VIA Rail

[crs1026]

Visit any city park or highway off ramp, and look at all the litter? Go on a bus and listen to people playing youtube out loud. A huge percent of people in the country or at least cities are really selfish, imagine sharing a building with them? I've lived in a townhouse and for years my neighbours music shakes the walls

We aren’t talking about the built form of housing (although proximity is coming… and trust me, people with big back yards have rude noisy neighbours also).
We are talking about co-locating relevant things so that schools are not built far away from rec centers or medical offices so that one has to pick the kids up after school and drive them to doctors’ offices or swimming lessons. And locate stores, restaurants, bowling alleys and whatever so that you don’t need to drive anywhere to buy a bag of milk.
We are still planning suburbs that space everything out in a way that forces auto use, and that need not be the case.

- Paul

 

[roger1818]

Visit any city park or highway off ramp, and look at all the litter? Go on a bus and listen to people playing youtube out loud. A huge percent of people in the country or at least cities are really selfish, imagine sharing a building with them? I've lived in a townhouse and for years my neighbours music shakes the walls

Funny how this seems to only be an problem here in North America. Go to almost any other continent (or even Montreal here in Canada for that matter) and people live in dense neighbourhoods without significant issues. Interestingly often those places also have better train service. Makes you wonder if the two are linked somehow. Certainly more density makes having centralized train stations more viable as you are more likely to be close to both your origin and destination.

Besides, you can still have some level of density with single family homes. Just remove the front and back yards and make the buildings smaller, multi story homes. Large grass lawns were mandated to make home ownership unaffordable for people of colour, as you needed hire someone to keep them manicured.

 

[crs1026]

Greater openness when it involves financial matters is tricky when one side is a competitive, for-profit entity. On non-financial or regulatory issues, it might indeed help VIA's case, particularly when the answer to an ask is little more than obstructionist (I say that not knowing a thing about the day-to-day relationship between the parties).

It seems 'precision railroading' left both CN and CP with limited capacity for flexibility.

There will always be confidential aspects, but I’m not sure that prevents more disclosure. At least put greater onus on the railways to justify their objections in some way.

I do wonder also about carrots and sticks for performance. Whatever the incentive or penalty clauses are today, they do not adequately shape railway behaviour especially around dispatching. Perhaps CN makes better money by foregoing VIA incentives to keep freight efficient, but There are glaring examples where VIA is not given priority where that action would not harm the host…. Ironically, Metrolinx is a major offender here. A lot of this is simple middle managerial apathy in the RTC office. Perhaps this can be enforced in a contract without a legal backing, but clearly at present the railways’ contracts seem to stop after “we will try, but no guarantees”.

Easier to do when actual growth is involved. "Building" implies growth. For many communities, particularly smaller, outlying ones, growth can be slow at best so you are stuck with the existing layout. Nobody is expecting existing towns to be bulldozed and replaced with a highrise.

No, but it’s amazing how much careful infill can achieve instead of allowing sprawl. Some Southern Ontario cities have already grasped this, but developers ran to Dofo and got the municipal measures undone.

- Paul

 

[turbanplanner]

Funny how this seems to only be an problem here in North America. Go to almost any other continent (or even Montreal here in Canada for that matter) and people live in dense neighbourhoods without significant issues. Interestingly often those places also have better train service. Makes you wonder if the two are linked somehow. Certainly more density makes having centralized train stations more viable as you are more likely to be close to both your origin and destination.

Besides, you can still have some level of density with single family homes. Just remove the front and back yards and make the buildings smaller, multi story homes. Large grass lawns were mandated to make home ownership unaffordable for people of colour, as you needed hire someone to keep them manicured.

I was in Japan and didn't hear one person even talk on the train, there is less of a me first culture outside NA.

 

[roger1818]

Easier to do when actual growth is involved. "Building" implies growth. For many communities, particularly smaller, outlying ones, growth can be slow at best so you are stuck with the existing layout. Nobody is expecting existing towns to be bulldozed and replaced with a highrise.

People often mistakenly conflate density with high rises. Duplexes, townhomes, low rise apartments, and even small single family homes can provide significant density. The older parts of many small towns have decent density to start with, though things can gradually be made better.

We aren’t talking about the built form of housing (although proximity is coming… and trust me, people with big back yards have rude noisy neighbours also).
We are talking about co-locating relevant things so that schools are not built far away from rec centers or medical offices so that one has to pick the kids up after school and drive them to doctors’ offices or swimming lessons. And locate stores, restaurants, bowling alleys and whatever so that you don’t need to drive anywhere to buy a bag of milk.
We are still planning suburbs that space everything out in a way that forces auto use, and that need not be the case.

- Paul

This! We have restricted large swaths of our cities with R1 zoning that make building anything other than single family homes illegal. Of course having 4 school boards that cover the same region doesn't help, as it means you are (on average) twice as far from your chosen local school.

Not Just Bikes made a great video on how Toronto's older, streetcar suburbs have this kind of diversity. The problem is mostly with the post-war suburbs, where building services close to homes is prohibited.

 

[lenaitch]

People often mistakenly conflate density with high rises. Duplexes, townhomes, low rise apartments, and even small single family homes can provide significant density. The older parts of many small towns have decent density to start with, though things can gradually be made better.

Ya, fair enough; I was just trying to illustrate a point. When we lived in Aurora in the '80s, growth was just starting and it was still quite walkable, but some communities ('settlement areas'?) are simply too small to have much of anything to walk to. Micheal spoke of being X km from a VIA Sudbury-White River flag stop, so I'm guessing small.

Even outside of settlement areas, there is a whole lot of rural, populated by folks who feed us.

 

[roger1818]

Even outside of settlement areas, there is a whole lot of rural, populated by folks who feed us.

Certainly farmers and those who support them need to live in rural areas that are not very walkable, and I have no problems with that. I also don't judge those who choose to live in a car dependant neighbourhood. My issue comes when people choose to live somewhere car dependant and then feel that they are entitled to the same level of service as those who made more sustainable choices.

 

[kEiThZ]

My issue comes when people choose to live somewhere car dependant and then feel that they are entitled to the same level of service as those who made more sustainable choices.

Exactly. If I move to the middle of nowhere, I'm not going to expect public transit to almost my front door, as I would have with a condo in downtown Toronto.

Honestly, I look forward to the Corridor being separated out from VIA. So that these useless debates will end. And at last the Corridor can hit full potential without being held back by people from the middle of nowhere constantly arguing for more.

 

[reaperexpress]

Brightline is a pertinent case study for us in Canada because its current operations are very similar to the proposed operations under Via Rail’s High Frequency Rail proposal. It has hourly service which primarily uses existing railways upgraded to permit speeds of up to 110 mph (177 km/h), as well as a small amount of new 125 mph (201 km/h) railway to fill gaps. It even uses the same Siemens Charger locomotives and Siemens Venture coaches as Via!

To see how much Brightline’s 200 km/h top speed contributes to its high average speed, I measured train speeds along the Orlando Line, which is the new 200 km/h railway alongside State Route 528 which connects the existing Florida East Coast railway to Orlando. This 60 km railway is the only portion of the 380 km corridor which is grade separated and thus the only portion where trains can reach their 200 km/h top speed.



I cross-referenced the distances between landmarks such as bridges and buidings with the times where they appeared in this video by the Roaming Railfan to produce a speed profile throughout the video (raw data here):


Since the measurements were from one location to another, the speed profile is a series of averages rather than instantaneous measurements, so it is not very accurate for portions where the train is accelerating or decelerating. In the westbound video the train slowed down near the Dallas Toll Plaza, but in the eastbound video it did not. The slowdown is therefore not due to a track speed restriction and I have ignored it in the following diagrams.

Based on the speed profile, here is my best guess as to the speed limits along the new railway.


Orlando line from the FEC railway (right side of image) to I-95 (left side of image)

Heading from east to west, trains diverge from the Florida East Coast Railway and are limited to about 60 mph (97 km/h) through the sharp curve under State Route 528. Trains accelerate to about 80 mph (129 km/h), but then need to slow to 70 mph (112 km/h) for the curves near I-95 where the railway also crosses to the south side of SR528.


Orlando line from I-95 to CP Orlando west

From Pine Street to Control Point (CP) Orlando West (which is confusingly east of Orlando), trains can cruise at their top service speed of 125 mph (201 km/h).


Orlando line from CP Orlando West to Orlando station

At CP Orlando West, the line widens from single-track to double-track. Trains switching tracks need to slow to 80 mph (129 km/h), and that is the case for the train in the westbound video. Although the 80 mph turnout speed does restrict speeds, it is far better than the 45 mph (72 km/h) turnout speed which is typical in Canada.

West of CP Orlando West, trains are limited to about 90 mph (145 km/h) due to a series of curves around interchanges such as SR417 and Narcoossee Road.

The final stretch into Orlando Airport includes many sharp curves, and trains stay below 35 mph (56 km/h).

In total trains exceed 110 mph for 9 minutes out of the 205-minute trip (5% of the time), during which they cover 29 km out of 378 km (8% of the distance). If trains were limited to 110 mph, it would only add 1 minute to the travel time. Based on this fact, I don’t think that Brightline can accurately be described as a high-speed rail service.

The main reason that Brightline is able to achieve a higher average speed than any other conventional train in North America is that the project included extensive upgrades to the existing FEC railway, including realigning curves, upgrading level crossings and fully double-tracking the line. As far as we can tell, the FECR is very supportive of Brightline, and they dispatch their freight trains such that they do not impede Brightline’s passenger trains.

___

The above was an excerpt from my blog post 'How fast is Brightline?'

 

[micheal_can]

Fortunately there is enough traffic (by all modes, not just rail) in the Corridor to draw riders riders from to make the service self sustainable, and VIA doesn't have to look for alternate revenue streams, like land cruisers, to cover costs.

True, so, keep the land yacht at the current schedule. Then using the same scheduled times, have shorter trains running on the places where it could stand to have a daily service.
For instance:
Halifax to Moncton
Edmonton to Jasper
Edmonton to Saskatoon
Winnipeg to Saskatoon
Sudbury to Toronto.
Those 5 could support a singular daily train without the higher cost amenities.. None of them are longer than 12 hours so the need for large sleepers could be avoided. If some were needed,go for the ones that are simple bunks

The point is it needn't be limited to big cities. Any town or city can develop walkable neighbourhoods, where venues for all of one's daily tasks are within an easy walk. The beauty of this approach is that it doesn't cost any extra money and the density that comes from this makes transit much more sustainable.

The problem is we keep on building car dependant, sprawling monstrosities and many people are ignorant to this when choosing where to live. If you truly want to make a difference, start to "think globally, act locally" and push for denser neighbourhoods to be built within your community.

We also keep ignoring simple solutions to fixing car dependency. Think of car dependency as a spectrum. On one end we have the need for a car for everything. On the other end is there is no need for a car to be owned ever. I am nearer to the extreme need for a car, but with options, like a daily train to Toronto, I would move to further no need for one. Most of the trips to Toronto, Ottawa,Montreal and London that I have made in the last year have not really had a need for the car outside of actually getting there. The shopping we do is able to fit in an extra suitcase or cooler, so one more checked baggage isn't a big deal. That is how you start getting people outside of the large urban centres to give up their car.

Greater openness when it involves financial matters is tricky when one side is a competitive, for-profit entity. On non-financial or regulatory issues, it might indeed help VIA's case, particularly when the answer to an ask is little more than obstructionist (I say that not knowing a thing about the day-to-day relationship between the parties).

It seems 'precision railroading' left both CN and CP with limited capacity for flexibility.

CN And CP are about cutting costs to maximize profits. The problem is, they are now cutting in places that are actually hurting them and it is causing domino effects throughout their network. If some sort of regulation comes in, it will be costly for the owners to make it work, but that cost could have been carried over the decades and would have seen much better freight and passenger service in Canada.

 

[micheal_can]

Exactly. If I move to the middle of nowhere, I'm not going to expect public transit to almost my front door, as I would have with a condo in downtown Toronto.

Honestly, I look forward to the Corridor being separated out from VIA. So that these useless debates will end. And at last the Corridor can hit full potential without being held back by people from the middle of nowhere constantly arguing for more.

Via is not being held back due to their long distance service. It is being held back due to existing problems along the Kingston Subdivision. All long distance service could be canceled today and the problems within the Corridor would not change.

 

[lenaitch]

Honestly, I look forward to the Corridor being separated out from VIA. So that these useless debates will end. And at last the Corridor can hit full potential without being held back by some people from the middle of nowhere constantly arguing for more.

FIFY

Some of us are quite happy with what we have (well, except a local doctor and proximity to Lee Valley).

 

[Urban Sky]

Based on the speed profile, here is my best guess as to the speed limits along the new railway.

Very interesting analysis, but have you compared your guesses with the speed limits provided on Open Railway Maps? I am aware that it is not the most reliable of sources, but it‘s often the best available public source…

 

[Urban Sky]

True, so, keep the land yacht at the current schedule. Then using the same scheduled times, have shorter trains running on the places where it could stand to have a daily service.
For instance:
Halifax to Moncton
Edmonton to Jasper
Edmonton to Saskatoon
Winnipeg to Saskatoon
Sudbury to Toronto.
Those 5 could support a singular daily train without the higher cost amenities.. None of them are longer than 12 hours so the need for large sleepers could be avoided. If some were needed,go for the ones that are simple bunks

I hate to say this, but we already have an entire thread dedicated to your crazy wishlists:

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

Enough with the bickering in multiple threads, please! You know people have had extensive bans for this in the past, right? Just ignore each other please.

urbantoronto.ca

 

[reaperexpress]

Very interesting analysis, but have you compared your guesses with the speed limits provided on Open Railway Maps? I am aware that it is not the most reliable of sources, but it‘s often the best available public source…

No actually I hadn't thought of that. That's a really good idea.

The track speeds there generally match my observations, save for a few details which I couldn't have picked up due to train acceleration/deceleration limitations, and the measurement accuracy.

For example I didnt pick up the brief 30 mph restriction adjacent to the 35 mph zone in the airport, and I couldn't measure the gradient of speeds between there and the 90 mph zone.

However I'm pretty sure OpenRailwayMaps is wrong on the east end of the line, where it shows a continuous 110 mph limit. There's no way trains can go that fast through those sharp curves near I-95, and I observed the train specifically slow to 70 mph through that segment.