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

[crs1026]

The market capitalization of CN and CPKC is approximatey $100 billion each, which meanst that we know the absolute lowest price point at which public control over our rail infrastructure could possibly be achieved…

It's worth remembering also that past nationalization of railways mostly was sellable when the railways were unable to raise enough capital to maintain their own operations, and there was a risk of the system completely falling to pieces. Measured against this standard, our complaints with CN and CPKC are pretty minor.

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

The market capitalization of CN and CPKC is approximatey $100 billion each, which meanst that we know the absolute lowest price point at which public control over our rail infrastructure could possibly be achieved…

I thought it was much higher.

 

[roger1818]

...Point I was making is that the lowly crew can see what the big wigs can't.

Or more accurately, the big wigs can see what the lowly crew can't.

 

[micheal_can]

Or more accurately, the big wigs can see what the lowly crew can't.

They both have different perspectives. The key thing should be that they both listen to each other, and each try to understand each other's view.

 

[lenaitch]

Point I was making is that the lowly crew can see what the big wigs can't

What is it that the crew "sees"?

If marketed like they do the Agawa, it could fill the rooms at the 2 motels at least throughout the fall. Due to the turn around time, there is really time just to get a meal and then sleep. Many whom ride the Agawa may like that and may do it if it were marketed right. For instance, with an Agawa ticket,you can also book lodgings in the Soo. Imagine booking the Via Budd ticket and being able to book the hotel too?

Other than fall colours and northern scenery in general, what is the tourist 'hook'? Agawa has the canyon, with rudimentary but tourist-friendly wandering/exploring facilities and the visual attraction of the more rugged terrain east of Lake Superior including traversing the Montreal River dam with Lake Superior in the distance.

You're not really going to try and equate the marketing potential of a couple of strip motels (only one of which I think has a restaurant), and few scattered fast food eateries, none of which are near the station, with what is available in the Soo. The advantage of offering packages in the Soo are it is the same day departure and arrival point and the vast majority of the tourists have their personal vehicle to use..

 

[micheal_can]

What is it that the crew "sees"?

As residents of the area, they see potential that someone in Montreal may not see.

Other than fall colours and northern scenery in general, what is the tourist 'hook'? Agawa has the canyon, with rudimentary but tourist-friendly wandering/exploring facilities and the visual attraction of the more rugged terrain east of Lake Superior including traversing the Montreal River dam with Lake Superior in the distance.

You're not really going to try and equate the marketing potential of a couple of strip motels (only one of which I think has a restaurant), and few scattered fast food eateries, none of which are near the station, with what is available in the Soo. The advantage of offering packages in the Soo are it is the same day departure and arrival point and the vast majority of the tourists have their personal vehicle to use..

Realize that the Agawa Canyon train is over 20 cars long and carries over 900 people a day when it is running. You are assuming I am thinking that large or broad. I am thinking that the RDC 1 and 2 get filled. So about 150 people.

The advantage of this trip is it can be done on a weekend and you could easily get home to the GTA at a reasonable hour.

 

[lenaitch]

As residents of the area, they see potential that someone in Montreal may not see.

And they also probably don't see the costs or other implications. Maybe they should write a letter to their bosses. I'm sure you wrote good idea letters to the CRCN all the time.

Realize that the Agawa Canyon train is over 20 cars long and carries over 900 people a day when it is running. You are assuming I am thinking that large or broad. I am thinking that the RDC 1 and 2 get filled. So about 150 people.

The advantage of this trip is it can be done on a weekend and you could easily get home to the GTA at a reasonable hour.

I'm not saying the route has no tourist potential; I'm saying it doesn't have enough to essentially throw 20% of White River's population into a motel and restaurant capacity that doesn't exist, and nobody's going to build that capacity for a couple of week per year.

I've not ridden the train but have worked in the area. Most of the route is comparatively flat (that's why the RR chose it) and the west end is at the far limit of the St. Lawrence hardwood forest and into the Boreal. The fall colours are pretty much yellow and brown. There is little comparison to the terrain and vibrant hardwoods of Algoma.

It can be done in a GTA weekend? Really. If the eight hour scheduled trip is run in daylight, people would have to overnight in Sudbury for a morning start (or leave really, really early), then overnight in White River, then overnight in Sudbury again. Little different that the Agawa train; the drive is longer but the train is a day trip, and if they want to linger, there is more to do in SSM than White River.

 

[crs1026]

The scenery west of White River on CPKc along the north shore of Lake Superior is about the best in Northern Ontario, better even than the Agawa Canyon IMHO.

One can always fantasize about a local train service serving towns along that route (or any other route, for that matter), but we have talked that out ad nauseum. The cost of that service relative to a bus, and the potential ridership served, and the cost of the investment to add that capacity to the CPKC line, does not make economic sense.

While it's a shame that tourists can't enjoy that scenery, and especially that the VIA Canadian plies the more northern CN route, there is good reason for that, as we have also discussed to death.

One can only envy the railroaders who get to operate over that stunning scenery (although for them, -30 at 04:00 on a January morning is no sightseeing experience).

As an aside, CPKC recently removed the diamond across the old ACR at Franz. How the Agawa service hangs on, I really don't understand.... a few trains in Autumn in no way covers the cost of that line. There is no end to end business on the ACR any more.

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

And they also probably don't see the costs or other implications. Maybe they should write a letter to their bosses. I'm sure you wrote good idea letters to the CRCN all the time.

They,just like I, know that they are not going to listen.
During hands fall in, they want to hear "Yes Sir!" "Good,Sir!" and "Thank you, Sir!" Saying much else makes you an "Administrative burden"(Ask me how I know...)

Listening to the underlings about ways that your company could do better is something a good manager/CEO should do. Helping their underlings understand why they cannot action those ideas is also a good manager/CEO should do.

I'm not saying the route has no tourist potential; I'm saying it doesn't have enough to essentially throw 20% of White River's population into a motel and restaurant capacity that doesn't exist, and nobody's going to build that capacity for a couple of week per year.

Lets say that there are 200 rooms within the 2 hotels. And lets say that with the existing restaurants (not including the fast food places), How would it be bad that the Budd car pulls in every Saturday for a month in the fall full? BTW, the capacity is somewhere around 150. If you really wanted to make it a shorter train trip with more time off the train, people could get off in Chapleau. They are a bigger town.

I've not ridden the train but have worked in the area. Most of the route is comparatively flat (that's why the RR chose it) and the west end is at the far limit of the St. Lawrence hardwood forest and into the Boreal. The fall colours are pretty much yellow and brown. There is little comparison to the terrain and vibrant hardwoods of Algoma.

That is kinda the point. The Agawa is great for certain reasons. This one is great for other reasons.

It can be done in a GTA weekend? Really. If the eight hour scheduled trip is run in daylight, people would have to overnight in Sudbury for a morning start (or leave really, really early), then overnight in White River, then overnight in Sudbury again. Little different that the Agawa train; the drive is longer but the train is a day trip, and if they want to linger, there is more to do in SSM than White River.

Drive up after working a Friday. Spend the night in Sudbury. Take the train to White River. Spend the night there.Come back and be back at 4pm If the train is a few hours late, it is still an easy enough drive to get back to Toronto before midnight.

The scenery west of White River on CPKc along the north shore of Lake Superior is about the best in Northern Ontario, better even than the Agawa Canyon IMHO.

One can always fantasize about a local train service serving towns along that route (or any other route, for that matter), but we have talked that out ad nauseum. The cost of that service relative to a bus, and the potential ridership served, and the cost of the investment to add that capacity to the CPKC line, does not make economic sense.

Which is why the marketing people need to market the heck out of it as a tourist trip. That is why the Canadian is successful. It is not because it connects those tiny dots on the line through the middle of nowhere. It is because people figured out that the view and the experience can be the draw for people who will never want to get off at those dots. The remote service cannot be marketed like the Corridor service. It needs to be marketed for tourists. It will never be about travelers going from station to station like the Corridor service.

While it's a shame that tourists can't enjoy that scenery, and especially that the VIA Canadian plies the more northern CN route, there is good reason for that, as we have also discussed to death.

One can only envy the railroaders who get to operate over that stunning scenery (although for them, -30 at 04:00 on a January morning is no sightseeing experience).

Especially when one of them has to go out and change a broken knuckle.

As an aside, CPKC recently removed the diamond across the old ACR at Franz. How the Agawa service hangs on, I really don't understand.... a few trains in Autumn in no way covers the cost of that line. There is no end to end business on the ACR any more.

- Paul

It runs for about 3 months. No idea how it is able to survive on that.

 

[crs1026]

Which is why the marketing people need to market the heck out of it as a tourist trip. That is why the Canadian is successful. It is not because it connects those tiny dots on the line through the middle of nowhere. It is because people figured out that the view and the experience can be the draw for people who will never want to get off at those dots. The remote service cannot be marketed like the Corridor service. It needs to be marketed for tourists. It will never be about travelers going from station to station like the Corridor service.

I agree that the remote service mandate may be limiting - but one doesn't need to look to VIA or Ottawa to market the line. Nothing prevents the business people along the line from promoting the line (they do, in many small ways). But they may prefer things as they are. Suppose for instance that some entrepreneur in the North decided that the remote service train is sufficiently marketable to make it worth building another motel of some size in White River or Chapleau. The existing businesses would not welcome that development. And what additional infrastructure and services would those towns have to provide from their fairly limited tax base? The service may not be scalable in a way that benefits the community by being bigger.

I do suspect that the narrower minded folks in the Transport Ministry would be apopleptic if VIA proposed to market the train intensively. They can buy its existence so long as it is a remote service fulfilling a social benefit to an underserved region. But once it becomes a revenue producing vehicle based on tapping a market.... then possibly the subsidy threshold changes and the argument that it's a social necessity weakens. It becomes another unprofitable enterprise that can be cut in favour of spending the subsidy on some other greater benefit somewhere else.

I think you are grasping desperately at straws to prove your vision of a greatly expanded train service. I don't disagree with your passion - it's a nice dream to dream - but you can only use so much of our time and patience to sort through this. There are facts and realities standing in the way.

- Paul

 

[just east of the creek]

The market capitalization of CN and CPKC is approximatey $100 billion each, which meanst that we know the absolute lowest price point at which public control over our rail infrastructure could possibly be achieved…

And 933 million outstanding shares (CPKC)....its a fantasy unless industry and market conditions change so abruptly as to leave strategic continental rail service in peril. And if so, the bare minimum market cap will have had to take a tremendous hit as well. I could forsee a long process of hearings and litigation due to the different levels of national, state and provincial, and regulatory boards who all could, and most probably would want to have a say in any such move. Much the same for CN.

 

[just east of the creek]

And they also probably don't see the costs or other implications. Maybe they should write a letter to their bosses. I'm sure you wrote good idea letters to the CRCN all the time.


I'm not saying the route has no tourist potential; I'm saying it doesn't have enough to essentially throw 20% of White River's population into a motel and restaurant capacity that doesn't exist, and nobody's going to build that capacity for a couple of week per year.

I've not ridden the train but have worked in the area. Most of the route is comparatively flat (that's why the RR chose it) and the west end is at the far limit of the St. Lawrence hardwood forest and into the Boreal. The fall colours are pretty much yellow and brown. There is little comparison to the terrain and vibrant hardwoods of Algoma.

It can be done in a GTA weekend? Really. If the eight hour scheduled trip is run in daylight, people would have to overnight in Sudbury for a morning start (or leave really, really early), then overnight in White River, then overnight in Sudbury again. Little different that the Agawa train; the drive is longer but the train is a day trip, and if they want to linger, there is more to do in SSM than White River.

I have ridden that train more then a few times. And I agree, lovely scenery, White River is not a 'tourist' town, and there is no compelling need to extend a money losing service further west (as much as we might want want to). But it does provide a service along the line it runs - to First Nations, to tourism operators in camps along the route, to other isolated hamlets, and for those of us who want to get off at milepost x, y or z to go fishing, hunting or heading out to James Bay by canoe. And in that fashion it is a class of service that combines tourism and access to other areas not easily accessible. So there is some measurable economic value outside of the fares being paid. What that level of activity is in $, i do nto know, And what it would be without the train, agaion, I do nto know. The service is far more used in summer then winter. Far more reasonable in cost then a local air service.

And if budgets were infinitely elastic, and our appetite for this class of tourism and remote service as elastic as our budgets, we could extend this service in length, we could get the Canadian to run through SSM, up the Agawa and along the shores of Superior (and that's just in Ontario) etc. etc. etc. (My rail and transit fantasies ca be as extensive as anyone's!) But budgets are not and we are going to have to work very hard to retain what we have, improve it as we can, and hope that the provincial government has the wherewithal and political gumption to cover the losses of the new Northlander.

 

[dowlingm]

And 933 million outstanding shares (CPKC)....its a fantasy unless industry and market conditions change so abruptly as to leave strategic continental rail service in peril. And if so, the bare minimum market cap will have had to take a tremendous hit as well. I could forsee a long process of hearings and litigation due to the different levels of national, state and provincial, and regulatory boards who all could, and most probably would want to have a say in any such move. Much the same for CN.

if we are really discussing seizing the means of railroading and bringing CP and CN as entire corporate entities into national ownership we have wandered far into crayon land.

At the same time let‘s not go the other way and assume that the only regulatory options open to the Feds are let things be or buy the whole thing. They just have to feel that the fight they pick using the legislative and executive powers is worth the fight CN and CP put up to keep things as they are. After all, if they simply agreed, we’d know the Feds had given too much away to make it happen.

 

[micheal_can]

I agree that the remote service mandate may be limiting - but one doesn't need to look to VIA or Ottawa to market the line. Nothing prevents the business people along the line from promoting the line (they do, in many small ways). But they may prefer things as they are. Suppose for instance that some entrepreneur in the North decided that the remote service train is sufficiently marketable to make it worth building another motel of some size in White River or Chapleau. The existing businesses would not welcome that development. And what additional infrastructure and services would those towns have to provide from their fairly limited tax base? The service may not be scalable in a way that benefits the community by being bigger.

I do suspect that the narrower minded folks in the Transport Ministry would be apopleptic if VIA proposed to market the train intensively. They can buy its existence so long as it is a remote service fulfilling a social benefit to an underserved region. But once it becomes a revenue producing vehicle based on tapping a market.... then possibly the subsidy threshold changes and the argument that it's a social necessity weakens. It becomes another unprofitable enterprise that can be cut in favour of spending the subsidy on some other greater benefit somewhere else.

I think you are grasping desperately at straws to prove your vision of a greatly expanded train service. I don't disagree with your passion - it's a nice dream to dream - but you can only use so much of our time and patience to sort through this. There are facts and realities standing in the way.

- Paul

Honestly, I doubt that if a full Budd service arrived it would warrant a new motel. The Continental Motel lists 54 rooms. The White River Motel does not list how many they have. Before I came, they did have about 70 people ride the route and stay in the town. There were enough rooms.

I have ridden that train more then a few times. And I agree, lovely scenery, White River is not a 'tourist' town, and there is no compelling need to extend a money losing service further west (as much as we might want want to). But it does provide a service along the line it runs - to First Nations, to tourism operators in camps along the route, to other isolated hamlets, and for those of us who want to get off at milepost x, y or z to go fishing, hunting or heading out to James Bay by canoe. And in that fashion it is a class of service that combines tourism and access to other areas not easily accessible. So there is some measurable economic value outside of the fares being paid. What that level of activity is in $, i do nto know, And what it would be without the train, agaion, I do nto know. The service is far more used in summer then winter. Far more reasonable in cost then a local air service.

My thinking is to use that 'lovely scenery' to turn this train into one that is not money losing.

And if budgets were infinitely elastic, and our appetite for this class of tourism and remote service as elastic as our budgets, we could extend this service in length, we could get the Canadian to run through SSM, up the Agawa and along the shores of Superior (and that's just in Ontario) etc. etc. etc. (My rail and transit fantasies ca be as extensive as anyone's!) But budgets are not and we are going to have to work very hard to retain what we have, improve it as we can, and hope that the provincial government has the wherewithal and political gumption to cover the losses of the new Northlander.

Now that would be a great route. It would cover all the towns between Sudbury and SSM, as well as points west of White River. However, improving the ridership of an existing route is important. That is not fantasy. That is good business.

if we are really discussing seizing the means of railroading and bringing CP and CN as entire corporate entities into national ownership we have wandered far into crayon land.

At the same time let‘s not go the other way and assume that the only regulatory options open to the Feds are let things be or buy the whole thing. They just have to feel that the fight they pick using the legislative and executive powers is worth the fight CN and CP put up to keep things as they are. After all, if they simply agreed, we’d know the Feds had given too much away to make it happen.

At one point,I thought that nationalizing the railways would be good. The problem is, it would be in the courts so long that by the time anyone won, the original CEOs and lawyers would have long since retired, My 'new' way of thinking is regulating what is needed for efficient passenger service,.

 

[lenaitch]

The scenery west of White River on CPKc along the north shore of Lake Superior is about the best in Northern Ontario, better even than the Agawa Canyon IMHO.

I agree. East of White River it's nothing spectacular (northern Ontario nice, but that's it).

As an aside, CPKC recently removed the diamond across the old ACR at Franz. How the Agawa service hangs on, I really don't understand.... a few trains in Autumn in no way covers the cost of that line. There is no end to end business on the ACR any more.

Neither do I. I think they do the yard work for Algoma Steel but, beyond a few forestry carloads, I don't there's much else. Whoever owns the Ring of Fire (I loose track) announced SSM as the site for the Chromium refinery so maybe they are hanging on for that.

Lets say that there are 200 rooms within the 2 hotels. And lets say that with the existing restaurants (not including the fast food places), How would it be bad that the Budd car pulls in every Saturday for a month in the fall full? BTW, the capacity is somewhere around 150. If you really wanted to make it a shorter train trip with more time off the train, people could get off in Chapleau. They are a bigger town.

If you think you can turn White River and Chapleau into non-fishing/hunting tourist destinations, there's a job for you at NOTO or Destinations Northern Ontario.