Back in the day, I used to take the overnight Northland sleeper. There was also an actual dining car on the daytime Train. It was lovely.
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Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation
- Thread starter CDL.TO
- Start date
Bordercollie
Senior Member
When the TEE sets were in service?
lenaitch
Senior Member
No change in schedule from the one proposed in their Business Case, except no mention of a connection to Cochrane.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Yes. There was the Northland and the Northlander. Via operated the Northland. ONR operated the Northlander.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
The first Northlander trainset is Canada-bound!
NoahB
Active Member
They did a great job with the livery 
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Northlander has always had a Nederlandse Spoorwegen type look.. but it's a super strong resemblance now:
crs1026
Superstar
Killjoy comment: apart from branding and marketing considerations - which are largely unaligned to foamer tastes - and the need for safety markings, how it is painted makes no meaningful impact on how the train performs or the role it plays in serving the North.
I bet it has a nice horn, too.
- Paul
PS - the interesting detail for me is how the coaches have been painted in a way that anticipates juggling equipment consists - the paint scheme allows cars to be reordered and does not flow as one unbreakable trainset. Otherwise both coaches would not have the diagonal swoosh. Do these cars have the same semipermanent couplings and connectors as the VIA version?
I bet it has a nice horn, too.
- Paul
PS - the interesting detail for me is how the coaches have been painted in a way that anticipates juggling equipment consists - the paint scheme allows cars to be reordered and does not flow as one unbreakable trainset. Otherwise both coaches would not have the diagonal swoosh. Do these cars have the same semipermanent couplings and connectors as the VIA version?
smallspy
Senior Member
The trains are configured the exact same as the VIA sets, down to the same seating and interior material choices.
Dan
nfitz
Superstar
That will make them easier to sell off when ridership tanks, when people find out the bus is much faster (I wonder how pricing will work).
lenaitch
Senior Member
The run times are about the same (11 hours) for the train and two buses, not factoring any bus layovers in North Bay (there is no single Cochrane-Toronto bus).
nfitz
Superstar
Ah, I was thinking more about the Toronto to North Bay service.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
The line was never going to capture much of the Toronto to North Bay market, because like you said it's much slower than the express buses. The main advantage that the train offers is more space and an overnight schedule. Which is why it's so disappointing that they ordered business class seats rather than mini-berths. Obviously it's because Siemens isn't going to design a custom sleeper coach when the order size is only 3 coaches, but my (unrealistic) hope is that ONR will use their considerable in-house manufacturing capacity to design some sleeping accommodations to replace those business class seats.
An overnight service with sleeping accommodations would have a clear advantage over the bus, because despite the lower average speed you can effectively subtract 8h of travel time while people are sleeping, since people need to sleep anyway.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Where are you seeing that? The train will apparently be 5 hours to North Bay according to the schedule on the last page - the two buses scheduled right now take 5:23 and 5:37.
The train is also far more comfortable and can actually facilitate a day trip with about 6 hours in the City, unlike the bus, too.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
According to the current timetable, there are 4 buses per day in each direction between North Bay and Yorkdale station, of which 2 continue to Union.
The two express buses (03:15 and 12:30) take exactly the same time as the train to Union (5h flat) and the local buses are about 45 minutes slower than that.
However, most passengers actually join the bus at Yorkdale or Hwy 407 terminal, and it's only 4h25 from North Bay to Yorkdale.
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