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VIA Rail: New Funding

Did anyone actually announce that 30 minutes would be cut off the Toronto-Montreal trip?

If so that'd be great. If there hasn't been such an announcement however, I'd be skeptical. Perhaps the $300 million is to better ensure that the 4 hour express trips are actually more often on time?
 
kEiThZ said:
I'd say there's still huge bottlenecks on the T-O-M routes that need to be fixed. My personal pet peeve is Brockville-Ottawa (passing track only at Smith's Falls). Is there anyone here that hasn't waited on a VIA train at Smith's Falls? The longest I've waited for a train to pass is an hour. They need to double track that route or at least add a few passing tracks further south. And there's plenty of room to do it. It's not like the corridor is being squeezed by development.
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They are currently developing plans for a new station in Smith's Falls (probably east of the exisiting one), as well as track work to eliminate the bottleneck. I am not sure what is being planned between Smith's Falls and Brockville, but I know the section between Smith's Falls and Ottawa is being targeted for commuter rail, so a lot of upgrades to that section should come out of any future commuter rail project.

Edit: I would also add that VIA is working with the various interest groups on 2 of the 3 proposed commuter rail links in Ottawa. Of course, that doesn't mean they will end up operating them, but they are taking an interest in Ottawa and have been very co-operative so far.
 
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Necessary Evil said:
Yes, check today's media. http://www.montrealgazette.com/story_print.html?id=1797962&sponsor=
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Thx. I didn't see that. However, that doesn't say the 4 hr trip will be cut to 3.5 hrs.

What that says is that average trip could be cut by as much as a half hour, but one has to remember that most of those trips have several stops, and several are milk runs.

"The addition of a third track at eight strategic points will allow Via to add two trains per day in each direction, and should result in an average cut of "as much as 30 minutes" per Montreal-Toronto trip, said Andrews."

My take on that is that the 4 hour express will remain about 4 hours, but it will be more consistently on time, and some of the other trains schedules will shorten, but will still be longer than the express.

Or perhaps, they'll add another express train of 4 hours, which will decrease the overall average trip time too when you put that in a box of all the Toronto-Montreal corridor trains.
 
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I know this would be expensive but after what happened in Los Angela's last year when one of it's commuter trains crashed with a freight train I have learned to think that maybe freight and commuter rail track should be kept seperated as much as possible. Not only would this investment increase the efficiency of this route for the commuter trains, the freight trains presently get the right of way because CN owns the tracks. As well as speeding up VIA's times for its commuter or passenger trains it's safety would increase.
 
GTS said:
I know this would be expensive but after what happened in Los Angela's last year when one of it's commuter trains crashed with a freight train I have learned to think that maybe freight and commuter rail track should be kept seperated as much as possible. Not only would this investment increase the efficiency of this route for the commuter trains, the freight trains presently get the right of way because CN owns the tracks. As well as speeding up VIA's times for its commuter or passenger trains it's safety would increase.
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Safety will not increase just because of this. They'll still be using the same tracks, there'll just be more of them.

ShonTron said:
Oshawa might get tunnels as well as part of GO's eastern expansion.
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Unlikely, GO's looking to expand eastward to Bowmanville via the CP line, not via the CN route. If so, no improvements would be made to the Oshawa station, at least not on GO's expense.
 
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I don't think he did. I think he assumes that if you have more tracks, the trains would never run the opposite way on the same tracks - which of course is not the case.
 
I read a comment which suggested tracks should be built, potentially at a higher cost, to isolate passenger and freight trains followed by a response that the passenger and freight trains would still be using the same track under that scenario. If the scenario is designed to isolate passenger and freight how can that result in not isolating passenger and freight?
 
EnviroTO said:
I read a comment which suggested tracks should be built, potentially at a higher cost, to isolate passenger and freight trains followed by a response that the passenger and freight trains would still be using the same track under that scenario. If the scenario is designed to isolate passenger and freight how can that result in not isolating passenger and freight?
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Because when they build extra tracks, they don't isolate passengers and freight. Okay, I see where your going ... but I don't think it's ever been done in North America - outside perhaps the approach to a major city terminal, or the Mount Royal tunnel.
 
unimaginative2 said:
While GO will have a market in K-W (mostly students), there will still be a lot of people who would much prefer VIA. The GO service will take at least two hours, and that's simply unreasonably long for most riders.
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That's presuming that the Kitchener GO train will stop at every GO station. I can't think of any reason it should stop at Mount Pleasant, Bramalea, Malton, or North Etobicoke. Weston can be cut too, if it is replaced with a station at Eglinton.
 
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nfitz said:
Because when they build extra tracks, they don't isolate passengers and freight. Okay, I see where your going ... but I don't think it's ever been done in North America - outside perhaps the approach to a major city terminal, or the Mount Royal tunnel.
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... or between Pickering and Oshawa for GO Transit.
 
kettal said:
That's presuming that the Kitchener GO train will stop at every GO station. I can't think of any reason it should stop at Mount Pleasant, Bramalea, Malton, or North Etobicoke. Weston can be cut too, if it is replaced with a station at Eglinton.
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If KW service arrived after (or concurrent with) the line having lots of service (ie. like Lakeshore) then I guess you are right. If the KW service arrives with the service levels as they are now, then the answer to your question is "yes, it has to stop at all those stations otherwise you are adding service to a fairly far flung destination {by GO standards} at the expense of people who are much deeper in the commuter shed and who are already underserved".
 
Yeah there's no way Kitchener will be getting express GO trains before Milton LOL.
 
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