micheal_can
Senior Member
That goes back to professionalism. No amount of buses on standby can replace the professionalism of the Via staff.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Mihairokov
Active Member
Completed a very long VIA survey today, including this question:
Natika33
Active Member
Can anyone complete this survey? If so, where can I access it?
Mihairokov
Active Member
VIA emailed it out. Not sure if it's only for recent travelers,.Preference members, or both.
Could be random. I’m both a member and a recent traveller and didn’t get it.
Natika33
Active Member
Hmmm... but I am both of those.
Allandale25
Senior Member
CN Imposes Crossing Speed Cuts on VIA's Ventures
This post was first published on October 12, 2024. The day before, VIA was informed by CN that there may be safety issues with Siemens Ventu...
tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com
From the Canadian Passenger Rail Groups.IO forum:
Any thoughts @crs1026 @smallspy @Urban Sky?
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crs1026
Superstar
^ The only thing I can think of to say is ….. yup.
The Trackside Treasures article is well written and explains the problem well.
What makes this issue so challenging is that there is empirical evidence that fast, light, short passenger trains do indeed fail to trigger crossing protection on occasion, and this presents an unacceptable risk to all of us (assuming we use rail crossings). So, "continue to live with it" is not an acceptable answer.
I expect there will be a lot of "say it isn't so" commentary about this. And a lot of "why is this suddenly a problem?" reactions. And a lot of technical nitpicking trying to make the case that the evidence is wrong, or something.
This is not the only issue where CN is stubbornly challenging a longstanding "elephant in the room", but that doesn't make them wrong.
The lesson for us enthusiasts and spectators is to not fall into the trap of pointing to some other country's equipment (which undoubtedly is better than ours) and ask, "if they can run this type of train in (pick a country), why can't we?". The simple answer is, North American railways are built a certain way (for good reason) - and those light, short trainsets are not compatible with our built railway infrastructure. We may be able to change the infrastructure, but that's a lot of money and takes time.... and maybe the infrastructure is how it is for a reason, and we should leave well enough alone. It's another reason why mixing passenger and freight doesn't necessarily work in North America, and maybe we need separate infrastructure in more places.
In the meanwhile, we can't just have trains going 100 mph without 100% confidence that the crossing protection will work 100% of the time, even if we have been living with a certain amount of that up to now.
- Paul
The Trackside Treasures article is well written and explains the problem well.
What makes this issue so challenging is that there is empirical evidence that fast, light, short passenger trains do indeed fail to trigger crossing protection on occasion, and this presents an unacceptable risk to all of us (assuming we use rail crossings). So, "continue to live with it" is not an acceptable answer.
I expect there will be a lot of "say it isn't so" commentary about this. And a lot of "why is this suddenly a problem?" reactions. And a lot of technical nitpicking trying to make the case that the evidence is wrong, or something.
This is not the only issue where CN is stubbornly challenging a longstanding "elephant in the room", but that doesn't make them wrong.
The lesson for us enthusiasts and spectators is to not fall into the trap of pointing to some other country's equipment (which undoubtedly is better than ours) and ask, "if they can run this type of train in (pick a country), why can't we?". The simple answer is, North American railways are built a certain way (for good reason) - and those light, short trainsets are not compatible with our built railway infrastructure. We may be able to change the infrastructure, but that's a lot of money and takes time.... and maybe the infrastructure is how it is for a reason, and we should leave well enough alone. It's another reason why mixing passenger and freight doesn't necessarily work in North America, and maybe we need separate infrastructure in more places.
In the meanwhile, we can't just have trains going 100 mph without 100% confidence that the crossing protection will work 100% of the time, even if we have been living with a certain amount of that up to now.
- Paul
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crs1026
Superstar
PS - the sad part for me is that when the media gets hold of this, the headlines will read "VIA' bought trains that don't work" and make it sound like the Ventures were a bad choice.
In reality, the competing products likely would demonstrate the same behaviour, as they are just as light and short.
- Paul
In reality, the competing products likely would demonstrate the same behaviour, as they are just as light and short.
- Paul
Allandale25
Senior Member
^ Thanks, Paul.
dowlingm
Senior Member
I guess the part I’m stuck on is the light part. Are Chargers and Venture cars really that much lighter than LRCs? Not nitpicking, just figured FRA Tier I equipment would still be in a certain weight class no matter how sharp the designing pencil.
Obviously the only safe crossing is one where the crossing has been eliminated by a road over rail solution (rail over road isn’t 100.0% because drivers don’t read signs, dump truck drivers leave their trailers sticking up…)
Amtrak added heritage baggage cars to their City of New Orleans consists operating over CN-IC just for axle counts for some time after they had vanished from the rest of the network. The real issue here is that the VIA config Siemens equipment can’t do likewise. Operating in Brightline config rather than cab cars might also have provided enough total weight. Presumably this is an issue for Northlander also?
As far as our built railway infrastructure, other countries including the US have been improving their rail control infra and Canada have been coasting for some time. A HFR rollout which could have included the beginnings of a signal refit in the Corridor has now been superseded by HSR whose improvements are decades away.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Interesting.
Perhaps possibly on CN Bala but I will guess that on CN Newmarket and ONR trackage, the crossing protection is the older technology which, according to the article, is less sensitive (and there are no other signalling circuits). Besides, they have some time to sort it out before delivery.
crs1026
Superstar
…..
It's a little more complicated than absolute weight. The geometry of how the wheel contacts the rail is a factor, as is the many substances that may coat the two..... brake shoe dust being one example. The amount of rust (and grease and grime) on the rail is another. The specifics of each railroad's infra (shunt voltage for example) may change the impact.
CN's rules around short consists have been in place for at least 50 years. Changes in signalling equipment and RTC consoles has made the glitches more apparent and puts them on record more often. The difference over 1964 is that in this litigious and highly public-critical world of today, no one dares declare that "stuff happens, live with it" any more. And really, as a road user, I don't want to be the driver that is crossing when the protection fails. So the elephant can't stay in the room any longer.
- Pul
It's a little more complicated than absolute weight. The geometry of how the wheel contacts the rail is a factor, as is the many substances that may coat the two..... brake shoe dust being one example. The amount of rust (and grease and grime) on the rail is another. The specifics of each railroad's infra (shunt voltage for example) may change the impact.
CN's rules around short consists have been in place for at least 50 years. Changes in signalling equipment and RTC consoles has made the glitches more apparent and puts them on record more often. The difference over 1964 is that in this litigious and highly public-critical world of today, no one dares declare that "stuff happens, live with it" any more. And really, as a road user, I don't want to be the driver that is crossing when the protection fails. So the elephant can't stay in the room any longer.
- Pul
smallspy
Senior Member
Paul, I love you, but you are very, very wrong here.
This is CN's fault. It is a CN-specific problem, and so would I argue that it should be up to CN to at least in part figure a solution.
CN's signal design uses a very low shunt voltage - considerably lower than any other railway in North America, to the best of my knowledge - and so there is constantly a battle to try and prevent shorter consists from losing shunt.
A bit of background - I'll be getting into the weeds here, so I apologize in advance.
Shunt is the process by which a train is able to get detected by the signal system and thus trigger things like level crossings, signal occupancy, etc. This is done by ensuring that there is electrical continuity across both rails, first by insulating them from each other and then by ensuring that the wheel and axle unit are electrically continuous. There are other ways of doing this - axle counters are the new trend, and found on a lot of subway systems - but shunting has been around for over 100 year and generally works.
There are a couple of problems at play here:
- The new Siemens trains do not have any brake shoes on their wheel treads. This means that there is no active cleaning of the wheel tread.
- CN's abnormally low shunt voltage means that it more susceptible to continuity problems with dirty track or dirty wheels. This is why there are all sorts of rules in their rulebook about requiring more than 12 axles in order to allow a train to proceed at track speed (fewer axles are limited in speed in order to ensure that they to shut all of the track circuits).
The first issue is a known problem in the sense that the railways have all been here before - although never with a trainset as long as the Ventures + Chargers - and has a known solution. Amtrak out of Chicago has been dealing with CN on this issue for a couple of years now, and their way around it was to tow additional cars in each consist in order to get enough wheels to ensure continuity. Historical, CN resolved this problem with their RDCs - which also don't have any tread brakes - by installing "scrubbers", a small brake shoe that sat on the top of each wheel by gravity with the sole purpose of wiping down each wheel face and making sure it was clean. But even with scrubbers installed, CN still required a minimum of 3 RDCs in order to operate at track speed in any territory that had signalling.
The second issue is far, far harder to fix - in fact, considering the size of CN"s network it may well be impossible. While increasing the shunt voltage would resolve a lot of continuity issues, it may well require the replacement of hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of additional signalling components. I'm not sure that replacing small portions of CN's signalling network is feasible either, as that may require other interventions where the portions of the signalling system with meet and connect. I'm sure that there are some ways of dealing with it, as CN has signallized level crossings with other railroads, but I don't know how feasible they are for this kind of interchange or hand off.
As I wrote above, Amtrak has been running additional cars of many varying types tacked on to their trains that are running out of Chicago, but only the ones that run on CN lines. CN has also decreed that this rule can be bypassed through the use of a "shunt enhancer" - a device or which Amtrak has been investigating for about a year now, and does not yet have FRA approval for its use.
So, what to do? In the short term, I can't help but think that sourcing and installing scrubbers on the Ventures + Chargers will help resolve the situation. (Want to be really nasty about it? Make CN pay for their development, design, production and installation.) Testing will be required of course, but should this be the solution than a fix should be able to be made within a matter of months. But I feel that the FRA and TC should also weigh in here, and look into CN's own systems and see if they aren't more problematic than other railroads because of this low shunt voltage.
It should be noted that the Chargers and Ventures are running in lots of other places in the US, and on multiple different railways - sometimes in shorter consists. CN's network is the only one where they have these issues. As well, I have not yet heard of one instance on the Kingston Sub where a Charger has failed to activate a signal or level crossing, so this may be a situation of "an abundance of caution" versus a singular or small multiple of actual instances.
Dan
This is CN's fault. It is a CN-specific problem, and so would I argue that it should be up to CN to at least in part figure a solution.
CN's signal design uses a very low shunt voltage - considerably lower than any other railway in North America, to the best of my knowledge - and so there is constantly a battle to try and prevent shorter consists from losing shunt.
A bit of background - I'll be getting into the weeds here, so I apologize in advance.
Shunt is the process by which a train is able to get detected by the signal system and thus trigger things like level crossings, signal occupancy, etc. This is done by ensuring that there is electrical continuity across both rails, first by insulating them from each other and then by ensuring that the wheel and axle unit are electrically continuous. There are other ways of doing this - axle counters are the new trend, and found on a lot of subway systems - but shunting has been around for over 100 year and generally works.
There are a couple of problems at play here:
- The new Siemens trains do not have any brake shoes on their wheel treads. This means that there is no active cleaning of the wheel tread.
- CN's abnormally low shunt voltage means that it more susceptible to continuity problems with dirty track or dirty wheels. This is why there are all sorts of rules in their rulebook about requiring more than 12 axles in order to allow a train to proceed at track speed (fewer axles are limited in speed in order to ensure that they to shut all of the track circuits).
The first issue is a known problem in the sense that the railways have all been here before - although never with a trainset as long as the Ventures + Chargers - and has a known solution. Amtrak out of Chicago has been dealing with CN on this issue for a couple of years now, and their way around it was to tow additional cars in each consist in order to get enough wheels to ensure continuity. Historical, CN resolved this problem with their RDCs - which also don't have any tread brakes - by installing "scrubbers", a small brake shoe that sat on the top of each wheel by gravity with the sole purpose of wiping down each wheel face and making sure it was clean. But even with scrubbers installed, CN still required a minimum of 3 RDCs in order to operate at track speed in any territory that had signalling.
The second issue is far, far harder to fix - in fact, considering the size of CN"s network it may well be impossible. While increasing the shunt voltage would resolve a lot of continuity issues, it may well require the replacement of hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of additional signalling components. I'm not sure that replacing small portions of CN's signalling network is feasible either, as that may require other interventions where the portions of the signalling system with meet and connect. I'm sure that there are some ways of dealing with it, as CN has signallized level crossings with other railroads, but I don't know how feasible they are for this kind of interchange or hand off.
As I wrote above, Amtrak has been running additional cars of many varying types tacked on to their trains that are running out of Chicago, but only the ones that run on CN lines. CN has also decreed that this rule can be bypassed through the use of a "shunt enhancer" - a device or which Amtrak has been investigating for about a year now, and does not yet have FRA approval for its use.
So, what to do? In the short term, I can't help but think that sourcing and installing scrubbers on the Ventures + Chargers will help resolve the situation. (Want to be really nasty about it? Make CN pay for their development, design, production and installation.) Testing will be required of course, but should this be the solution than a fix should be able to be made within a matter of months. But I feel that the FRA and TC should also weigh in here, and look into CN's own systems and see if they aren't more problematic than other railroads because of this low shunt voltage.
It should be noted that the Chargers and Ventures are running in lots of other places in the US, and on multiple different railways - sometimes in shorter consists. CN's network is the only one where they have these issues. As well, I have not yet heard of one instance on the Kingston Sub where a Charger has failed to activate a signal or level crossing, so this may be a situation of "an abundance of caution" versus a singular or small multiple of actual instances.
Dan
micheal_can
Senior Member
Could this be a great excuse to remove all level crossings once and for all?
Could this also be a good excuse to go HSR? Presumably, no more crossings when they build it.
Hopefully a solution is found that allows the trains to run as fast as they could and still have the signals work 100% oo f the time.
Could this also be a good excuse to go HSR? Presumably, no more crossings when they build it.
Hopefully a solution is found that allows the trains to run as fast as they could and still have the signals work 100% oo f the time.