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That is already the loading standard. Something evidently went very wrong here, there should obviously not have been a 6 coach train on a weekend morning departure from Toronto to Niagara Falls . Yeah it was not one coach shorter than normal, it was 6 coaches shorter than normal

If CN's equipment can't reliably detect trains with 24 axles, that's pretty sad. Globally it's common to have trains with as few as 6 axles, and sometimes even 4. If they say they need 32 axles (a loco + 7 coaches) that's a pretty damning indictment of their own detection equipment, even if the...

In other news, would you like to ride train 26, train 26, train 26 or train 26? https://www.viarail.ca/en/plan/train-schedules/ottawa-montreal-sainte-foy-quebec All four columns have exactly the same departure times at all stations.

Siemens is opening an additional factory for Venture coaches in Lexington North Carolina in a few months so they will be catching up their backlog pretty soon. Via probably does need to order a few more Economy class coaches to lengthen some trains from 2+3 (business + economy) to 2+4...

All recent station designs I've seen have included space for either a passing track (Downsview Park, Rutherford, Maple, etc.) or a gauntlet track on one side (Milliken, Agincourt, etc.). This is purely to accommodate wide freight trains once the platforms are raised for level boarding. Express...

In their list of planned projects they have building a second platform at Mount Joy. It's 15 minutes from Unionville to Mount Joy so that would enable 30-minute bidirectional service as far as Mount Joy with a 30-minute layover, or as far as Stouffville with a 10-minute layover. Until that...

Dropping GO bus passengers at Oriole would make no sense because it would take them longer to get to Union via GO train than it currently does via subway from York Mills. See my calculations below:

I wasn't talking about taking over lanes on the Gardiner. There are not enough buses to justify that, nor will there ever be given the planned increases in train service. I am suggesting that we introduced targeted bus priority measures in the immediate vicinity of the USBT as suggested by...

Many bus companies have already left Union station due to the traffic congestion. Of course we've noticed GO cutting service on bus route to Union such as the 21 Milton and 16 Hamilton Express, but intercity operators are doing the same. TOK Coachlines abandoned Union Station altogether, now...

The passing tracks currently under construction (Breslau, Guelph, Acton, Georgetown) will provide a capacity of 2 trains per hour per direction. This will allow peak period service to still be every 30 minutes as it is today, while counter-peak service runs hourly. Outside of peak periods there...

Not quite 10 hours, but on my last trip from Ottawa to Toronto I filmed the full ride from Whitby to Union to document how Metrolinx dispatching was sabotaging our train*, turning what should have been a 25 min trip into a 55 min trip because they stopped the Via train twice to let slower local...

The value of reporting accurate information is that it directs public pressure to the actual issues. If people hear "it was too remote" they think "oh too bad Canada is so big", but if they hear "we tried and failed to rent a bus" they think "maybe we should reexamine the mechanism Via has to...

Whether or not they thought they could fix the train or tow it does not affect whether the location is remote. Nor does the availability of buses in Québec. None of the locations where the train stopped were remote or inaccessible. They were all within walking distance from a public roadway...

From the video: "Via claims the area was too remote to bring in shuttle buses". I beg your unbelievable pardon? The train was only an hour outside Québec City! That's within commuting distance! And it was literally right next to a public road, adjacent to a highway interchange on Autoroute 20...

One of the expectations of a job with a safety-critical function or public-facing element is the ability to remain cool under pressure and continue to make rational decisions. Think for example about air traffic controllers and pilots, who are extensively trained to keep their emotions under...

When you talk about someone being incompetent that certainly sounds to me like you're blaming individuals. We don't normally talk about systems and processes as being incompetent. That's a word we use for human beings. If you want to talk about systems I'd suggest words like "insufficient"...

"Throwing under the bus" is most effective when you understand what the actual issues. Knee-jerk reactions often result in virtue-signalling solutions that don't actually address the core issue. If we as advocates can more precisely pinpoint what the fundamental problem is then we can do a...

I have never once said that I'm okay with the situation on train 622, or that it was an inevitable outcome. My comment to you was that you should be using facts rather than just baseless name-calling. For example, in this very post, you claimed that I am 'working hard to defend incompetence'...

My last trip to Toronto was 2h late so I was eligible for a 50% credit, which I have sinced used to book myself a trip to Montreal. There was no need to get any code during my delayed trip, the code in question is the booking confirmation number that you already have when you book the ticket...

I also spotted a Siemens set on Via Moving Maps achieving 160 km/h yesterday, something I'd never seen before. I know this was a Siemens set because I filmed it a few minutes later but unfortunately it was only going 154 when it passed by me. This observation means that the Siemens sets have...