Lack of meaningful Passenger Rail service outside the Quebec-Windsor Corridor

[C_Johnson_1995]

The failed GO experiment has sufficiently proven that 195km is far too far of a distance to provide commuter rail service and that Toronto-London belongs to the intercity rail network currently operated by VIA, as part of its Toronto-Windsor/Sarnia routes. “Commuter rail” and “intercity rail” are primarily references to the rolling stock and service quality, not the kind of passengers which take them (as no one rail service could survive on only one passenger type).

Did it though? Or was it just circumstances that got in the way? By all accounts, it was well used, at least from Stratford. If line speed was up to a reasonable standard on the west end of the Guelph Sub, it probably would have been an unmitigated success.

As long as we are going to just split services on the Corridor at Union, there is absolutely no reason for VIA to run to Windsor and Sarnia. In fact, having them hold responsibility for those services is probably a severe hindrance to improving passenger rail to SWO. It would be much better to have an organisation like Metrolinx which is capable of taking any action at all to improve service than one like VIA that is a limp ward of the Transport Minister whose only accomplishments in the last 30 years are to provide 1:1 replacement of a half century old fleet of an inadequate size to meet demand and overseeing a scope-creeping disaster of an HSR project that should have been underway years ago.

I think what I'm trying to say is eliminate VIA and start over.

 

[Urban Sky]

Did it though? Or was it just circumstances that got in the way? By all accounts, it was well used, at least from Stratford. If line speed was up to a reasonable standard on the west end of the Guelph Sub, it probably would have been an unmitigated success.

A 12-car bilevel train has close to 2,000 seats. That’s more than the combined ridership for any month during which this experiment lasted:

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6894985

There have been multiple issues from which this service suffered:

• Slow travel speeds over the GEXR Guelp Sub
• The long distance and travel time (especially from Toronto)
• The low frequency (once per day)

However, the biggest issue was that with only a single frequency, you have to offer commuter-friendly arrival and departure times wherever people work and it’s just impossible to simultaneously hit Kitchener, Guelph, Brampton and Toronto at the right spot, especially if the latter is almost 4 hours away…

As long as we are going to just split services on the Corridor at Union, there is absolutely no reason for VIA to run to Windsor and Sarnia.

Why? People can transfer fine if the connection times are reasonable and the number of people who want to travel from, say, London to Kingston is dwarfed by those travelling from/to Toronto. You may want to search the “VIA Rail” thread for “gravity model” to get some idea of how various O-D demand potentials compare with each other…

In fact, having them hold responsibility for those services is probably a severe hindrance to improving passenger rail to SWO. It would be much better to have an organisation like Metrolinx which is capable of taking any action at all to improve service than one like VIA […]

You seem to be assuming that the Ontarian government is just waiting for VIA to leave SWO, so that they can run their own intercity trains to Lomdon, Sarnia and Windsor. Nobody is stopping them from offering these services themselves or for paying VIA to expand these services. But as again the failed GO-to-London experiment showed, GO can only be successful where it has sufficient infrastructure access to reasonably fast, frequent and reliable slots.

that is a limp ward of the Transport Minister whose only accomplishments in the last 30 years are to provide 1:1 replacement of a half century old fleet of an inadequate size to meet demand and overseeing a scope-creeping disaster of an HSR project that should have been underway years ago.

VIA’s Siemens order had an option for the procurement of 16 additional trainsets, but there was no point in exercising it as long as nobody knows whether and how HxR will be built:

If HxR doesn’t get built, you won’t have any slots to deploy these extra trains and if HSR get’s built, you will already have a surplus of trains as HSR services would require their own, dedicated and much faster fleet. Activating the option only makes sense if you build HFR as the 177-200 km/h fast scenario as which it was originally envisioned, but that doesn’t really sound like what you are hoping for, so what exactly is your problem here?

I think what I'm trying to say is eliminate VIA and start over.

Sure, let’s kill off something which has both funding and a sizeable ridership/revenue base and replace it with something which has neither! That’s @micheal_can thinking in a nutshell:

That is why I am hoping that if Via survives the expected CPC government, they get out of the tourist business and focus on being just a rail transportation crown corporation.

 

[crs1026]

Did it though? Or was it just circumstances that got in the way? By all accounts, it was well used, at least from Stratford. If line speed was up to a reasonable standard on the west end of the Guelph Sub, it probably would have been an unmitigated success.

I have it on pretty good authority that ML appreciated all the risks, laid them out to government, and were told to go ahead anyways for a very short term political agenda. I have seen (a long time ago now) a CEO of an Ontario public sector entity look their Minister in the eye and demand discoverable written direction before they would accept direction to do something stupid. In that case, the Minister backed down. That ML didn't do likewise in this case is a statement against ML leadership.

I think what I'm trying to say is eliminate VIA and start over.

I don't know what you have against ViA, but I couldn't disagree more. At the rail level and on train, VIA is a far more capable and effective operation. Their onboard service delivery, while it has room for improvement, is actually damn good already. Moreover, why duplicate so many functions and complicate the whole operation.... two fleets and maintenance infrastructures, two operations centers, two staff bases, two OBS functions, two ticketing functions, two service agreements with CN (and giving CN the opportunity to play one off against the other), two potentially discontinuous schedules and service models, two pricing structures. Fleet size and utilization will undoubtedly be more economic if trainsets can run through (as they do today)

I do believe that Ontario has a stake in regional intercity rail, and it should be able to contract directly with VIA with minimal involvement or interference from Ottawa. Ottawa is sluffing off its responsibilities west of Toronto, but setting up separate organizations is an imperfect answer to that.

- Apul

 

[micheal_can]

A 12-car bilevel train has close to 2,000 seats. That’s more than the combined ridership for any month during which this experiment lasted:
View attachment 579068

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6894985

There have been multiple issues from which this service suffered:

• Slow travel speeds over the GEXR Guelp Sub
• The long distance and travel time (especially from Toronto)
• The low frequency (once per day)

However, the biggest issue was that with only a single frequency, you have to offer commuter-friendly arrival and departure times wherever people work and it’s just impossible to simultaneously hit Kitchener, Guelph, Brampton and Toronto at the right spot, especially if the latter is almost 4 hours away…

East bound, they should have used the existing 3858. Westbound , they should have used 3977. That would mean that the train would get into Union at 0814 and leave at 1749. That would give commuters who work a regular schedule an opportunity to use it and for the pilot to actually show whether it is worth doing it.

The only problem with the way they did it was the scheduled time they got in and out of Union,.

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/upload/v1713166958/Documents/GO/full-schedules/FS27042024/TABLE31.pdf

 

[Urban Sky]

East bound, they should have used the existing 3858. Westbound , they should have used 3977. That would mean that the train would get into Union at 0814 and leave at 1749. That would give commuters who work a regular schedule an opportunity to use it and for the pilot to actually show whether it is worth doing it.

The only problem with the way they did it was the scheduled time they got in and out of Union,.

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/upload/v1713166958/Documents/GO/full-schedules/FS27042024/TABLE31.pdf

Even for your own standards, this suggestion of a commute is shockingly harebrained (as has already been pointed out to you multiple times):

04:14 Dep. London
08:28 Arr. Toronto Union
17:49 Dep. Toronto Union
21:49 Arr. London
=> Even if you sleep in a tent right on the platform in London, you’d struggle to get 6 hours of rest before your next “commute”…

That’s maybe more a question for the mods here, but at which point does a (repeatedly debunked) suggestion cease to be a serious attempt of engaging into a discussion rather than just relentless trolling…?

 

[micheal_can]

Even for your own standards, this suggestion of a commute is shockingly harebrained (as has already been pointed out to you multiple times):

04:14 Dep. London
08:28 Arr. Toronto Union
17:49 Dep. Toronto Union
21:49 Arr. London
=> Even if you sleep in a tent right on the platform in London, you’d struggle to get 6 hours of rest before your next “commute”…

There is a choice that was made, either you do a proper timing into and out of Union to test whether it is warranted, or not. No argument that an 8 hour train ride is bad, but this was not about the train ride, it was about the timing of the train in and out of Union so that people who work regular jobs and regular hours could potentially use it.

 

[Urban Sky]

There is a choice that was made, either you do a proper timing into and out of Union to test whether it is warranted, or not. No argument that an 8 hour train ride is bad, but this was not about the train ride, it was about the timing of the train in and out of Union so that people who work regular jobs and regular hours could potentially use it.

Here is the same trip on VIA, allowing its travellers at least 4 hours more in their beds:
06:25 London
08:35 Toronto
16:15/17:22 Toronto
18:27/19:47 London

 

[micheal_can]

Here is the same trip on VIA, allowing its travellers at least 4 hours more in their beds:
06:25 London
08:35 Toronto
16:15/17:22 Toronto
18:27/19:47 London

The train should leave after 5pm so that commuters can get from their work to Union in time for it. Twenty minutes on each end is much better than arriving after 9 am and leaving before 5pm

 

[north-of-anything]

Maybe people should just not commute daily between London and Toronto because that is an absurd distance for any commuter without a private jet? It's an equal distance to commute to Detroit every day.

The reason it's so difficult to take the train from London to Toronto and back every day is because it doesn't make any sense. Especially with the rise of WFH, people will just go in once or twice a week, or rent a "crash pad" apartment in the suburbs. The GO service failed because it was a logistical blunder where the real demand (I assume commuting to Kitchener/Guelph) didn't match the service provided.

Also doesn't London-Toronto count as the Quebec-Windsor Corridor? Why is it being talked about here, anyways?

 

[micheal_can]

Maybe people should just not commute daily between London and Toronto because that is an absurd distance for any commuter without a private jet? It's an equal distance to commute to Detroit every day.

The reason it's so difficult to take the train from London to Toronto and back every day is because it doesn't make any sense. Especially with the rise of WFH, people will just go in once or twice a week, or rent a "crash pad" apartment in the suburbs. The GO service failed because it was a logistical blunder where the real demand (I assume commuting to Kitchener/Guelph) didn't match the service provided.

Also doesn't London-Toronto count as the Quebec-Windsor Corridor? Why is it being talked about here, anyways?

Those long commutes are a sing of a much bigger problem that no government wants to seriously fix. That is a case of affordable homes. Imagine thinking that for your family, it is cheaper to live in London and commute to Toronto for work. That is what you are seeing. I agree it is crazy, but it is a reality.

 

[crs1026]

Maybe people should just not commute daily between London and Toronto because that is an absurd distance for any commuter without a private jet? It's an equal distance to commute to Detroit every day.

Your opinion, and while I wouldn’t do it either, I won’t judge people who do. The time and money disincentives certainly reduce the populariry, I’m sure… but even more people drive to Aldershot and park there, many coming a long ways to do so.

The reason it's so difficult to take the train from London to Toronto and back every day is because it doesn't make any sense.

Say what? There is already a pretty good morning train from London to Union via Brantford, and choice of return trains in the late afternoon. I have no idea how many people take it daily, versus only when they need to work in Toronto…. But the service is there and people do use it.

The failed London-Stratfors-Kitchener service was more about commuting to KW and from Stratford to Toronto. For London travellers it was redundant to the Brantford route trains.

Also doesn't London-Toronto count as the Quebec-Windsor Corridor? Why is it being talked about here, anyways?

Good point. I wonder why a certain poster chose to raise it here.

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

Below are three different trains which depart my native hometown of Darmstadt within 11 minutes, all serving Frankfurt Central Station and I struggle to see anything nonsensically about this:
View attachment 578520

• The ICE train departs 08:24 and takes 16 minutes without an intermediary stop and costs 15.30 Euros for a standard fare one-way ticket and is your preferred choice if you have a BahnCard 100 (an annual pass valid in virtually any train in Germany) or if you have a long-distance if you can use this train as part of a long-distance ticket.
• The RB train departs 08:30 and takes 18 minutes with one intermediary stop and costs you 10.55 EUR for a standard fare one-way ticket and is your preferred choice if you have a Deutschland-Ticket (49 EUR per month, valid for virtually all local trains and transit modes in Germany) and travelling through Frankfurt Station is convenient for you.
• The S3 train departs 08:35 and takes 38 minutes with 15 intermediary stops and requires the exact tickets as the RB train. It is your preferred choice if it brings you somewhere faster than travelling with the RB via Frankfurt Central Station.

As long as VIA and GO operate fundamentally different fleets (train length, capacity and amenities), they will invariably provide a service quality (frequency and travel times), amentities (seat comfort, staffing) and ticketing (flexible free-for-all vs. reserved seat) so fundamentally different that they won’t be able to invade into each other’s turf.


The failed GO experiment has sufficiently proven that 195km is far too far of a distance to provide commuter rail service and that Toronto-London belongs to the intercity rail network currently operated by VIA, as part of its Toronto-Windsor/Sarnia routes. “Commuter rail” and “intercity rail” are primarily references to the rolling stock and service quality, not the kind of passengers which take them (as no one rail service could survive on only one passenger type).


Until December 1990 (i.e. almost one year after the 1990 cuts), the Montreal-Senneterre-Cochrane service operated three times per week all the way until Cochrane. Then, a timetable change only allowed for a single train continuing beyond LaSarre:
View attachment 578599View attachment 578600

I was only mentioning this because it was the only time VIA operated a regular route less than twice weekly (and I am of course fully aware that the service - and with it the tracks - disappeared somewhere around 1998)…


You are missing my point: the conservatives compete on a platform which promises to include Western Canadians (and even First Nations communities). Abandoning all non-Corridor routes while overseeing massive investments in the Corridor would signal quite the opposite:
View attachment 578602
Even their Transport and Infrastructure policy positions read anything but hostile towards VIA and HFR:
View attachment 578615View attachment 578617


Yawn, life must be really boring in Vancouver right now…

Good point. I wonder why a certain poster chose to raise it here.

- Paul

 

[lenaitch]

Green and yellow cabs? Purple one-decker buses? 9 lanes of traffic? That's clearly not London. The cab colours suggest India.

I believe that's Delhi.

You very well could be right. I was just looking for stock images online; perhaps it was mis-captioned.

 

[Urban Sky]

You very well could be right. I was just looking for stock images online; perhaps it was mis-captioned.

Whether that stock photo was London or Delhi, the point stands that both cities (and virtually any major city on this planet) have unsustainable levels of motor vehicles and struggle to reduce their negative impacts. Wherever cars are available, they still thrive…

 

[nfitz]

Whether that stock photo was London or Delhi, the point stands that both cities (and virtually any major city on this planet) have unsustainable levels of motor vehicles and struggle to reduce their negative impacts. Wherever cars are available, they still thrive…

Outside of the congestion charge zone. It's night and day once you go inside. They struggle with the politics of expanding it. There are simple solutions to implement though, if there's political will.

And one advantage of doing it, is that buses move very quickly inside the congestion zone; and virtually park outside of it.