HFR alignment from Toronto to Windsor through Kitchener.

I'm no fan of the Montreal-Quebec segment becoming included this time, to be clear. But I really don't see how that has any bearing on going west of Union. Building anything west of Union was always going to be difficult until Metrolinx has all their development sorted out. This was especially the case when HFR was first being formulated almost a decade ago. Not to mention the province had its own HSR plan at the time. It's amazing how everybody has forgotten Wynne and her government's HSR plan already.

 

[Bordercollie]

I recently rode train 71 to Windsor and then 78 back to Toronto.

Train 71 becomes train 78 and lays over at the station for 5 hours.

I did see the train leave the platform after it arrived in Windsor, but why would they wye a train with a loco on each end?

The next train isn't set to arrive in Windsor until after 9 pm so what's the reason to move the train at all?

I also found the push pull operation to be jerky. You can feel the locomotive in the back pushing the train and the front locomotives pulling the train, and isn't completely in sync.

A lot of work going on, on the Chatham sub with ballast being laid beside the main line.

Possibly building a new siding? Looks like all the signal boxes have been moved to make space for another track?

 

[nfitz]

I'm no fan of the Montreal-Quebec segment becoming included this time, to be clear. But I really don't see how that has any bearing on going west of Union. Building anything west of Union was always going to be difficult until Metrolinx has all their development sorted out. This was especially the case when HFR was first being formulated almost a decade ago. Not to mention the province had its own HSR plan at the time. It's amazing how everybody has forgotten Wynne and her government's HSR plan already.

Probably best to put both on hold.

But I don't see what Metrolinx has to do with it at this stage, other than timing. The design for the Kitchener line is already well defined - and if an extra track or siding is required in any locations, probably best to put it.

 

[Bordercollie]

Probably best to put both on hold.

But I don't see what Metrolinx has to do with it at this stage, other than timing. The design for the Kitchener line is already well defined - and if an extra track or siding is required in any locations, probably best to put it.

Does anyone know why they didn't replace the seats in the rebuilt LRC cars but swapped out half the coushons?

Or was this a case of a car being half rebuilt?

I prefer the brown leather seats.

 

[kEiThZ]

Probably best to put both on hold.

I would prefer to see the business cases broken out.
But if they've done the work and the business case is reasonable why put it in hold?

Also, TKL HSR is on hold as long as this provincial government is in power. At minimum. And it's not even clear the last one was all that sincere.

But I don't see what Metrolinx has to do with it at this stage, other than timing. The design for the Kitchener line is already well defined - and if an extra track or siding is required in any locations, probably best to put it.

First off, the Wynne plan at the time negated any need for VIA to plan for an HFR West extension. The Wynne HSR was even going to serve Pearson. So I don't think anybody can fault them on focusing on the TOM HFR first. Until mid-2018, they might well have been facing the end of service on the Northern Mainline.

Next, you're an engineer. You should know about scope creep. Adding, Montreal-Trois Rivieres-Quebec City is already a substantial expansion of scope. Adding Toronto-Pearson-Kitchener-London on top would probably have made the project a no-go from the start.

Lastly, Metrolinx building the Kitchener Line isn't enough. There needs to be a plan on what services will be offered by whom. Especially with the UPE and Pearson hub added to the mix. Would VIA have the ridership to make an HFR case on the Northern Mainline with all those competing services?

 

[Bordercollie]

Are all of the HEP cars sidelined with the recent reduction in service? I see them all coupled together at TMC. Seems like all the trains assembled are LRC's.

There are some pretiege sleepers for the Canadian parked there also, I guess they have been there since the beginning of the pandemic?

 

[roger1818]

Are all of the HEP cars sidelined with the recent reduction in service? I see them all coupled together at TMC. Seems like all the trains assembled are LRC's.

There are some pretiege sleepers for the Canadian parked there also, I guess they have been there since the beginning of the pandemic?

I don't have any inside information, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if all of the corridor HEP (and Renaissance) cars sidelined (HEPs are almost certainly used elsewhere in the network). The LRC coaches are probably the cheapest coaches for VIA to operate, since, being made out of aluminum instead of steel, they are likely significantly lighter. LRCs represent 2/3 of VIA's corridor coaches (ignoring baggage and service cars), so with the reduced number of corridor trains, it should be easy for VIA to meet their current requirements with only LRCs.

 

[Bordercollie]

I don't have any inside information, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if all of the corridor HEP (and Renaissance) cars sidelined (HEPs are almost certainly used elsewhere in the network). The LRC coaches are probably the cheapest coaches for VIA to operate, since, being made out of aluminum instead of steel, they are likely significantly lighter. LRCs represent 2/3 of VIA's corridor coaches (ignoring baggage and service cars), so with the reduced number of corridor trains, it should be easy for VIA to meet their current requirements with only LRCs.

It sucks that we can do round trips from Toronto to Ottawa in one day, and with Greyhound not running, driving would be the only option.