Would "rail franchising" work in Canada?

*This thread is not intended to become a political battleground.*

As the topic states, would "rail franchising" work in Canada?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_franchising_in_Great_Britain

Does contracting out rail service make sense, similar to how we contract out waste collection? Would it be possible to set up a system whereby rail operators tender to win contracts, under conditions imposed by the government (ex: level of service)? Would we see more private investment in rail infrastructure if it's left to the rail operators, rather than government?
Could this work?

Discuss!

Disclaimer: I am not a Thatcherite .

TFC said:

*This thread is not intended to become a political battleground.*

As the topic states, would "rail franchising" work in Canada?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_franchising_in_Great_Britain

Does contracting out rail service make sense, similar to how we contract out waste collection? Would it be possible to set up a system whereby rail operators tender to win contracts, under conditions imposed by the government (ex: level of service)? Would we see more private investment in rail infrastructure if it's left to the rail operators, rather than government?
Could this work?

Discuss!

Disclaimer: I am not a Thatcherite .

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We had something like that over a century ago. It did not work as planned. The municipal government purchased very much the city's entire streetcar system to become the TTC.

Johnny Au said:

We had something like that over a century ago. It did not work as planned. The municipal government purchased very much the city's entire streetcar system to become the TTC.

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How about as a potential VIA Rail replacement?

It *sort of* worked in Britain as the rail networks are very much like bus carriers here in North America - which are franchised in the sense that they get exclusive rights for each city pair or route. Many rail routes in Britain make an operating profit. It did create major disparities in the quality of rail services and privatization of maintenance often results in a decline in state of repair. In Britain, I found Virgin and CrossCountry (Arriva) to be quite good, but London Midland or First Great Western not so great.

As for transit, it would not work here at all unless it was a contracting out of operations like garbage collection - and apart from Barrie, York Region Transit and the Whitby operations of Durham Region Transit, only small systems (like Orangeville, Milton, Port Hope etc) contract their transit out in Ontario.

It works in other countries because the governments own the infrastructure and invest in it much like they do with highways. Kind of like how Greyhound uses public highways here, Virgin uses public railways in the UK. In Canada the tracks are mostly privately owned. The government has cut route after route over the decades, leaving us with a barebones system, and spends the bare minimum on infrastructure. It would be extremely difficult if not impossible for private companies to make passenger routes work in that environment. It's a shame because CN used to be publicly owned but was sold in the 90s. If they had sold the operations but kept the infrastructure we'd have a much better starting point for a decent rail system. Sadly the government has consistently shown that freeways are the priority while letting rail lines (in the same corridors) that could have passenger service get ripped out and sold.

Don't we have a few ROWs that are owned by VIA, like the Alexandria sub? Despite this, there hasn't been much in the way of service improvements there (I think they added one more train to the daily schedule in 2011).

Another thing that could be done is to let the provinces manage passenger rail operations under the VIA banner. They do this in the US, with entities like Amtrak California, or Amtrak North Carolina. Interstate services, like the Amtrak Cascades, are partnerships between state governments with their respective Departments of Transportation (DOTs, or MTO equivalents) managing operations and doing capital improvement planning and purchases; recently the Oregon DOT bought 2 Talgo trainsets to improve service between Portland and Seattle, despite the fact that the vast majority of the route is outside of Oregon.

Hipster Duck said:

Don't we have a few ROWs that are owned by VIA, like the Alexandria sub? Despite this, there hasn't been much in the way of service improvements there (I think they added one more train to the daily schedule in 2011).

Another thing that could be done is to let the provinces manage passenger rail operations under the VIA banner. They do this in the US, with entities like Amtrak California, or Amtrak North Carolina. Interstate services, like the Amtrak Cascades, are partnerships between state governments with their respective Departments of Transportation (DOTs, or MTO equivalents) managing operations and doing capital improvement planning and purchases; recently the Oregon DOT bought 2 Talgo trainsets to improve service between Portland and Seattle, despite the fact that the vast majority of the route is outside of Oregon.

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What is the funding breakdown like in the US, with entities like Amtrak California? How much funding do the feds pitch in, to a State-run entity?

TFC said:

What is the funding breakdown like in the US, with entities like Amtrak California? How much funding do the feds pitch in, to a State-run entity?

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The trains themselves are operated by Amtrak (federal), but all funding and management of the services, including capital improvements and the purchase of rolling stock are provided by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The Feds do chip in from time to time by providing some one-time capital improvement funds, although, like Canada, that's never a guaranteed stream of funding.

Isn't this sort of like the Canada Line?

Yes it is owned by Translink but run by IntransitBC. They operate the line as a business and charge a predetermined amount to Translink for running the trains and also had to pony up $300 million to help build it. They are responsible for maintenance of the stations and fleet and running the trains but Translink still determines the frequency which is currently about one train every 3.5 minutes.

It is already over capacity but that is due to Translink not having enough trains and not paying for more frequent off-peak service. It is part of the standard Translink service and you wouldn't know the difference unless you read about it like on this forum. Everyone HATES the Canada Line but that has nothing to do with IntransitBC but rather due to the fact that it's standard Metro and everyone wants the SkyTrain tech, the system was built too small, the trains are packed, and Translink won't run the trains more frequently.

Scaling things down a bit, could it be done on the GO rail network? GO owns most of the track that they operate on. CN North Mainline will also be interesting to watch around 2017, to see whether CN will sell the line or lease it out again. Could the government one day say "here's the infrastructure, now bid on the operational component on running the GO rail network"?

I understand that franchising out VIA operations will be more difficult, as they operate on privately owned track. However, they do own a number of sidings and subdivisions, as Hipster Duck pointed out earlier. Would this not make franchising a bit easier to do?

Hipster Duck said:

Don't we have a few ROWs that are owned by VIA, like the Alexandria sub? Despite this, there hasn't been much in the way of service improvements there (I think they added one more train to the daily schedule in 2011).

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Sure, but that's an isolated line, and the Ottawa-Montreal train still uses CN tracks to get into Montreal. It doesn't seem likely that a private operator would be interested in something like that. The Alexandria sub does have some of the highest frequencies in the system, with 6 daily trains and the corridor has had some upgrades. VIA does what it can with the scraps it gets from the government but there's only so much it can do. Maybe the line into Montreal has capacity limits or resistance from CN, but I'm just guessing. 6 daily trains is pretty weak, it should be hourly service at least.

Another part of the problem is that where passenger rail is privately run, there is an extensive (publicly owned) rail network feeding the main lines. In the Windsor-Quebec corridor, service to to Orillia, Peterborough, North Bay, Sherbrooke, and Trois-Rivieres has all been cut and replaced with freeways. That's something that would be unheard of almost anywhere else in the world. The passenger network of a country like Sweden, for example, dwarfs ours while their freeway network is very limited. Our transport decisions over the decades have stacked the deck against intercity rail. Private companies often follow the lead of the government when they decide where to invest and I get the impression that it's the same for contracting out rail. There has to be a long term commitment to rail from governments, and that just doesn't exist here.

Hipster Duck said:

Another thing that could be done is to let the provinces manage passenger rail operations under the VIA banner. They do this in the US, with entities like Amtrak California, or Amtrak North Carolina. Interstate services, like the Amtrak Cascades, are partnerships between state governments with their respective Departments of Transportation (DOTs, or MTO equivalents) managing operations and doing capital improvement planning and purchases; recently the Oregon DOT bought 2 Talgo trainsets to improve service between Portland and Seattle, despite the fact that the vast majority of the route is outside of Oregon.

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I think the closest we have to that is GO trains going to cities like Kitchener, Niagara Falls and Barrie. VIA has reduced their Kitchener service to a single daily train and GO has all but replaced it (which unfortunately has impacted towns further down the line like Stratford and Sarnia). Still, the government is focusing on getting commuters into Toronto rather than true intercity service, so the value of GO service to these cities is very limited. Intercity rail doesn't seem to be on the province's radar. It's unfortunate because the provinces could be taking a leadership role and investing in rail, but they're just not interested.

If Stratford has a Justin Bieber Museum (after all, Biebs is the most famous Stratfordian (Ontario) in history) and if its theatres become popular, then GO might extend service to there.

It would be interesting to see what a transportation master plan for the City of Toronto that would be drafted (and assumed to be run or partially run) by a private company or consortium would look like. I would suspect that it would focus much less on "neighbourhood serving" and more on finding the alignment that maximizes ridership, coupled with the technology choice that minimizes capital and operating expenses.

When you look at the development of NYC's subway system, it was all about maximizing profit. It would be interesting to see what Toronto's system would look like if it had been developed with a similar mentality.

This news article demonstrates what can be done in a North American context where a private freight owner operates the track. In this case, Amtrak (the operator) partnered with the State of New York (the funder) to lease a track from freight operator CSX (the track owner), effectively giving Amtrak control over the New York-Albany line. The Feds then swoop in to fund some track expansion that improves the efficiency of passenger services.

Of course, in order to do this you would need a Federal government that's willing to invest even a marginal amount in intercity passenger rail, a provincial government that cares about intercity public transportation, a Federally-run passenger rail operator that actively seeks out new partnership opportunities and a freight operator that's willing to cede over trackage. We have none of these.

It's been quite interesting to follow developments to passenger rail in the US. It's still worse in some places than Canada, but America is quickly catching up. They're boasting statistics these days that should give us some pause, such as a 50% increase in Amtrak ridership in 12 years (VIA ridership has been essentially flat, in absolute numbers, since the early 2000s).

Hipster Duck said:

This news article demonstrates what can be done in a North American context where a private freight owner operates the track. In this case, Amtrak (the operator) partnered with the State of New York (the funder) to lease a track from freight operator CSX (the track owner), effectively giving Amtrak control over the New York-Albany line. The Feds then swoop in to fund some track expansion that improves the efficiency of passenger services.

Of course, in order to do this you would need a Federal government that's willing to invest even a marginal amount in intercity passenger rail, a provincial government that cares about intercity public transportation, a Federally-run passenger rail operator that actively seeks out new partnership opportunities and a freight operator that's willing to cede over trackage. We have none of these.

It's been quite interesting to follow developments to passenger rail in the US. It's still worse in some places than Canada, but America is quickly catching up. They're boasting statistics these days that should give us some pause, such as a 50% increase in Amtrak ridership in 12 years (VIA ridership has been essentially flat, in absolute numbers, since the early 2000s).

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I take it this would only be possible in Canada where CN and CP are willing to lease out their tracks. Is anyone aware of any stretches where CN or CP lease out their tracks, and something like this would be possible (stretches where passenger rail service exists or would be warranted)? CN North Mainline comes to mind.
If rail franchising is not a possibility in Canada, I think that an system modeled after Amtrak would be doable. Of course, this would involve participation between the feds, provinces and VIA rail.