VIA Rail

[nfitz]

It's incredible that people think rail service between the first, second and sixth largest metros in the country should be held hostage by the 25th largest metro in the country. This is why nothing ever gets built in this country.

I'm happy that Kingston is getting a hub. I'm happy that they are getting service that is tailored to them. Insisting that Toronto-Ottawa traffic take a longer and slower route and have frequencies split from Toronto-Montreal, just to serve Kingston? This is the kind of aggressive ignorance that prevents progress in this country.

I literally never said any of that.

VIA Fast travel times through Kingston are as fast as HFR through Peterborough. Toronto-Montreal is faster.

How would this address the issue of trains being constantly late because of CN, even on padded schedules? Or Via not being able to schedule trains when they want because they don't control the tracks? How would it reduce travel times to Ottawa the way that HFR will?

Lots of ways one could do it. Extra track. Legislative controls.

Heck, CN is worth $100 billion. Buy it, give the corridor track to VIA. Sell the rest.

Probably other solutions that I didn't think of in 30 seconds ...

 

[Urban Sky]

Lots of ways one could do it. Extra track. Legislative controls.

Heck, CN is worth $100 billion. Buy it, give the corridor track to VIA. Sell the rest.

Probably other solutions that I didn't think of in 30 seconds ...

It is this kind of “solutions” which makes me dread that we don’t have a fantasy rail thread for everything which lacks any consideration for what is politically feasible in this country...

 

[kEiThZ]

VIA Fast travel times through Kingston are as fast as HFR through Peterborough. Toronto-Montreal is faster.

And you know that a 20 yr old paper exercise holds true today because?

 

[MisterF]

Lots of ways one could do it. Extra track. Legislative controls.

Heck, CN is worth $100 billion. Buy it, give the corridor track to VIA. Sell the rest.

Probably other solutions that I didn't think of in 30 seconds ...

In other words, "I reject your reality and substitute my own". All of what you're suggesting has been either rejected by governments of all stripes going back decades, or tried and failed because of the constraints that governments refuse to lift.

Via Rail has created a plan that takes all those constraints into account and actually has a chance of succeeding in the real world.

 

[nfitz]

And you know that a 20 yr old paper exercise holds true today because?

Well heck, if they bought the single-track milk run through Peterborough, they'll buy anything!

Via Rail has created a plan that takes all those constraints into account and actually has a chance of succeeding in the real world.

It also has a chance of failing miserably, costing a lot more than anticipated (less of a problem if you are adding track along existing alignments), not delivering the optimistic run times, and accelerating the end of inter-provincial passenger rail in this country.

Has the current Minister of Transportation ever even mentioned this file?

 

[EnviroTO]

Heck, CN is worth $100 billion. Buy it, give the corridor track to VIA. Sell the rest.

If the government has $100 billion sitting around, they might as well build HSR Toronto - Oshawa - Peterborough - Belleville - Kingston - Ottawa and be done with it. Ottawa by-pass still wouldn't make sense mind you, as you would need to have something like $500 billion, so you could complete the Windsor-Quebec corridor first, for that to start to make sense.

 

[kEiThZ]

In other words, "I reject your reality and substitute my own".

Yep. Some people just want to troll and get off on feeling smarter than the pros as long as they get to assert stuff without having to actually do work to back it up.

 

[Urban Sky]

It also has a chance of failing miserably, costing a lot more than anticipated (less of a problem if you are adding track along existing alignments), not delivering the optimistic run times, and accelerating the end of inter-provincial passenger rail in this country.

You are right, nothing of that can happen when adding tracks into existing ROWs owned by private railroads, no wait:

Source: Auditor General of Canada (2016)

And, FYI, the Havelock Subdivision is an “existing alignment” (it doesn’t really matter if the tracks west of Havelock have been replaced by a cycling path - it’s not like you could reuse the worn-out tracks which are laid west of it) and the only new alignments which are necessitated by the maps which have been released so far is a maybe 4 km long bypass over flat fields, to link the Smiths Falls and Winchester Subdivisions just north of Smiths Falls...

Has the current Minister of Transportation ever even mentioned this file?

He is still less than 60 days in office and probably won’t make any mentions which would fuel speculation or even act as spoilers for what may or may not not be included in the federal budget, which is usually released by the end of this month...

 

[roger1818]

Also, I don't get why you think going to 30 min headways isn't notable.

I didn't say it wouldn't be noticeable. I was disputing your ascertain that be a game changer (compared to 60 minute headways). In case you don't know, here is the definition from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:

game changer​

noun

/ˈɡeɪm tʃeɪndʒə(r)/

/ˈɡeɪm tʃeɪndʒər/

• a person, an idea or an event that completely changes the way a situation develops
  • The advent of the digital camera proved to be a game changer in the photography industry.

HFR will be a game changer. Upgrading HFR to 30 minute headways (whiteout any other significant changes) will not.

 

[Urban Sky]

I didn't say it wouldn't be noticeable. I was disputing your ascertain that be a game changer (compared to 60 minute headways). In case you don't know, here is the definition from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:



HFR will be a game changer. Upgrading HFR to 30 minute headways (whiteout any other significant changes) will not.

Just to recall what you originally wrote:

In other words, this would only happen once when demand has increased to a point where HFR is exceeding its capacity and upgrades are needed anyway. The thing about intercity rail is once you have hourly service, increasing frequency beyond that doesn't provide significant benefit, so rather than having 30 minute service through Ottawa, it would make more sense to keep it at the (post HFR) hourly frequency and add hourly express trains from Montreal to Toronto.

Since I haven’t seen you walk away of that statement, the rebuke is also about the wording “no significant benefit”, not just: “game changer” or not...

In any case, in terms of commutability and other inter-city interactions, going from hourly to all-day half-hourly service could be considered a game changer for city pairs like OTTW&MTRL or Peterborough&TRTO, just like It has been along GO Transit’s Lakeshore Corridor...

 

[roger1818]

Just to recall what you originally wrote:


Since I haven’t seen you walk away of that statement, the rebuke is also about the wording “no significant benefit”, not just: “game changer” or not...

“no significant benefit” ≠ “no benefit”

 

[kEiThZ]

In any case, in terms of commutability and other inter-city interactions, going from hourly to all-day half-hourly service would be a game changer for city pairs like OTTW&MTRL or Peterborough&TRTO, just like It has been along GO Transit’s Lakeshore Corridor...

Exactly the example I was thinking of. 30 min service takes HFR from intercity rail to ex-urban commuter service. A different business.

 

[crs1026]

You are right, nothing of that can happen when adding tracks into existing ROWs owned by private railroads, no wait:

Source: Auditor General of Canada (2016)

This table should be taken in context. VIA’s plan (the middle collumn) was not wrong.... it simply failed in execution. To argue that the 2009 plan was not properly thought out would actually be quite an indictment of VIA’s planning. The A-G never siad it was a bad plan, they simply documented its failure.

The root cause of the failure was (partly) that VIa had never managed a project that big before and (mostly) that the relationship of VIA with CN, who executed the work, prevented any real accountability.

If there is no political will to correct that root cause, then indeed it’s a fantasy to suggest trying it again. But if one added a collumn laying out the parameters of HFR, and comparing those attributes and benefits to what the 2009 plan proposed, and then comparing relative price tags.....it would demonstrate why the laissez faire policy with respect to CN is costing the country big time.

- Paul

PS - At the time, that 2009 project felt like good news, or at least a glass half full. Now, the more I reflect on that 2009 failure, the more I realise how it cost us a decade in getting better rail service.

 

[smallspy]

This table should be taken in context. VIA’s plan (the middle collumn) was not wrong.... it simply failed in execution. To argue that the 2009 plan was not properly thought out would actually be quite an indictment of VIA’s planning. The A-G never siad it was a bad plan, they simply documented its failure.

The root cause of the failure was (partly) that VIa had never managed a project that big before and (mostly) that the relationship of VIA with CN, who executed the work, prevented any real accountability.

If there is no political will to correct that root cause, then indeed it’s a fantasy to suggest trying it again. But if one added a collumn laying out the parameters of HFR, and comparing those attributes and benefits to what the 2009 plan proposed, and then comparing relative price tags.....it would demonstrate why the laissez faire policy with respect to CN is costing the country big time.

- Paul

PS - At the time, that 2009 project felt like good news, or at least a glass half full. Now, the more I reflect on that 2009 failure, the more I realise how it cost us a decade in getting better rail service.

If it's any consolation.... The additional track greatly improved CN's operations along the Kingston Sub.

Of course, that was their plan all along.....

Dan

 

[nfitz]

If the government has $100 billion sitting around, they might as well build HSR Toronto - Oshawa - Peterborough - Belleville - Kingston - Ottawa and be done with it

The government doesn't have (or need) $100 billion sitting around.

If you temporarily buy a $100 billion asset, you still own the asset, and you can use debt to finance it, without impacting the debt rating. Once you transfer the relatively small piece of rail you want to VIA, you then sell the asset. Say for $98 billion. If you time the market right, you maybe make a profit!

(and no, I don't think this would actually happen - finally introducing a Via Rail Act like Prime Minister Trudeau promised in the 1970s, which defines use priorities and allows the government to regulate the use of privately-owned track properly is the real solution)

He is still less than 60 days in office and probably won’t make any mentions which would fuel speculation or even act as spoilers for what may or may not not be included in the federal budget, which is usually released by the end of this month...

If you'd have said that in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s, I'd agree with you. But surely you've noticed that in recent years - and very much so with the current PM, the government spends the weeks and months before the budget, giving everyone a head's up about anything noteworthy in the budget, to create maximum impact.

It hadn't actually crossed my mind until you said that ... but surely radio silence from this particular government, before the budget, is further evidence that nothing is going to be in the budget.