VIA Rail

[Urban Sky]

But we can disagree.

Yes, but the problem is not that we disagree on facts or statements made in the article (in fact, we both agree that the analysis is rather weak where it touches the airline industry): Where we really disagree is how we treat sources who made certain opinions and speculations we believe to be more or less deeply flawed, but where we lack the full background information we would need to definitely disprove those claims (to the best of my knowledge, there is no statement publicly available in which the GTAA backs HFR). Also, your criticisms of the editorial is only peripheral to its main conclusion, as the recommendation to government A to make sure that project B can be completely funded before committing funding for project C is not dependent on the validity of assumptions like (1) projects B and C compete for the same resources or (2) there would be not enough funds available through the Investment Bank to fund both projects.

I'm ready to accept that you seem unable to understand this, and that you seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge the difference between a newspaper article (written by journalists who describe facts and events and cover a few related fields) and an editorial (written by more senior journalists who provide a commentary based on the facts and events described in the articles - which are found in the same issue - and cover much larger ranges of fields), or between a specialist publication (like Railway Age), a forum highly specialised in a certain topic (like Urban Toronto) and a generalist newspaper (like the Globe and Mail), or to acknowledge that while mistakes can easily cause harm and death in your profession, they are regarded as part of the job (and a precious opportunity to learn from) in most others. Coincidentally, this difference in responsibility might also be a substantial part of the reason why aerospace engineers receive a salary almost twice as high as journalists in this country (median of $78,088 vs. $42,074).

As I've said before, this does not affect your qualification as an aerospace engineer, but you might find yourself seriously impeded in your effectiveness in performing trans-disciplinary responsibilities, like project management or any substantial interaction with Senior Management, clients or governments, if seeing professionals who make claims you believe to know to be incorrect and/or perform their duties based on different principles than those which would be expected from an engineer prompts you to instantly doubt or even challenge their competence...

 

[kEiThZ]

I'm ready to accept that you seem unable to understand this, and that you seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge the difference between a newspaper article..... and an editorial

Then move on.

Sorry. I am not going to concede on this one. You and I just have different standards for journalism. Especially, for a national newspaper of repute. I expect their editorialists to be equally enlightened too.

or between a specialist publication (like Railway Age), a forum highly specialised in a certain topic (like Urban Toronto) and a generalist newspaper (like the Globe and Mail), or to acknowledge that while mistakes can easily cause harm and death in your profession, they are regarded as part of the job (and a precious opportunity to learn from) in most others.

I pay for well written and well researched stuff. There's a reason for example, I've subscribed to the The Economist for over a decade.

Moreover, you seem to think that generalists are above criticism by virtue of being a generalist. I disagree. If you are going to write an editorial about a transit hub, I would presume a really basic, first order search would include a quick read of the foundational documents of the hub idea. There is no evidence at all in the article, he's even aware of said reports.

Coincidentally, this difference in responsibility might also be a substantial part of the reason why aerospace engineers receive a salary almost twice as high as journalists in this country (median of $78,088 vs. $42,074).

Pay has absolutely nothing to do with this. We should expect the same level of professionalism from somebody who makes $40k as someone who makes $400k. If you take pride in your job, you'll do it well, regardless of compensation.

As I've said before, this does not affect your qualification as an aerospace engineer, but you might find yourself seriously impeded in your effectiveness in performing trans-disciplinary responsibilities, like project management or any substantial interaction with Senior Management, clients or governments, if seeing professionals who make claims you believe to know to be incorrect and/or perform their duties based on different principles than those which would be expected from an engineer prompts you to instantly doubt or even challenge their competence...

I do just fine at my job. Thank you very much. In my business, directness is appreciated and BS isn't suffered easily. If you're going to speak up, you better have an informed opinion in my world.

 

[MisterF]

What will happen is there will be a more polarised duality - urban and rural models, one dense, one not; one nonauto but one auto dependent. But many people will want a foot in both camps. So, while we may live urban and use transit to get around our cities, which may exclude cars, many urbanites will still want to own a vehicle and make use of it when they want to get out of the city.
What this will lead to is a more complicated market reality. A greater proportion of travellers going from Toronto to Montreal will have a car available and will consider using it, compared to the "Asian" model that was cited where the travellers don't own cars and therefore that alternative is moot.
- Paul

This is only partially true. True, car ownership in Canada tends to be higher than most of Europe and Asia, but not universally. Our car ownership is lower than Italy and only slightly higher than Finland and Japan. Australia also has higher car ownership than us, along with massive size, lower population density, and spread out cities (all the standard excuses we make in Canada). Yet it has more developed regional rail systems, fewer expressways, and much more extensive remote and rural train services.

Clearly a successful rail system is possible with high car ownership.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita?wprov=sfla1

 

[kEiThZ]

Clearly a successful rail system is possible with high car ownership.

Yes and no. You are ignoring policies that really restrict car usage. High car ownership is one thing. Being able to use the car regularly is another. Ever tried driving in Italy?

Also with Australia. Regional rail works because they have an even higher proportion of their population in one corner of the country. Most of Australia's population is in the corner between Brisbane and Adelaide. Admittedly, a large area. But it's basically the only area that they have to focus rail resources on. Kudos to them for investing more in rail than we do though.

 

[steveintoronto]

Australia also has higher car ownership than us, along with massive size, lower population density, and spread out cities (all the standard excuses we make in Canada). Yet it has more developed regional rail systems, fewer expressways, and much more extensive remote and rural train services.

Australia is a very good comparator, and yet they are *far ahead* on urban and commuter rail than Canada. Oz is, in ways, even more urbanized than Canada, many indices of Oz stats referring to the "Capital Cities".

By Grant Wyeth
January 07, 2017

Governments in Australia are increasingly becoming concerned with the centralized nature of Australia’s growth. Australia is already one of the world’s most highly urbanized countries, with around 9 million of the country’s 24 million people living in two cities alone (Melbourne and Sydney). However, a report by the Melbourne-based think tank the Grattan Institute highlights that the trends towards urbanization in Australia are only increasing. [...]

http://thediplomat.com/2017/01/time-for-australia-to-embrace-urbanization/

On the point of international model comparison, Oz continues to be an analog for Canada: (And take special note of the Airport complementary aspect discussed)

A view on: high-speed rail in Australia
May 9, 2013 11.43pm EDT
Welcome to the second in our new series of video collaborations with SBS. In this episode, Dr Rico Merkert, Senior Lecturer in Aviation Management at the University of Sydney, gives his view on the Australian federal government’s plans for high-speed rail.

Introduction:

For trips of less than 400 kilometres, the door-to-door travel time on high speed trains doesn’t differ all that much to flying. And the longer trips - including the proposed Sydney to Melbourne route in under three hours - may be hindered by communities on the way demanding a stop of their own.

While the environmental benefits are also often cited, there are also some hidden environmental downsides - not to mention cost. Merkert proposes that, as the European example shows, high-speed rail complementing air travel may be the more viable option, if it ever happens in Australia.

Full video transcript:

Modern high-speed trains are very fast, comfortable, reliable – they connect city centre with city centre.

Because these trains come with power sockets, free WiFi, stable mobile phone operation, people can spend that travel time working on the trains.

High-speed train travel offers less waiting time at airports and substantially less hassle with security, check-in and luggage. Given that Sydney-Melbourne is the fourth busiest airline route in the world, there is quite a lot of demand for high-speed travelling along Australia’s east cost. But the process of implementing high-speed rail in Australia is no easy feat. High-speed trains require high-speed infrastructure.

I’m originally from Germany, where high-speed trains connecting the large cities are the norm. This is true for most Western European countries, China, Japan, South Korea and even Russia.

Australian airlines shouldn’t be too afraid with losing some of the most important domestic routes. I actually think high-speed trains can help Sydney airport with its predicted capacity problems. Airlines in Europe actually use high speed trains to feed their long haul international routes through the hubs. [...] (Videos are linked in article)

https://theconversation.com/a-view-on-high-speed-rail-in-australia-14114

The dialog may not be a perfect simile for Canada, but there's a lot of commonality, and with the GTAA report's mention of "HSR", the debate on HFR is affected.

 

[MisterF]

Yes and no. You are ignoring policies that really restrict car usage. High car ownership is one thing. Being able to use the car regularly is another. Ever tried driving in Italy?

Also with Australia. Regional rail works because they have an even higher proportion of their population in one corner of the country. Most of Australia's population is in the corner between Brisbane and Adelaide. Admittedly, a large area. But it's basically the only area that they have to focus rail resources on. Kudos to them for investing more in rail than we do though.

I've driven in Europe but not Italy. I'm not ignoring the policies and costs of driving there at all, I'm just disputing the degree to which car ownership affects the feasibility of passenger rail.

It's also why I brought up Australia. True, the corridor from Brisbane to Adelaide has most of the country's population, but it's still a vast area. It's a 2500 km corridor, which is more than twice the distance from Windsor to Quebec City. By the same token, Melbourne and Sydney are quite a bit farther apart than Toronto and Montreal. The longer distances in Australia are one reason their intercity rail system is actually pretty poor and their services are more regional in focus. But the services within a couple hours of their major cities are much better than ours. Their equivalents of Peterborough, Trois Rivieres and Sherbrooke never lost rail service.

They also have services extending well outside that corridor to a lot of remote communities, much more so than in Canada.

Whatever they've accomplished in Australia, we should be able to do the same and better.

 

[steveintoronto]

Whatever they've accomplished in Australia, we should be able to do the same and better.

Historically, Canada did better, Oz not being helped by two major different gauge choices, something that happened in North Am, but only on a very regional/local basis.

It would be interesting to see where and when Oz gained their distinct lead over Canada, and why. Even Oz is not that much ahead of the developed world, it's that Canada is so much behind. There's a very real reluctance for many Canadians to be aware of that, let alone admit it. It's going to end in some real shocks when foreign entities make major proposals for sizable investment, just like this and the last number of successive regimes have invited.

Unless Cdns themselves (in the form of pension funds, etc) step up to do it, others will. And then the howls of outrage....cue Maude Barlow, Linda McQuaig, etc...

Privatizing airports a flight risk: McQuaig
If the federal Liberals go ahead with the plan it will only hurt consumers and make businesses richer

By Linda McQuaigColumnist, TorStar
Thu., Oct. 27, 2016

If you’re a hen, you probably don’t want to hear that the farmer has hired a fox to advise it on better ways to run the henhouse.

Similarly, if you’re a Canadian air traveler, you probably won’t be pleased to learn the Trudeau government has hired a major investment bank — which specializes in privatization — for advice as it ponders the pros and cons of privatizing Canada’s major airports.

Turning our airports into profit-making business ventures will almost certainly drive up the costs for air travellers, and the government insists that it has not yet made the controversial decision to proceed.

But the fact it’s seeking advice from Credit Suisse, a giant investment bank with fingers deep into the privatization business, suggests Ottawa has already moved well down that road.

Certainly, Zurich-based Credit Suisse has for the past decade been a major global player in the lucrative business of privatizing government infrastructure, including airports. Indeed, in 2009, Credit Suisse bought Gatwick Airport in the U.K., through a joint venture with General Electric. Credit Suisse also recently indicated an interest in advising the Russian government on its plans to privatize some major Russian state-owned enterprises. [...]

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/com...ivatizing-airports-a-flight-risk-mcquaig.html

Typical twaddle from Ms McQuaig. (And I'm a Centrist!) Not a word from her as to how BBD and Cdn Pension Funds have been massively buying up infrastructure or companies that build rolling stock in other nations. Not just airports, but rail lines, ports, highways, nosegays, you name it.

For a nation that claims to be "One of the foremost free-trading nations of the world"...Canadians are incredibly vacant when it comes to being world aware.

Edit to Add: And Italy...Ah yes, high car ownership, and yet:

Italo High Speed Trains
Italy's Private Rail Line
By Martha Bakerjian

Updated 06/25/17

Italo is a privately owned, high-speed rail line in Italy. Italo trains run between major Italian cities, traveling at speeds of up to 360 kilometers an hour. Train cars are modern and designed for comfort. The interior features large windows, air-conditioning, and reclining leather seats.

Three different classes of service are available on Italo trains - Smart (the most economical), Prima (first), and Club which features a spacious coach for only 19 passengers, meals served at your seat, and a personal touch screen with live TV.


Most Trenitalia trains offer first and second class service although the Frecciarossa (fastest train) has 4 classes.

In fall 2013 we took an Italo train between Rome and Florence. I also talked with another couple who traveled from Rome to Milan on a different day. Based on these experiences, this is how we would compare Italo to the frecce (fast) trains on Italy's national rail line, Trenitalia.

• Train Travel Time: Italo trains leave from Ostiense and Tiburtina stations in Rome but not Termini, Rome's main station. Our scheduled travel time from Ostiense to Florence Santa Maria Novella (Florence's central station) was 1 hour, 37 minutes, arriving within 2 minutes of our scheduled time. Rome Tiburtina to Milan's Porta Garibaldi station takes 3 hours, 3 minutes (non-stop route) or 3 hours, 23 minutes.
• Frecciarossa (the fastest Trenitalia train) scheduled travel time from Rome to Florence is 1 hour, 31 minutes. Rome to Milan's Central Station on the Frecciarossa is listed as 2 hours, 55 minutes (non-stop route) or 3 hours, 20 minutes).
• [...]

• https://www.tripsavvy.com/italo-high-speed-trains-1547087

Yet another case of private passenger rail...

And lo and behold, what are Italo ordering for some newer service onto sub-HSR branch lines? (Roughly equivalent to HFR)

Open access operator NTV to order Pendolinos
06 Oct 2015

NTV currently operates 25 Alstom AGV high speed trainsets.

ITALY: The board of open access high speed train operator NTV has approved the award of a contract for Alstom Transport to supply and maintain a further eight trainsets.

Branded EVO, the new trainsets would be part of Alstom’s Pendolino family which NTV said offers ‘a brilliant mixture of reliability and high performance’. Their maximum operating speed would be 250 km/h, compared to 300 km/h for NTV’s existing fleet of 25 Alstom AGV trainsets which have a design speed of 360 km/h.

Delivery is planned by December 2017. NTV intends to use the additional trainsets to increase the frequency of the services it operates under the Italo brand, and to expand its network to new destinations.

On October 5 Alstom told Railway Gazette International it had built a ‘solid relationship’ with NTV through the supply and maintenance of the AGV trainsets, and looked forward to finalising the new contract in the coming weeks.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...-access-operator-ntv-to-order-pendolinos.html

The same family as would be considered and be very apt for the Peterborough route.

 

[kEiThZ]

Whatever they've accomplished in Australia, we should be able to do the same and better.

I disagree. Only for the reason that I think you are still judging the context to be too similar. Had we built cities with less freeways like them? Absolutely. But we live in a country and province where a $2 toll on a highway is controversial (Gardiner) and one of the biggest sins of a previous government (according to anybody who remembers Mike Harris) is selling off a toll highway (the 407).

The fewer and more congested freeways they have compel the public to use transit. And that's true even outside Australia. Look at the New York area for example.

Yet, even after GO RER, which will for the first time offer true regional rail in the GTA, the modal share predictions from Metrolinx don't show dramatic improvement. Basically just keeping up.

So it's clear that even the best rail systems don't seem to dissuade people from driving, unless driving itself becomes either expensive or massively inconvenient. That's true for many cities in Australia, Europe and Asia. And where true in North America (like New York) you see the regional rail with higher modal shares.

And this is before we discuss things like the coming wave of automation which at a minimum will make driving easier, to flat out full automation in 10-15 years. Maybe we can hope for traffic to be bad enough that people start considering trains.

Lastly, since we're talking about VIA rail in this thread, I fail to see what Australia has to offer us. VIA's corridor services are better than most intercity rail in Australia.

 

[Allandale25]

Latest on the Churchill situation and the engineering report that projects what it would cost to repair the line. The CBC article has a link to the report and I've downloaded the PDF. See here for a copy of the PDF.

 

[Urban Sky]

I expect their editorialists to be equally enlightened too.

I pay for well written and well researched stuff. There's a reason for example, I've subscribed to the The Economist for over a decade.

Okay, that makes us two, as I also appreciate the Economist for bold editorials like "Failed states and failed policies - How to stop the drug wars: Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution". I also subscribed to the Globe and Mail recently to read articles like the one we are still debating.

Moreover, you seem to think that generalists are above criticism by virtue of being a generalist.

This is not a correct reductio ad absurdem of my argument: Generalists are of course not above all criticism and I have criticised him for exactly the same lines you are criticising him. I'm just not convinced that either the argument or the qualifications you've provided here back your harsh rejection of the author's competence.

If you are going to write an editorial about a transit hub, I would presume a really basic, first order search would include a quick read of the foundational documents of the hub idea.

I actually happen to agree with you, except that the article I read went under the headline "Is pumping billions in taxpayer money into Via Rail a good idea?", counted 792 words and 13 paragraphs, of which 488 words and 9 paragraphs pass before even the first mention of the GTAA or the air industry in general and these references are all limited to just 2 paragraphs (paragraphs 10 and 11), which I have quoted below, together with paragraph 9 as direct context:

[9] So, it's now or never for Via. Either this federal government steps up to maintain a viable (albeit subsidized) passenger rail service in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, or it will condemn Via to the junk yard. And make no mistake, that's precisely where its competitors would like to see it end up.

[10] Why else would the Greater Toronto Airports Authority hatch a plan to make Pearson airport a new regional transportation hub with a high-speed rail link to Windsor, Ont., if not to sabotage Via Rail's HFR proposal? The airlines aren't threatened by increased rail service in southwestern Ontario. But their bread-and-butter Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal routes would face stiffer competition if Via's proposed HFR service is fast-tracked by Justin Trudeau's government.

[11] Via's project – which, if history is any guide, could cost twice its $4-billion-to-$6-billion estimate with partially electrified tracks and modern rail cars and locomotives – would compete with the GTAA project for funding from the new Canada Infrastructure Bank. Private investors are unlikely to want to back both, since each detracts from the other. Indeed, Via has lost out on potential business over the years as a result of a lack of co-ordination and joint planning with commuter rail authorities in Toronto and Montreal. The Ontario government's recent decision to move forward with feasibility studies on a high-speed rail service in southwestern Ontario puts additional pressure on Ottawa to makes its choice soon.

[12] It should choose Via. [...]

I really hope I've just missed that we are actually talking about two different articles (coincidentally both written by Konrad Yakabuski), because I really appreciate your other contributions here in the forum and I'm more than just a bit bewildered that we really can't find an agreement over what the topic of a newspaper editorial was. Otherwise, I can only finish with what I wrote already yesterday:

[Y]our criticisms of the editorial is [sic!] only peripheral to its main conclusion, as the recommendation to government A to make sure that project B can be completely funded before committing funding for project C is not dependent on the validity of assumptions like (1) projects B and C compete for the same resources or (2) there would be not enough funds available through the Investment Bank to fund both projects.

 

[steveintoronto]

'Falls welcomes Via plan

By Sabrina Bedford, The Recorder and Times

Thursday, September 7, 2017 7:27:13 EDT

[...]
In July, Smiths Falls council threw its support behind the multi-billion-dollar plan, adding to the municipalities of Kingston, Perth, and Lanark County, along with the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus.
[...]

http://www.recorder.ca/2017/09/07/falls-welcomes-via-plan

 

[steveintoronto]

Clearly a successful rail system is possible with high car ownership.

Lastly, since we're talking about VIA rail in this thread, I fail to see what Australia has to offer us.

Which epitomizes the problem some Canadians have making comparisons, or rather, not making them, "failing to see" why others do make well referenced and factual ones.

Keithz' claim on Oz "freeways" is certainly not supported by fact:

See also: Highways in Australia
This is a list of freeways (or motorways/expressways) in Australia, sorted by states and territories and their corresponding routes. This list includes tollways / toll roads such as the CityLink freeway system in Melbourne. This list has over 70 entries. The only jurisdiction in Australia without freeways is the Northern Territory. Victoria has the largest and densest freeway network in Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeways_in_Australia

Even worse. Rail is actually an enabler of suburbanization in Canada. Think of how dense the GTA would have to be without GO Transit. It's funny to talk about trains and Asia as a model and then look at what we have here. Our suburban rail stations are surrounded by gigantic lots. And the further out they go, the larger the lots. Yet, people think rail will deliver density in the ex-urbs.

It's one of the reasons, I hope Moose fails in Ottawa. The city there has had intense debates on whether LRT should be extended outside the greenbelt. They've only done so to areas with high transit ridership. If Moose succeeds, it will undermine the entire urban planning framework of Ottawa. Now if Moose had a plan promoting densification, I'd be looking to invest....

Traffic jams: Ottawa is third most congested city in Canada, says survey

Alicia K. Gosselin, Ottawa Citizen
More from Alicia K. Gosselin, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: March 31, 2015 | Last Updated: March 31, 2015 11:14 AM EDT

For the amount of time spent sitting stagnant in your car on the 417 every year, you could work a full-time job for a week, take a couple of long naps and still have some time to kill.

Ottawans are spending 85 hours a year stuck in traffic, according to a GPS manufacturer that has declared Ottawa the third most congested city in Canada.

The 2014 traffic index was released by TomTom NV on Tuesday.

Ottawa ranked 10th in North America — just behind San Jose in the U.S. and Toronto.

Vancouver again led the list for congestion in Canada — and was third-worst in North America — followed by Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Edmonton and Quebec City tied for fifth.

Tuesday mornings are the peak time for on-the-way-to-work traffic jams each week, with the commute on Thursday evenings backing up the highway more than any other time. It seems commuters are more relaxed closer to the weekends, with Friday mornings and Monday nights being the least congested times of the week.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/traffic-jams-ottawa-third-most-congested-city-in-canada

 

[nfitz]

So, anyone have any thoughts on what colour they should paint these new trains that VIA will buy?

 

[cplchanb]

So, anyone have any thoughts on what colour they should paint these new trains that VIA will buy?

unless they change their brand itll prob be some combination of grey yellow and blue, though it would be great if they minimise on the grey and more on the yellow and blue

 

[nfitz]

And yet the most recent equipment very well used light and dark green.