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Ya? Where is that? Doesn’t look like Churchill Manitoba (at least not what I would imagine it to look like). Always good to see crossing upgrades.

Agreed. The point is we can’t just resume service using retired HEP cars as a trial without significant upgrades, and those would cost a significant amount of money. The level crossing’s only part of the challenge. Back when the train was running, it would reach a maximum speed of 90mph, which...

It was mostly the fatalities. One media report indicated that it killed 15 people over 3 years.

It was nicknamed The death train or the flying coffin and former mayor of Edmonton, Laurence Decore, was quoted as saying "It's a seedy, tacky service used by very few people. Its 200 level crossings make it an absolute calamity that has caused too many deaths."

Size of the city is only half the story. The other half is what cities are nearby for the train to travel to. In the case of Calgary, the only nearby city is Edmonton and the Alberta government requested the train between those two cities be cancelled in the mid to late 80s. No. If it’s the...

While that is one factor, it certainly isn't the only one. Besides, while the national capital angle is unique to Ottawa, every province has a provincial capital which helps increase intra-provincial travel. Also, students are much more likely to travel to a school within their own province...

Count the number of trains a day between the cities. Montreal might be a popular destination for Batchelor parties, but there isn’t much reason for people in Montreal to go to Toronto, unless it’s business related or they happen to have moved there from Toronto. Ottawa and Toronto being each...

Exactly like Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal. As I just said a few posts ago, Toronto-Ottawa is a more important city pair than Toronto-Montreal, despite Montreal being significantly larger than an Ottawa, because of the provincial boarder. The lack of synergy is political. People tend to stay...

You seem to have forgotten already that Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg are all in different provinces, thus don’t have the synergy that cities in the same province would.

The way I see it there are two likely reasons why Amtrak has states supported routes, but VIA doesn’t have any province, supported routes. Amtrak has (in theory at least) priority on the freight railway tracks, so the states want to take advantage of that with the services they fund. VIA does...

This brings up a point that seems to be frequently overlooked, which is that there is more synergy between cities in the same province than there is between cities in different provinces. That’s one reason why there is far more O-D travel between Ottawa and Toronto than Montreal and Toronto...

The majority of The Gull’s historical route of Boston to Halifax is south of the border (so I don’t see how it would make sense for it to be operated by VIA Rail. If it were to ever return (which I highly doubt) it would likely be as an extension of The Downeaster north to St. John, as it is...

I suspect it’s less about VIA not caring and more about them not having enough money to do more than they currently do with their shoestring budget. With Amtrak Joe as president, Amtrak feels empowered to propose upgrades and improvements.

On Groups IO, this Amtrak report on cross-border trains, was posted. One quote from it that caught my attention was, “A December 2021 agreement between Amtrak and CP allows Amtrak to operate service through the Detroit River Tunnel to connect with VIA.” IIRC, this agreement was part of the deal...

Glad you have at least some sense of reality.

As @Urban Sky said, VIA only has 2 trains a week that use this track, and this segment represents a minuscule portion of the route, so the benefit of double tracking it would be insignificant. Besides, people don’t do a land cruse because it’s fast. Being slow is a desirable feature. Even for...

It comes down to the size of the overhead bins in the airline’s smallest aircraft. AC’s CRJs have an extremely small bins, and if it doesn’t fit in the measurement gauge, it won’t fit in the bin. Having different specifications for different aircraft would create lots of confusion. For VIA...

5-10 years? The new fleet was scheduled to be complete in 2024, but with the delays, I wouldn't be surprised if that gets pushed back by a year, so we are talking 1-2 years (maybe 3 at the absolute most). Crossings upgrades are only one factor (albeit a major one). Track upgrades are another...

I suspect that the bag 23kg (50lb) weight issue could be related to the load bearing capacity of the luggage racks than anything else. One overweight bag probably isn't a problem, but if they are all overweight, it can add up. As for the charging for large bags, it is likely a strategy to...

It is certainly possible and while I wouldn't rule it out, I wouldn't hold my breath on this option happening either. VIA would likely want to wait until the dust settles with the new fleet and then if they can find a route with extra capacity that they could add a train to, and they could make...