VIA Rail

[Catenary]

GO, the regional transit delivery mechanism that Metrolinx already has in place, is the logical company to run it.

By this logic you could argue that VIA is actually the inter-regional transit delivery mechanism that our governments already have in place, and is the logical agency to run it. It would be nice if we could just sort out funding like the States do with Amtrak.

 

[reaperexpress]

Ideally, I'd like to see 4 levels of rapid/regional transit in the GGH:

• Local Rapid Transit (Subway, LRT, BRT): Run by either the local transit agency, or eventually Metrolinx
  
• GO RER: Run by Metrolinx
• GO+ (Regional rail to serve GGH and Ontario markets beyond the RER service area): Run by Metrolinx
• Via HSR or enhanced rail (serving only major markets)

This happens to be exactly the same arrangement I prefer as well. Here's a chart that compares its structure with that of the fantastic rail system in The Netherlands. Note that given the differences in scale between the two countries, their "Intercity" corresponds roughly to our "Regional" and their "High Speed" corresponds roughly to our "Intercity".

[EDIT: To clarify, I was somewhat optimistic on the train speeds. NS currently operates Sprinter and Intercity services at 140 km/h, and Intercity Direct at 160 km/h. Current signaling work will allow conventional rail speeds to increase from 140 km/h to 160 km/h, with the higher-spec Lelystad-Zwolle line (Hanzelijn) potentially upped as high as 200 km/h. Intercity Direct already operates on the 300 km/h HSL Zuid, but is limited by the fact that its 250 km/h AnsaldoBreda trainsets were returned to the manufacturer due to horrible build quality and in the meantime the service uses conventional rail equipment.]

My point here is that Via's fare system and operating practices work great for long distance services, but makes shorter trips inconvenient. Advance purchase and assigned seating means that you never need to worry about standing the whole way to Montréal, and that if you're travelling in a group you'll be able to sit together without lining up at Union for hours in advance. On the flip side, needing to buy a ticket in advance is a nuisance for trips within the GGH, because unlike longer-distance trips, you often don't plan them very far in advance to the precision of an individual train departure.

I think Via's fare system works best for trips above about 150 km. I find that trips to Barrie, Kitchener, Niagara etc are much more regional in nature so the inconvenience of being tied to a particular seat in a particular train outweighs the benefits of that assigned seat.

 

[ShonTron]

If VIA Rail wasn't interested in serving smaller centres like Cobourg, Belleville and Brockville, why wouldn't they been busy spending money upgrading the stations in those three towns/cities? Greyhound and Coach Canada abandoned those markets (there is now only one Greyhound round trip a day serving Trenton and Belleville); in places like Cobourg, Ingersoll, and Brockville, VIA is the only game in town.

 

[White Pine]

Hi everyone, I lurk here a lot... I was looking at today's discussion but wasn't sure if anyone posted that VIA Rail just bought the Brockville Sub yesterday (Smiths Falls-Brockville). Has potential to be a big development.

 

[mdrejhon]

Hi everyone, I lurk here a lot... I was looking at today's discussion but wasn't sure if anyone posted that VIA Rail just bought the Brockville Sub yesterday (Smiths Falls-Brockville). Has potential to be a big development.

Interesting!

In entirety, here's the VIA press release, found on VIA's website.

Montreal, November 23, 2015 – VIA Rail Canada (VIA Rail) is pleased to announce it acquired the Brockville Subdivision, consisting of 45 kilometers (28 miles) of single track between Smiths Falls and Brockville, in Ontario.

“This acquisition will strengthen our rail network dedicated to passenger trains in the Ottawa region, where VIA Rail owns more than 200 kilometers (140 miles) of track”, said Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, VIA Rail’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “With recent improvements in the region and ownership of the track from Ottawa to Brockville, we are well positioned to improve our reliability and our On-time performance going into and out of Ottawa”.

Over the last few years, VIA Rail has invested some $20 million in capital to improve safety on the Brockville Subdivision with the introduction of a Centralized Traffic Control system for train movements. This investment has also improved the reliability and flexibility of service with the addition of two new sidings for train meets. These infrastructure changes permitted the addition of two round trips to the daily schedule, allowed for higher speeds and improved trip times. In addition, curve alignments were adjusted to support increased speeds, public crossings were upgraded, and security fencing was installed for safety.

“VIA Rail will have more agility to make work and infrastructure upgrades in the Brockville Subdivision to improve its service”, added Yves Desjardins-Siciliano. “On the limited infrastructure owned by VIA Rail, punctuality is in the mid-90%. Our customers will benefit greatly from this new asset.”
​

I'm quite interested to see an updated VIA Rail ownersihp map for the Ottawa Region (my hometown).

Anyone got one?

 

[reaperexpress]

Hi everyone, I lurk here a lot... I was looking at today's discussion but wasn't sure if anyone posted that VIA Rail just bought the Brockville Sub yesterday (Smiths Falls-Brockville). Has potential to be a big development.

I had heard that they were thinking about it, but I hadn't heard it had happened. Thanks for the update! This is certainly good news.

 

[reaperexpress]

I'm quite interested to see an updated VIA Rail ownersihp map for the Ottawa Region (my hometown).

Anyone got one?

Here's my current Google Earth layer. I haven't mapped all the railways yet, but the mainlines are done at least.

Red: CP
Blue: CN
Yellow: VIA

 

[crs1026]

I seem to recall that the old CP M&O Sub was railbanked as a potential HSR route...... who owns it these days? is it a trail, or has it been broken up and sold?

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

The one through Vankleek Hill? I thought VIA Rail bought the M&O 30 years or so ago. Still own it I assume. It's a trail looking at Google Maps

 

[crs1026]

The one through Vankleek Hill? I thought VIA Rail bought the M&O 30 years or so ago. Still own it I assume. It's a trail looking at Google Maps

That's what I remembered. A quick google search suggests VIA bought it in 1986, but I can't find an "official" source saying that. Oh well, just thought that it belonged on the map.

- Paul

 

[smallspy]

Hi everyone, I lurk here a lot... I was looking at today's discussion but wasn't sure if anyone posted that VIA Rail just bought the Brockville Sub yesterday (Smiths Falls-Brockville). Has potential to be a big development.

It's not, really. It was purchased more to protect the line from abandonment from CP than any particular long-term plans that anyone may have.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[nfitz]

That's what I remembered. A quick google search suggests VIA bought it in 1986, but I can't find an "official" source saying that. Oh well, just thought that it belonged on the map.

I recall listening to a VIA employee working on their high speed plans back in the late 1980s bitching that they'd bought it, but were doing nothing to maintain it, and there were people in towns just adopting the adjacent M&O right-of-way into their back yards, and pondering the implications for the future.

Though I've no indication that 25 years later they still own it ... but I'd be surprised if they don't.

 

[dowlingm]

If VIA Rail wasn't interested in serving smaller centres like Cobourg, Belleville and Brockville, why wouldn't they been busy spending money upgrading the stations in those three towns/cities?

Because that's what the Feds gave them money to do?

 

[BMO]

http://tvo.org/article/current-affa...utm_campaign=theagenda&utm_content=trainnov25

The secret to faster train travel in Ontario

Via Rail’s president and CEO likes to start his sales pitch with a version of a classic math question: if a freight train leaves Montreal for Toronto at 50 km/h, and an hour later a passenger train capable of travelling 170 km/h an hour leaves Montreal on the same track, when does the passenger train have to slow to a crawl behind the plodding cargo-hauler? The answer, according to Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, is “too soon, and too often.”

Politicians have often floated the idea of high-speed rail – some trains in Europe and Asia can whiz by at more than 300 kilometres an hour – for the busy Windsor-to-Quebec City transportation corridor. While high-speed rail remains firmly in the “dream” category, there are less ambitious ways to make existing rail networks in Ontario faster and more reliable. And two of the country’s largest transportation companies have plans to do just that.

To speed up his trains, Desjardins-Siciliano wants Via to run its own trains on its own tracks instead of relying on rail dominated by slow-moving cargo trains. That way, it can give passengers more reliable and faster service: 15 trains per day instead of the current six, with a two and a half hour trip between Toronto and Ottawa instead of the current four (when everything goes well—which is less and less often, these days.)

“It’s really the nature of the business, and frankly a law of physics,” says Desjardins-Siciliano. “A network can only run as fast as its slowest component.”

Meanwhile, Metrolinx, the government agency charged with planning the GTA’s transit future, has plans of its own: it wants to improve service on the increasingly important Kitchener and Milton lines, where the freight cars of CN and CP Rail currently have priority over GO commuter trains along parts of the track.

Metrolinx estimates that by 2031 the number of passengers using Toronto’s Union Station hub every morning will reach 265,000 – more than four times the levels in 2006. Getting GO Trains off other companies’ freight lines is one way to accommodate that growth in riders, not least because freight traffic in the GTA is growing too.

High-speed rail it ain’t. In Ontario, Kathleen Wynne’s government pledged a high-speed rail line from at least London to Toronto in the last days before the 2014 election campaign —and, when trying to hold seats in the province’s southwest during that election, including Windsor as well. The new federal Liberal government hasn’t indicated what it thinks of high-speed rail, but under former prime minister Jean Chrétien the idea was regularly proposed though never implemented.

High-speed rail, while attractive, will be expensive. Desjardins-Siciliano says Via’s plan offers two-thirds of the benefits of a full high-speed rail project, with less than half the cost: $ 4 billion instead of at least $9 billion. Via’s hope is to triple its passenger base on its busiest lines by offering a service attractive enough to take five million drivers off the road between Montreal and Toronto. A second phase could potentially connect to Waterloo and London to Quebec City.

“It’s a start. Then, over time, as the service proves itself to be popular and profitable, that money can be reinvested in even higher speeds” says Desjardins-Siciliano— from 170 km/h to 250 km/h to more than 300 km/h. But he stresses the process would be gradual: “Over a generation, not immediately.”

Lines on a map are easy to draw, but the reality of these plans is complicated. GO faces the same problems Via does in the western GTA, as it tries to separate its passenger traffic from CN- and CP-owned lines where freight has the right of way.

One example is the proposed Davenport Overpass project in Toronto. It would elevate GO’s Barrie line above an east-west track owned by Canadian Pacific, eliminating potential conflicts and delays at the intersection. The overpass would also, however, loom over many of the two-storey homes in the area and has been opposed by area residents. Locals say they’d prefer an underpass that was tunnelled underneath the CP tracks. Metrolinx ruled out an underpass as prohibitively expensive.

An even bigger challenge for GO is how to deal with traffic on its Milton and Kitchener lines. While Metrolinx owns 80 per cent of the tracks where GO operates train services, that doesn’t include much of the Kitchener line or any of the Milton line, which runs on CP’s main east-west Canadian freight line.

Metrolinx is considering two proposals to fix this. Plan A would widen the existing rail corridors and build new tracks exclusively for passenger rail. While straightforward, the plan would entail many more fights with local homeowners.

So Toronto, Milton, Mississauga, and Cambridge have proposed a Plan B: building a “missing link” using land around Highway 407. The link would move freight off the Milton and Kitchener lines freeing up space for more GO trains. It would, according to the consultant IBI Group, cost approximately as much as the conventional plan while offering other potential benefits, including not having multiple local battles in ridings the governing Liberals would prefer not to irritate. The “missing link” would also make some other train services possible, including a so-far hypothetical service through Toronto’s midtown.

Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca told the Toronto Region Board of Trade earlier this month that any plan would still need CN and CP to agree to move their freight traffic, whatever solution Metrolinx may prefer. Since the federal government regulates railways, that will require Ottawa’s help.

“With new government in Ottawa, I think there is a real opportunity to sit down with the rail companies and discuss how we can unlock those corridors, but I can’t force it,” Del Duca said.

For his part, Via’s CEO says the federal rail operator expects to work with the provincial transit agency to maximize the benefits for both.

“If GO can come up with a solution there [in the western GTA] it will meet our needs as well,” says Desjardins-Siciliano. “If we can do anything to help, we will. The more we have tracks only for passenger trains … the better we are.”

Of course, one big question mark facing Via’s expansion is what the federal government will say. While the proposal calls for private investment, not additional tax dollars, neither the prior Conservative government nor the new Liberal government have given their blessing yet. Desjardins-Siciliano is optimistic, especially given the appointment of Marc Garneau as federal transport minister. He says Garneau rides Via trains regularly.

“He has a customer’s perspective,” says Desjardins-Siciliano. “He’s experienced the trains being sidetracked, but he’s also experienced all the good about it—the service and the public value.”

Both GO and Via are waiting to see what the federal government will do next. Until that’s clear, the modest hope of someday riding a reliable, reasonably fast train from Montreal to Toronto will have to wait.

 

[reaperexpress]

A couple errors in that article:

While Metrolinx owns 80 per cent of the tracks where GO operates train services, that doesn’t include much of the Kitchener line or any of the Milton line, which runs on CP’s main east-west Canadian freight line.

- Metrolinx owns 80 km of the 100 km Kitchener line (Union-Bramalea, Georgetown-Kitchener), which I think is a bit more than "not much".
- Metrolinx owns 8 km of the Milton line from Union to The Junction, which while not much, is certainly not nothing.