VIA Rail

[nfitz]

I'm not sure why people are working so hard to defend this kind of incompetence, and lack of planning by VIA, and their overpaid full-time consultants (who should be in-house).

In the CityNews article Via said that they tried to book buses but none of the companies were able to send a bus. Maybe you should read some more into what actually happened before jumping to conclusions.

???

My conclusion was they'd cancelled their old pre-standing contracts. Am I wrong?

 

[Urban Sky]

???

My conclusion was they'd cancelled their old pre-standing contracts. Am I wrong?

I'm not sure why people are working so hard to defend this kind of incompetence, and lack of planning by VIA, and their overpaid full-time consultants (who should be in-house).

If you want people to take you serious, I would suggest to tone down your shouting and stop sprouting unsubstantiated and often outright false rumours as if they were facts.

One would have thought that after all the bans you have accumulated here over the years, you would have had enough time to finally figure out how to respectfully participate in a discussion…

 

[Urban Sky]

Just because I've dares to mention the incompetent fools still at VIA Rail and their money-scamming consultants isn't a reason to start getting personal.

Listen, you are insulting my former colleagues, you are insulting my profession and you have the audacity to insult the arguments I’ve patiently laid out to you without providing a sliver of evidence or rationale to back it up (just projections and prejudices: “I’ve read somewhere that there are a lot of consultants working at Metrolinx, so clearly, it has to be the same at VIA!”).

So I am of course taking this personal, but I don’t get as low as to insult you. I’m just saying that if you want to be treated with respect, you finally have to start treating others you happen to disagree with with the same respect you want to be treated with.

Write me a PM if you are not sure what I mean. Thank you!

 

[reaperexpress]

???

My conclusion was they'd cancelled their old pre-standing contracts. Am I wrong?

I'm not sure why people are working so hard to defend this kind of incompetence, and lack of planning by VIA, and their overpaid full-time consultants (who should be in-house).

I have never once said that I'm okay with the situation on train 622, or that it was an inevitable outcome. My comment to you was that you should be using facts rather than just baseless name-calling. For example, in this very post, you claimed that I am 'working hard to defend incompetence'. What I have been doing is digging up the facts of the matter - such as the timeline of events that actually happened and the factors that could have contributed to the outcome. Passing judgement without bothering to understand what happened is frankly a sign of incompetent argumentation. And actively suggesting that one should not seek to understand the circumstances of a situation is just idiotic.

To improve a situation, you need to understand the factors which led to to the current (unacceptable) outcome. Claiming that Via's dispatch "chose to do frig all" is objectively false since we know that they tried numerous different plans, all of which failed until the last one that eventually got the passengers on to Train 24. Dismissing all of the events that actually happened in favour of name-calling is actively undermining efforts to change systems and processes to prevent a similar event from reoccuring.

 

[Urban Sky]

SNC (I believe they've renamed to Fraudulis) shouldn't be anywhere near passenger rail - or any other engineering project in this country.

I’m relieved and happy to announce that we two have finally been able to find some common ground here!

 

[reaperexpress]

I never mentioned you. But I've clarified my earlier post to remove the ambiguity.

Actively undermining efforts to change system? I disagree. The only reason they might fix the issue, finally, is that they are being thrown under the bus (pun intended) by every media outlet in the country!

"Throwing under the bus" is most effective when you understand what the actual issues. Knee-jerk reactions often result in virtue-signalling solutions that don't actually address the core issue. If we as advocates can more precisely pinpoint what the fundamental problem is then we can do a better job of pressuring the powers that be for meaningful changes.

To be specific, we have no idea whether or not the controllers on duty were incompetent. If it turns out that controller incompetence was in fact not the problem, then kicking and screaming about them being incompetent would misdirect the public outcry towards something that wasn't actually an issue, which is a missed opportunity to direct that public outcry to one of the things that were actually a root cause of the problem.

To give an example from my past, many housing and transport advocates (most notably Jason from Not Just Bikes) spun the narrative that our streets and development are car-oriented because Toronto planners only think about cars and don't care about other modes, or housing affordability. Well having formerly been one of said planners myself, I know for a fact that most of the planners are very serious about designing exactly the types of safe streets and affordable housing that Not Just Bikes promotes. The actual issue is that the plans to improve safety, mode choice and affordability often get shot down by NIMBYs. If the advocates had been rallying in support of projects that already propose to achieve the objectives they want, they would have accomplished far more than they do by trying to convince planners of the benefits of less car-centric cities when those planners were already convinced a long time ago.

 

[nfitz]

To be specific, we have no idea whether or not the controllers on duty were incompetent. If it turns out that controller incompetence was in fact not the problem, then kicking and screaming about them being incompetent would misdirect the public outcry towards something that wasn't actually an issue, which is a missed opportunity to direct that public outcry to one of the things that was actually a root cause of the problem.

I think it's clear that I think the issue is systemic. Which means that it's not the individual controller that's the issue. It's management-lead policy, and political underfunding.

I'm not sure how one would jump to the conclusion that one is blaming the minions. Well other than the fool who thought assaulting passengers is okay.

 

[reaperexpress]

I think it's clear that I think the issue is systemic. Which means that it's not the individual controller that's the issue. It's management-lead policy, and political underfunding.

I'm not sure how one would jump to the conclusion that one is blaming the minions.

When you talk about someone being incompetent that certainly sounds to me like you're blaming individuals. We don't normally talk about systems and processes as being incompetent. That's a word we use for human beings. If you want to talk about systems I'd suggest words like "insufficient", "inadequate", "uncoordinated", etc.

Well other than the fool who thought assaulting passengers is okay.

True, that's fair.

 

[nfitz]

When you talk about someone being incompetent that certainly sounds to me like you're blaming individuals. We don't normally talk about systems and processes as being incompetent. That's a word we use for human beings.

I hope the management, especially the senior management, are still human beings.

Systemic doesn't mean necessarily mean non-human systems. As system can mean "A set of persons working together as parts of an interconnecting network".

 

[Urban Sky]

True, that's fair.

I politely disagree here: if you’ve really never found yourself in a mental space where you have allowed yourself to do things of which you knew that they were absolutely wrong (and for which you probably already felt deeply ashamed the moment your emotions cooled down again), you may throw the first stone…

 

[micheal_can]

I politely disagree here: if you’ve really never found yourself in a mental space where you have allowed yourself to do things of which you knew that they were absolutely wrong (and for which you probably already felt deeply ashamed the moment your emotions cooled down again), you may throw the first stone…

If that is true, that employee should resign. If I were an employee, and I did not have the legal authority to touch you, the only right thing would be for me to no longer work there.

 

[crs1026]

^ All of this discussion greatly distorts the reality of what process and consequences the employee may face, and how the consequences will be determined and meted out.
And it ignores what the employee may already have admitted, or explained, or accepted responsibility for, or apologized for, to the employer and possibly to the passenger themselves..
I think we all agree that passengers should not receive the treatment that we've seen on the video, and I doubt that VIA condones it either. So I'm confident it is being addressed. However - I give VIA credit for not going further in public about any of this. There have been cases in other companies where egregious behaviour by a worker has immediately been seized by the C-suite and made into a PR event. VIA has not gone that route.
We may read about this one day in the CROA archives - but until then, the process is properly private and should be respected for that.

- Paul

 

[reaperexpress]

I politely disagree here: if you’ve really never found yourself in a mental space where you have allowed yourself to do things of which you knew that they were absolutely wrong (and for which you probably already felt deeply ashamed the moment your emotions cooled down again), you may throw the first stone…

One of the expectations of a job with a safety-critical function or public-facing element is the ability to remain cool under pressure and continue to make rational decisions. Think for example about air traffic controllers and pilots, who are extensively trained to keep their emotions under control so they can remain effective in high-pressure emergency situations.

A locomotive engineer has a significant safety-critical component and some minor public-facing components as well, so I think that even with the incomplete information that we have at this point we can say beyond a reasonable doubt that the employee in question failed to do their job correctly. What we need to do about that is another question. Was there inadequate training? Inadequate screening of candidates? Insufficient oversight? etc.

 

[micheal_can]

^ All of this discussion greatly distorts the reality of what process and consequences the employee may face, and how the consequences will be determined and meted out.
And it ignores what the employee may already have admitted, or explained, or accepted responsibility for, or apologized for, to the employer and possibly to the passenger themselves..
I think we all agree that passengers should not receive the treatment that we've seen on the video, and I doubt that VIA condones it either. So I'm confident it is being addressed. However - I give VIA credit for not going further in public about any of this. There have been cases in other companies where egregious behaviour by a worker has immediately been seized by the C-suite and made into a PR event. VIA has not gone that route.
We may read about this one day in the CROA archives - but until then, the process is properly private and should be respected for that.

- Paul

Let me ask a simple question. This is for everyone who wants to defend anyone or any organization here.

Of all of the mess, what was done right? Who did the right things?

Now, if no one can answer that then there is no point beating this dead horse....

If there are some good, then lets hear them.

 

[crs1026]

Now, if no one can answer that then there is no point beating this dead horse....

You have hit the nail on the head, for once.

We don't have enough information to make a meaningful analysis

Here is an off the top of my head list of questions that none of the posters can answer with authority.

- Was the train properly inspected before it began its runs, as per regulations and proper practice
- Was any defect known or discovered before the train began its run, and if so why was it not removed from service
- What was the defect or failure that brought the train to a stop
- When was this defect first noted and how was this communicated to the proper authority
- What corrective action was initiated, by whom, and under what timeline
- What contractual or regulatory requirements and responsibilities exist relevant to this equipment failure
- What remedial options were proposed, or requested, that were not actioned, and why
- What was the timeline and substance of the communication between the train, the CN control center, and VIA operations
- What was the timeline and substance of the conditions passengers experienced? (Did the hvac and toilets cease functioning, when and for how long, what food and water/beverage was available and offered, what exactly were passengers told and by whom, how much mobility did passengers actually have throughout the stop, how warm or cold did the train get)
- Were requests made to CN and other stakeholders/support agencies for assistance and what response was received
- What action was taken to secure alternate transportation, by whom, when, and with what result

You can add your own, but you can see that this really does demand factfinding.

My gut says that plenty of deficiencies and could have, should have's may eventually come out. But this is why we let investigations happen before we draw conclusions.

- Paul