VIA Rail

[MisterF]

This was the first time I had seen details of the new VIA corridor proposal, which is claimed to be pursuing a new alignment down the old Havelock Sub from Glen Tay to Durham. That idea is as dumb as a box of rocks, IMHO. It ignores all the population centers along Lake Ontario, bypasses Kingston altogether, and the Havelock Sub alignment is curvy, swampy, and (alternatively) hard rock so not really "rebuildable" - we are really talking about engineering a new line here.

I was surprised that VIA wants to use the abandoned CP line as well. While it does bypass the population centres along the lake, it's shorter and would have the advantage of having no freight conflicts. And that really is necessary, even though the Transport Action Ontario author doesn't seem to think so. The track isn't as curvy as you might think - sure it can't support true high speed rail, but there's no reason it couldn't be rebuilt to 110 mph standards. I still think that any service on this line should cut down to the GO line at Oshawa instead of following the CP line the whole way. I would hope that the proposal would still maintain rail service along the southern route through Trenton, Belleville, Kingston, Brockville, and Cornwall. There's no reason that both couldn't be supported.

I wonder if the old VIAFast proposal could be resurrected. It proposed consolidating CN and CP into one corridor between Newcastle and Shannonville, so we'd end up with one line for freight and one line for passengers. It had most of the advantages of the northern alignment with the exception of serving Peterborough. IIRC it also maintained a slower service along the St. Lawrence.

 

[dowlingm]

Reopening the CPR to traffic on the Highway 7 corridor would at least mean some passenger service through Ontario when there is a protest or derailment on the CN trackage...

 

[robmausser]

Perhaps there could be alternating service on Havlock and the CN mainline. Why not milk run trains serving every stop on the mainline and express trains on the Havlock sub?

Not every train has to stop at every station....the current Via express to Montreal only stops at Oshawa and Dorval so its already bypassing most stations.

 

[nfitz]

Perhaps there could be alternating service on Havlock and the CN mainline. Why not milk run trains serving every stop on the mainline and express trains on the Havlock sub?

Perhaps because it would take forever, and there is little demand, compared to the normal route.

Looking at the 1950 CP schedule Table 38 , the daily milk run through Peterborough and Havelock from Montreal to Toronto took about 10 hours. Even back then it only ran once a day all the way through, with most services running on the pool trains either through Kingston (CN) or Tichbourne (CP). Though there was a quasi-express Ottawa to Toronto pool train running down Havelock that only took just over 6 hours.

 

[ssiguy2]

Wow, that potential new VIA plan is visionary and will create a dynamic rail network well into the 20th century.
Of course that's the problem...........it's the 21st century and transportation of yesteryears does not reflect the needs of today.

This report is so juvenile one hardly knows where to begin.

They keep making reference to what Amtrak and the US is doing but the fact that the US has 9X our population doesn't seem to have occurred to them. Also, Canada's population is far more centralized than the US and they don't have a 2000 km stretch of nothing between Ottawa and Winnipeg. Canada's population is also more concentrated in a few larger cities further apart but again this seems to have escaped them. They seem to think that all we have to do is "go back to the future" with more money and voila........problem solved.

Passenger rail has gone from a necessity to a tourist attraction in every area of the country except the Win/QC Corridor. It is not the responsibility of the federal government to be propping up tourists trains while Canadians who actually rely on it for transportation are forced to take the slow boat to China.

If a private company wants to take over the lines from VIA West of Ottawa and East of Quebec City then great and certainly some form of fare integration with VIA would be positive but the reason VIA is not an issue outside of Ont/Que is because it has long since become completely irrelevant.

VIA should not try to be everything to everybody and provide bare service to everyone at the expense of those that actually use the system. The Corridor and bringing back Edm/Cal service are the only 2 places in the country that make sense for passenger rail so that the only 2 areas that should be served.

 

[dowlingm]

VIA should not try to be everything to everybody and provide bare service to everyone at the expense of those that actually use the system.

But that is the reality of its mandate. If you think it should be simpler, great, but Marc Garneau and friends are the ones who have to give them different direction.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Here is a question people might not have an answer to: would VIA double track its new dedicated passenger line, or would it just build well-placed sidings?

 

[ssiguy2]

That's a fair point but then the mandate must be changed.

This is only a conversation in Ont/Que because in the rest of the country, VIA has become completely irrelevant. When travelling, to even relatively close destinations, VIA doesn't even cross your mind. In Western Canada if VIA shut down tomorrow it would be until June that any anyone noticed and only due to the Chinese Rocky Mountaineer train.

For The Corridor it's a priority but in the West the only time you think about it is when you have to wait for the damn train to go by. For this reason it needs a new mandate. All these other lines do is suck dry the operational budget from the main Corridor.

Make no mistake, I'm also including big chunks of Ont/Que service to be cut as well. Ditch Sarnia, Stratford, and every other line except the main corridor including Kitchener and get rid of all lines in Quebec except Mon/QC.

As far as I'm concerned there should be just 2 lines east/west.......Win/QC via Tor/Mon Express and Win/QC via Ott/Mon. The only exceptions should be the US connectors a la Mon/NYC and Tor/Buf and a an extension of Windsor to Detroit makes sense. If Atlantic or Western routes can break even in the summer then OK but if not, close the service permanently.

Like I've said before the only exception to making VIA a Corridor only system is Cal/Edm which would be the only line that makes sense and yet has no service. That alone speaks volumes of VIA's incompetence and political influence on decision making.

 

[crs1026]

Cutting feeder lines in Ontario/Quebec is a surefire way to bleed the system into irrelevance. The opposite is required - more integration with GO and AMT, and more subsidiary lines that increase the reach of the system. They may be less stellar cost performers, but I hope we are past the days of talking about passenger rail as a profit/loss service - transportation doesn't cover its costs at the farebox, just about anywhere.

As for the transcon, the 2014 annual report says the Canadian cost $103M but only recovered $47M from revenue. That's a subsidy of about $55M. The Ocean requires a subsidy of $36M. That's not a huge amount within the overall amount that Ottawa spends to promote tourism. If you assume that each tourist spends as much off train as on - and foreign tourists make up a large proportion of riders - we recoup a large part of the subsidy. I wonder what the per passenger subsidy of cruise ship terminals at Vancouver, Quebec or Halifax amounts to.

VIA has done an impressive job of turning the Canadian/Ocean into a customer-friendly, high-quality cruise type experience. $55M is also a drop in the bucket considering the number of jobs the train provides. The people who staff the train these days earn their money. Yes, the train has little relevance as a transportation mode, but it does create value - so it deserves to exist.

- Paul

 

[ssiguy2]

Like I said earlier, if there is a legitimate case for the tourism dollar then they should only run in high tourist months......June to Sept. Outside of these all they do is cost money and provide very little benefit.

As far as feeder routes are concerned, it will have negligible difference and not near enough to make a case for continuing the service. For the few that need connections, then let them take the bus. Ideally they could integrate their fares somewhat so they are still relatively affordable.

Our transportation needs have greatly changed yet VIA's mandate hasn't. Passenger rail was originally built to service primarily rural areas to the large cities but that has been turned on it's head and now it serves as a nearly exclusive big city connector system. Highways and cars have taken over what passenger rail service as the near exclusive transportation option for any city under 100,000 and air travel has a complete monopoly on long distance travel.

Almost no one in a city of less than 200,000 doesn't have a car because it is essentially for any travel including inner city where the transit systems are poor. The proof is in the pudding, outside of the major centres in The Corridor, no one in Canada takes the train.

Canada's transportation needs and methods are unrecognizable from when the original lines were built and it's about time VIA acknowledged that.

 

[CapitalSeven]

I am not sure I believe everything that report says. Didn't VIA state as part of its reasoning behind not wanting to go fully high speed that a large chunk of its corridor passengers are in the smaller cities along the route? Why would they stop short of high speed and then cut themselves of from the passengers?

 

[dowlingm]

via CPTDB, VIA proposing to operate daily services Moncton-Halifax-Moncton, Moncton-Campbellton-Moncton. Looks like they are not looking at 6 weekly Ocean (was that in the LPC platform?)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...-new-routes-between-halifax-moncton-1.3311659

 

[Northern Light]

Transport Action Ontario has released an updated position on a path forward for VIA.

No doubt the new Federal Government and a new Transport Minister will have this to consider.

http://transport-action-ontario.com/wordpress/?p=663

- Paul

Thanks for posting this.

In reviewing, with a focus on 'The Corridor' I read the 2 most important short-term investments as being resolving 'Coteau' (the CN Yard area) such that VIA can run greater frequencies; and investing
in push-pull equipment. I was very surprised to see how much downtime VIA equipment has, apparently due to turn-around time for trains in Toronto and Montreal.
That's just really wasteful.

Resolve these two and you should be able to cut travel time at the margin, improve reliability somewhat and substantially increase frequency at minimal costs.

That said, much other investment would also appear useful here.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Had to visit Belleville today for a 10:30am meeting. Wanted to take VIA instead of drive. However with the lowest fares sold out, VIA wants $136 for the return trip. That's $0.36 a km.

Instead I drove my car, at avg. 8 L/100km I went through perhaps 30 L of gas at $1.10 L for total cost of $33. I would have paid $30 each way for the convenience, but nearly $140 for 187 km trip each way is a bit rich. I have to assume the Belleville cost is high as I'm taking a seat that would otherwise go to Montreal.

The drive was fine, great weather, clear roads and skies, no traffic, 125 kph all the way, with my favourite Podcasts for company.

 

[Allandale25]

Two points: first, is there anything official from VIA itself or any media report that the Havelock route and restoring the tracks along this former CP Rail Subdivision is even being considered? Or is it just speculation/rumour?

Second:

Thanks for posting this.

In reviewing, with a focus on 'The Corridor' I read the 2 most important short-term investments as being resolving 'Coteau' (the CN Yard area) such that VIA can run greater frequencies; and investing
in push-pull equipment.

Resolve these two and you should be able to cut travel time at the margin, improve reliability somewhat and substantially increase frequency at minimal costs.

That said, much other investment would also appear useful here.

I didn't realize there was an issue at Coteau or even where it was so here's a Google map as a reference of the location. Would a rail-over-rail grade separation be needed?