micheal_can
Senior Member
North of Huntsville where the line runs along Highway 11, there is a light that was red when I drove by it.
During the summer, you may be right, but during the winter?
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Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation
- Thread starter CDL.TO
- Start date
North of Huntsville where the line runs along Highway 11, there is a light that was red when I drove by it.
During the summer, you may be right, but during the winter?
smallspy
Senior Member
I'm not sure why you think that adding the train would cause all of the bus trips to be cancelled. After all, there were three round trips daily in parallel with the train - including one which I believe left about an hour or so after the train trip northbound.
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
dowlingm
Senior Member
There was some hyperbole in the 40mph remark.
As for "not explicitly forcing VIA" - what a ridiculous regulatory environment we have if this is the case. At least in the US most of these processes seem to be matters of public record, and based on statute.
dowlingm
Senior Member
Cochrane (the Northlander cancelled by the Liberals) is 732km by road. Have the Tories actually stated they will only restore to North Bay?
I rode the Northlander for years. It used to be wonderful, but once they took off the dining car and the sleeper car, it wasn’t so great, and ridership decreased. By the time it was cancelled, it was pretty pitiful.
muller877
Senior Member
No. They specifically stated Cochrane
pman
Senior Member
If you compare the cost of buying whatever northern Ontario riding Cochrane is in with the ON promise, to the cost Wynne incurred to elect Mitzie Hunter with the SSE extension, Ford is giving taxpayers a relative bargain.
narduch
Senior Member
How about those 2 seats with gas plants?
nfitz
Superstar
No. But the bus service between North Bay and Cochrane is nothing to crow about. Which makes me suspect the bulk of the demand is between North Bay and Toronto.
But I was being arbitrary really.
Hopefully Drug Fraud will finish those two plants, and provide some local redundancy in the network.
smallspy
Senior Member
I realize that there was some hyperbole about the 40mph comment. But the fact of the matter is that this has never really just been a plodding little backwater turn, stopping every 10 telegraph poles. By rights, the service probably should have been handed over to VIA in 1978.
Transport Canada wields a ton of power over the railways in Canada, and seem to be very willing to use it in soft manners just as much as they are via the regulatory angle. They've also been historically very negative towards VIA, and passenger rail as a whole, seeing themselves as a regulatory and support body to the freight railways first and foremost. (As an aside, this atmosphere along with the support of the Railway Association of Canada - who is not just a lobbying agency but also provides some regulatory functions - is why Metrolinx and a host of other railways are pulling out of the RAC.) I suspect that the threat of potential regulatory action was enough to move VIA into action.
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
TransitBart
Senior Member
Someone googled too fast. It’s 728km from the east end of Toronto.
TransitBart
Senior Member
Or without gas plants if one is being cheeky.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I no longer have a Trackside Guide, but isn't a large part of the Via Ocean route east of Riviere du Loup then down through NB in OCS territory? Also the Algoma Canyon Tour train as well as the (currently former) Soo-Hearst passenger run. While there may be merit in TC's concerns, I believe there are only two freight runs per day plus a switcher on the Newmarket Sub. so I would think separation would be fairly easy to achieve.
If you can recall where that is, I run to NB about a dozen times a year and cannot recall seeing one. the only one I can think of is the begin/end of CTC at Gravenhurst.
ONR has signals on their mainline but they are now dark. I don't know enough of RR signal systems and whether than means they abandoned a CTC system or the signals served another use (such as identifying switch positions, etc.)
micheal_can
Senior Member
It was south of Novar and North of Huntsville.
Would it just be a matter of flipping a switch?
crs1026
Senior Member
Signalling has a more basic purpose in addition to train separation and control - track integrity. If the rail is broken or the track is washed out, or if a switch is left open, the approaching train will get a red signal and hopefully the defect is detected. The older the rail, the more jointed rail there is, the more lightly the line is maintained, the higher the speed, and the more people there are on board... all these affect a desire for signals because the risk profile is affected by these.
In days gone by, passenger trains operated at 90mph+ on jointed rail in dark territory and nobody questioned the practice. Today, risk appetite is lower. As Dan notes, if trains are operating in dark territory at speed, you can be sure TC isn’t happy about the fact and will be saying so.
Signalling can’t just be switched back on after periods of disuse. Components may be old, and parts may have been cannibalised...spare parts may no longer be available at reasonable cost. Bond wires and shunts (the wires that attach signals to the track) may have been removed or altered, or just fallen off. If new grade crossing equipmrnt has been installed somewhere, new engineering and modifications may be needed, because signalling and grade crossing equipment are both wired to the tracks and need to play nice with each other. Lastly, the wiring may have deteriorated. A lot of calibration and testing will be required. The ONR signalling is very old and may not be maintainable, I don’t know exactly why it was switched off other than it probably was an expense that traffic levels couldn’t cover.
The issue is, if the Northlander is seen as a sustainable and justifiable part of Ontario’s rail system, it needs to be run to the proper standard with no short cuts allowed. You can’t just recruit a bunch of retired guys to be volunteers and run the thing like one of the tourist railways in Southern Ontario. (Who, incidentally, are having to do more and more things to higher standards to maintain their insurance coverage).
- Paul
In days gone by, passenger trains operated at 90mph+ on jointed rail in dark territory and nobody questioned the practice. Today, risk appetite is lower. As Dan notes, if trains are operating in dark territory at speed, you can be sure TC isn’t happy about the fact and will be saying so.
Signalling can’t just be switched back on after periods of disuse. Components may be old, and parts may have been cannibalised...spare parts may no longer be available at reasonable cost. Bond wires and shunts (the wires that attach signals to the track) may have been removed or altered, or just fallen off. If new grade crossing equipmrnt has been installed somewhere, new engineering and modifications may be needed, because signalling and grade crossing equipment are both wired to the tracks and need to play nice with each other. Lastly, the wiring may have deteriorated. A lot of calibration and testing will be required. The ONR signalling is very old and may not be maintainable, I don’t know exactly why it was switched off other than it probably was an expense that traffic levels couldn’t cover.
The issue is, if the Northlander is seen as a sustainable and justifiable part of Ontario’s rail system, it needs to be run to the proper standard with no short cuts allowed. You can’t just recruit a bunch of retired guys to be volunteers and run the thing like one of the tourist railways in Southern Ontario. (Who, incidentally, are having to do more and more things to higher standards to maintain their insurance coverage).
- Paul
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