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VIA Rail

Bordercollie said:
My most recent venture trip from Ottawa to Toronto we were only 15min late. The HEP set from London to Toronto was 30min late so it's not always due to the type of train
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Nobody wants to be Sammy Sunshine more than me! The PSOs have caused some improvement, yes, but delays are still considerable. Based on the war over the TSA, there is no way CN and VIA are going to adjust schedules. VIA has a Red Zone in the cab wherein even if three crew are present, approaching crossings, talking to RTC etc. tasks requiring conversation are to exclude the third crew member. There is also no way VIA is going to hire extra crew to call crossing signals where required, which is what CN and VIA's expert witness on cognitive workload risk suggested. The Onboard Shunt Enhancers will come, and probably rightly so. We are well behind the US, and have to go through the same regulatory hurdles Amtrak has with the FRA. This will not be bolting things on and let's go to town type of process. VIA and CN heading to Quebec Superior Court in...January? VIA is still arguing it's CN's technology, CN is still arguing only VIA trains have shunting problems with their technology.
 
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Hardik Patel 🔎 (@elegant___soul) on Threads

Avoid Highway 401 if you can — roads are blocked and we’re currently stuck near colborne. ❄️ As far as we know, 401 is closed for a few hours due to the multiple accidents ,weather and road conditions. Stay safe 👍 drive slow
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This is the reason why slow trains are still better than driving on the 401.
 
Seems like via has added an HEP2 set back to the QC-MTL-OTW during the venture reconfiguration changes. I’m currently on train 33 and it is made up of 5 HEP2 cars and double ended engines. They even reversed the train direction in Montreal like with the ventures instead of backing out to the bridge as they used to do with double ended LRCs so this seems to be a new official practice.

Looking at https://www.traincar.info/ it seems like this is a planned change and that train 31 now uses 4 car ventures, with only one business car removed.

Also, there was a land acknowledgement in the departure announcements. Not sure if I just didn’t notice it before or if it’s a new practice.

Edit:

Train 31 is likely a regular 5 car venture that was just missing a car on train car.info because of one car being unstaffed.
 
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ManyQuestions said:
Seems like via has added an HEP2 set back to the QC-MTL-OTW during the venture reconfiguration changes. I’m currently on train 33 and it is made up of 5 HEP2 cars and double ended engines. They even reversed the train direction in Montreal like with the ventures instead of backing out to the bridge as they used to do with double ended LRCs so this seems to be a new official practice.

Looking at https://www.traincar.info/ it seems like this is a planned change and that train 31 now uses 4 car ventures, with only one business car removed.

Also mildly interesting, there was a land acknowledgement in the departure announcements.
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Shortening one consist to make another one longer is kinda pointless unless you are going to J the short ones together.
 
ManyQuestions said:
Also, there was a land acknowledgement in the departure announcements. Not sure if I just didn’t notice it before or if it’s a new practice.
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Thats honestly cringe... all this charades for no reason. This does nothing for indigenous rights.
Its like singing the national anthem in grade school.
 
cplchanb said:
Thats honestly cringe... all this charades for no reason. This does nothing for indigenous rights.
It’s like singing the national anthem in grade school.
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I only noticed it the second announcement it seemed particularly uninspired. I may be recalling wrong but I think it was just “VIA Rail recognizes the traditional territories its trains operate in.” Not as lame as the Victorian railways prerecorded land acknowledgements but IMO if something is worth doing it’s worth doing well.
 
Bordercollie said:
Shortening one consist to make another one longer is kinda pointless unless you are going to J the short ones together.
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I’m surprised it’s just one car removed, I thought it would be at two to make a 7 car venture as discussed prior. This train doesn’t seem like the worst to shorten as I believe it only cycles Montreal-Ottawa once a day as the first train out of Montreal and last from Ottawa. Would be nice if it was a later departure from Ottawa though, could make a 3 car train make more sense assuming there is still another 6pm departure. Train 38 was busy leaving at 6pm when I last used it.

Edit:

Trains 31/38 are likely standard 5 car venture sets with one business class car unused.
 
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cplchanb said:
Thats honestly cringe... all this charades for no reason. This does nothing for indigenous rights.
Its like singing the national anthem in grade school.
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Everywhere is doing it as thy think it is meaningful, and part of the Truth and Reconciliation. Honestly,I take it as no different that they do they announcements in both languages.
 
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I just learned that the HEP2 set from train 33 turns into train 47 and continues to Toronto. Train 26, the return HEP2 journey back from Ottawa to Quebec at ~2pm must be a different set with the same 2business 3economy configuration.

From looking at traincar.info, it seems that later in the week train 31 has a four car venture but no return trips to Montreal have only four cars. I suspect this means that there is just a blocked car on train 31 that is reopened in Ottawa.
 
Train 50 from Toronto to Ottawa was another 5 car HEP2 set. It had one business class car blocked until Ottawa and hence showed up as a 4 car set on train car.info
 
ManyQuestions said:
I’m surprised it’s just one car removed, I thought it would be at two to make a 7 car venture as discussed prior
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Do we have a visual on train 31? Ventures that look like one Business Class car is missing on traincar dot info are usually lighter-patronized trains with the normal six-unit length but only one Business Class car is used/staffed.
 
Trackside_Treasure said:
Do we have a visual on train 31? Ventures that look like one Business Class car is missing on traincar dot info are usually lighter-patronized trains with the normal six-unit length but only one Business Class car is used/staffed.
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I believe it is a 5 car / 1 engine train with one business car unstaffed. That was what happened with train 50 today. I misinterpreted the train car.info site. Will amend my prior post.
 
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