lenaitch
Senior Member
Really. Tell us more. I always thought it was established after WWI to rescue a bunch of failing railways. Back then, freight and passenger railways was a distinction that didn't exist.
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Lack of meaningful Passenger Rail service outside the Quebec-Windsor Corridor
- Thread starter Urban Sky
- Start date
dowlingm
Senior Member
I would argue that if we are looking to “where could Canada have taken another path” it would have been when CN was privatized as a combined service operating company and infrastructure manager. Instead the track was left with CN as their asset, with all the consequences that flow from that.
It does seem that there are times when the Feds are trying to get something for nothing. If they wanted to ensure service indefinitely they could have bought the track from CN - but they don’t want to spend that kind of money. So instead they are the neighbour that borrows your gas lawnmower but puts the minimum gas into it when giving it back, and gets cranky when asked for a contribution to the cost of getting the blades sharpened. At the same time, CN are perceived to have gouged the Feds during the Kingston Sub expansion. There are no angels here.
It does seem that there are times when the Feds are trying to get something for nothing. If they wanted to ensure service indefinitely they could have bought the track from CN - but they don’t want to spend that kind of money. So instead they are the neighbour that borrows your gas lawnmower but puts the minimum gas into it when giving it back, and gets cranky when asked for a contribution to the cost of getting the blades sharpened. At the same time, CN are perceived to have gouged the Feds during the Kingston Sub expansion. There are no angels here.
crs1026
Superstar
All it would have taken was VIA saying to CN “We need the track maintained to meet our present schedule” and CN to have said “No problem, where shall we send the bill?”.
Clearly, VIA’s mandate is only to operate to whatever standard the track can support given CN’s low use of the line. Ottawa is presumably unwilling to pay more. (put another way, if the cost of running the Ocean included the long term maintenance of the track to a standard higher than what CN requires, the train would be uneconomic and might not continue running).
As it happens, I’m booked on the Ocean in the near future….. last time, the rocking almost threw my companion out of the top bunk. I have a feeling I’m getting the upper bunk this trip. We shall see.
- Paul
Clearly, VIA’s mandate is only to operate to whatever standard the track can support given CN’s low use of the line. Ottawa is presumably unwilling to pay more. (put another way, if the cost of running the Ocean included the long term maintenance of the track to a standard higher than what CN requires, the train would be uneconomic and might not continue running).
As it happens, I’m booked on the Ocean in the near future….. last time, the rocking almost threw my companion out of the top bunk. I have a feeling I’m getting the upper bunk this trip. We shall see.
- Paul
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smallspy
Senior Member
micheal_can
Senior Member
And now,we have a bunch of failing subdivisions owned mainly by CN. The privatization has done no good for the people of Canada, but has done a lot of good for the shareholders of CN. The FN blockade in ON proved that.
I am not speaking of speeds, but I am speaking of minimum maintenance standards of the line owners. Who pays for it? Well, one could assume it should be baked into the contract between the owners of the line and the operators of the service.
CN was created to collect and save a bunch of failing lines.
dowlingm
Senior Member
If something of that sort was contemplated by Parliament as a current activity, it would be found within an unrepealed statute such as the CN Commercialization Act (S.C. 1995, c. 24). For example, Parliament wanted CN to be unambiguously subject to the Official Languages Act, and a direction to that effect is found at section 15. A direction that it have its headquarters in Montreal is found at section 8.1c. What you won’t find there is a direction to preserve lines at any cost, because the intent of Parliament was to stop throwing money into a bottomless pit.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I know. We do not live in the times before the privatization of CN. That does not change what it was for. That also does not change what it has become.
crs1026
Superstar
"Who pays for it" is indeed baked into VIA's service contract with CN..... the point being, VIA can't afford to pay more and still maintain a cost recovery ratio that can be sold to the taxpayer.
- Paul
micheal_can
Senior Member
Doing it now would cause some problems in their cost recovery. Much of the problems of today is lack of foresight. So, for example,if they had the foresight, when Via became their own entity, they could have had it in those contracts and it would have not been such a shock. Now, adding it in will come as a shock. The problem is, the further down the road this is kicked down,the worse the tracks get.
smallspy
Senior Member
Those regulations & standards exist. Go spend some time on the Transport Canada website, they're all listed and publicly available.
Not failing lines, failing railroads.
Which had too many miles of track.
And so they abandoned a lot of it.
Does this sound familiar?
Dan
Urban Sky
Senior Member
VIA can of course insist that minimum track maintenance levels and speed limits are contractually guaranteed with legally enforceable penalties in the case of non-conformance with these minimum standards. However, CN would still be able to counter such efforts by either refusing to sign such a contract or by simply adding the monetary value of the maximum amount of potential penalties to whichever amount they were about to ask for anyways.
From VIA‘s (or the tax payer‘s) perspective, neither scenario would be an improvement over the Status Quo…
From VIA‘s (or the tax payer‘s) perspective, neither scenario would be an improvement over the Status Quo…
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micheal_can
Senior Member
This is what I had meant earlier when I said that it should have been in the contracts a long time ago. It is things like this that have me wonder if it was left out purposely or was an oversight or a cost savings for Via.
crs1026
Superstar
If some additional higher standard had been in VIA's service contracts sooner, the price of running the service would have been higher sooner. And perhaps that would have eroded whatever public support there has been for running the train at all.
It would be interesting to know what the business case for the service would look like with an assumption of equal or better track maintenance and thus equal or better timing. I have a feeling that's a question that we might be smarter not to ask.
- Paul
micheal_can
Senior Member
It is one of those circular arguments. So, instead of focusing on what we did wrong, let's fix it for the future.So, a simple thing to explore would be having all routes have a minimum track speed of X mph.That could be placed at just higher than the worst subdivision Via operates over. So, if this subdivision is the worst one and the track speed is 30mph, have the minimum speed in the contract set at 40mph.The next contract could be bumped to 45 or 50 mph and so forth. Then hopefully we won't be in the situation we are in where 2 Via and 1 Amtrak routes are suspended.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Dashcam video shows terrifying near-miss on two-lane northern Ontario highway
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.northernontario.ctvnews.ca
When people ask why I want a daily train to every major city in Canada with rails, it is incidents like this that highlight how dangerous our highways can be.
1) Sudbury is not a major city.
2) The occasional accident is not justification for multi-billion dollar rail infrastructure.
3) Service that is daily is not sufficient to deter the majority of people from driving.