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Churchill is great in the niche it has filled: bulk, heavy cargo that is not very time sensitive.

Yeah. I suspect 15 years from now there will have been a huge recapitalization and expansion with large government involvement. Think P3 projects to add capacity where the railroads only pay for the capacity they use on the new sections, until a specified date in the future when the assets can...

The Skeena on arrival at Jasper yesterday evening.

Why does it matter? Do we care about structure or outcome?

Is this not the case today?

I don’t really get why people are surprised (old news) or concerned (shed a tear for people with VIA loyalty points?).

Yup. Lots of examples in the west (even if some interactions involved protracted court cases). Absence makes the heart grow stronger perhaps. Or experience makes finding a price easier, and helps set realistic expectations from both sides.

That ferry has a subsidy from the NS government.

The PEI bridge availability payment is paid by the feds, hence likely not discriminating. Likely the PEI government had a longstanding arrangement to help medical patients and they likely pay a shadow toll to support that.

The service is modeled on the service to Zermatt. There is a commuter market, and there is also a desire that if Alberta public funds are going in, to have a Alberta public benefit. (Alberta is expected to make a yearly availability payment, the Canada component is a concessionary loan) The...

It would be by far the cheapest way to get to Banff, beyond the seasonal, weekend only, "On-It" bus which will only take a single bag, and doesn't go to the airport.

Those that point to the UK failures I would say: we can learn from the failures. Just like eglinton crosstown has learned from the tfl failures.

Here you’re stuck in the mentality that privatization means not regulated and subsidized by government to provide services of a certainty quality and a certain cost. You could privatize via rail tomorrow, and 99% of people would have no idea it was done. None at all. Go Transit’s rail...

The CN line has many of the same problems as the CP line, while having the additional issues which you identify while being a longer distance. I believe the CN line is up from 8 trains a day regularly after the opening of the Conrich intermodal. Certainly not the CP’s ~18-20, but not nothing...

Really depends if you have disused freight lines in useful locations. Calgary and Edmonton though cited above, do not have a disused or abandoned line between them.

The daylight route is distinct. The long distance trip, yeah you got it.

So Rocky Mountaineer was a VIA train, a daylight tourist train. The franchise to operate it was sold or leased or somesuch with the goal of not providing a subsidy to an explicitly tourist service. My understanding is that soon afterwards, the Montreal-Vancouver via Edmonton route was shutdown...

Privatization does not necessarily mean without subsidy or service standards. Most certainly what privatization would do is lay bare what subsidies exist (including cross subsidies) and force the government to justify them, or the lack of them. Like why is VIA funding critical links for...

Those risks are a load of horse shit. You know what mitigates many of those risks? The iron fist of the federal government. The rest are policies the lobby group would like. Not risks that need to be mitigated.

Expropriation takes forever. And really pisses people off. Many provincial projects that involve expropriation the final settlement happens 10 years after notice. The final settlement isn’t needed to take possession of the land, but if the landowners are pissed off the process can be ripe for...