Recent content by crs1026

It may be that the new cabs have more control over ventilation, separate from the rest of the interior.... but....the old cabs were within the coach's HVAC, and they most certainly had the benefit of the coach's.air conditioning. - Paul

The good side (if there is one) to all the delay is that the testing and burn-in period for this transit line is lengthy and no doubt beyond what might happen in a "rushed" implementation. And the benefit of the P3 contract and assorted disputes is that ML will have no illusions about what the...

Their CEO has said they are doing just this..... to the extent that is required to make their freight operations efficient. Going an extra mile to add additional capacity beyond what CN needs just to assist VIA is a different matter.... CN is not a charity. And you consistently underestimate...

So, by the time we have procured the equipment, we will also have invested in sufficient track capacity to allow the passenger trains to overtake all the slower freights in the way? You are missing a memo or two. The slower schedule is there for a reason, it matches the pace of the Canadian to...

So long as VIA operates on landlord freight railroads that handle frequent heavy freight equipment, this is what one can expect. It would be hugely costly to maintain those lines to the quality where your drink won't spill (as it won't on TGV, or even Brightline), - Pau

Newbie Ottawa riders thought that they could force the doors to stop closing - or reopen - by brute force. Lots of people who didn't want to miss a train and tried to get on after the doors started to close. Not comp,etely unreasonable if you don't know the difference between an LRT door and an...

Interesting to contrast this work with the grading and drainage going in on the Metrolinx owned lines, where there is not only sound fencing but large rocks in the drainage ditches. I would expect another layer of rock to be poured as subgrade, likely with geotextile under it. That grading is a...

While I suspect that the new fleet will abandon the dome concept, I do think the short domes of the HEP I fleet are the optimal sightseeing experience of all. I would rate them much higher even than the longer domes used by others - eg the ex Milwaukee domes or those of SP or ATSF. They are...

While people do still ride the whole way in economy, the transportation element in our long distance trains has diminished and is pretty much a dead business. The coach portions of the Canadian consists are markedly smaller than even a few years ago. Adding the fourth night to the schedule...

The general point here is that the sightseeing and lounging/space amenities are a critical part of the rider experince on our long distance trains, and any new design needs to address that requirement.. I have taken enough single-night sleeper rides in various routes and countries where I...

Way back when the Expansion P3 was first conceived, there were statements that the job of laying track and installing signals for the expanded lines would be handled by the successful bidder.. The ML on-corridor project scope was originally to only build to the fences, subgrade and grade...

If so, the service and staffing plans for Jan 2005 are now a matter of fact and there is no commercial sensitivity in disclosing them. - Paul

We can be confident that as signalling is upgraded, as the Onexpress pan seems to imply, some form of ETCS will be roughed in or included. That plan is likely more years in the making than ML's staffing increase implies - so while it may eventually lead to one person in the cab, that is not...

Both Superliner and Viewliner fleets were procured with the premise of a. standardised and convertable carbody across different car types. That wisdom is likely to prevail with VIA, given the economies of scale that allows. Setting up a separate fabrication line for different car types would...

I would say this differently. NA has an as-built infrastructure and human design and built form that is based on the automobile. It's not an addiction, it's a design. We can't arbitrarily extricate the auto from the design any more than we can pull a chip out of a circuit board. We should...