VIA Rail

[reaperexpress]

If the customs facility is at the Ontario side, it means everything happens at one station. I don't think there is anywhere CBSA operates pre clearance in the US, is there?

I think that it's simply a convention for airports. If we just built pre-clearance haphazardly at airports on both sides of the border, we could end up with some CAN-US pairs that have pre-clearance at both airports, and others with neither. That issue doesn't apply here, it makes no difference to operations whether the station is on the Canadian or the American side of the border.

I was wondering about consolidating everything into the new Niagara Falls NY station and discontinuing the current Niagara Falls ON station.
Access from Canada could be via the Michigan Central Railway Bridge, repurposed to carry a multi-use trail and/or a DMU into Niagara Falls along the abandoned ROW:

Here's a Streetview shot (pre-construction) of the Niagara Falls NY station, looking east from the Robert Moses Parkway.

And here's a sketch I made of a potential international station, from roughly the same perspective. The left platform is the US customs zone, and the right platform is the Canadian customs zone. Customs clearance itself would be under the Canadian platform, and people would come up escalators into the new structure at right (shown in the style of the existing station building).

When I drew this, I didn't realize they were actually building a second building on the left side where I have shown the fourth track. But I think the station should still be able to function with just a single American track, there isn't all that much service on that side anyway.

 

[dowlingm]

Decoupling the Maple Leaf in favour of more frequent GO would mean the schedule could run irrespective of immigration delays because anyone held up could wait for the next GO. This could then see Seaway crossing times being met. The goal would be to raise total ridership to the point where the $1bn cost (rising with construction inflation) of a Welland Canal tunnel looks justifiable.

A point which might nix the idea of staging NF ON GO on the American side: GO may then become federally regulated since the trains cross the ON border. Also, it's hardly fair on NF ON residents to take a fairly inconvenient station and make it more so, even if there was some sort of shuttle/light rail across the Michigan Central.

 

[crs1026]

Decoupling is not a huge benefit. It would adversely affect marketability of the existing international train. It would force GO to schedule a late evening protection train, as stranding people at the border if Amtrak runs late isn't an option.

The biggest disincentive to using the current train within Ontario (other than price) is its lack of reliability. Better to leave it as a standalone, with no particular priority at the Seaway. Give the priority slots to GO. If that provides better connections at Niagara for additional schedules to New York, great, these can be decoupled.

What is needed at the border is some sort of higher tech arrangement that would let the border inspection happen on board with full computer access. These days, the questions that you get asked at the border are mostly just chitchat until the computer tells the officer what it knows about you. Nexus works via fingerprint or optical scan and really speeds thing up, but requires hardware and connectivity.

The other thing that's needed - especially if you do decouple - is a high level platform. Loading and unloading at the border at a low level is very slow, inconvenient, and mobility unfriendly.

- Paul

 

[reaperexpress]

A point which might nix the idea of staging NF ON GO on the American side: GO may then become federally regulated since the trains cross the ON border.

As a mainline railway operator, GO is already federally regulated. What additional regulations come with crossing the border, and would these regulations be a major impediment to operating service?

Also, it's hardly fair on NF ON residents to take a fairly inconvenient station and make it more so, even if there was some sort of shuttle/light rail across the Michigan Central.

Actually, a DMU + US station would be more convenient than the current station, not less. With the DMU, there become three points from which to access the station, all of which are more convenient than the old station location.

Additionally or alternatively, the US side station could be accessed by foot or bicycle, assisted by an expanded bike path network and bikeshare system. The bike network shown below is actually remarkably easy to build, it's mostly pre-existing, in hydro corridors or along abandoned railway ROWs. And the bikeshare system has a good chance of success given that the entire network shown, other than Marineland and the Butterfly Conservatory, is within a 15 minute ride of the station. And even those two outlying bikeshare hubs are only 20 minutes away.

Blue = bicycle path or multi-use trail; Turquoise = on-street route along quiet street; Red dot = bikeshare hub (total 47 hubs - less than half the size of Hamilton Bike Share).

Decoupling is not a huge benefit. It would adversely affect marketability of the existing international train. It would force GO to schedule a late evening protection train, as stranding people at the border if Amtrak runs late isn't an option.

The biggest disincentive to using the current train within Ontario (other than price) is its lack of reliability. Better to leave it as a standalone, with no particular priority at the Seaway. Give the priority slots to GO. If that provides better connections at Niagara for additional schedules to New York, great, these can be decoupled.

These statements seem contradictory to me. The whole point of decoupling is to improve service reliability, which you state is the biggest current issue. And that extra "protection train" is not only an added cost, it also represents another potentially useful departure for residents in Hamilton-Niagara. Having the two services operated separately doesn't actually have any negative effect on passenger convenience. The current service is not really direct anyway. While the trains do travel directly from New York to Toronto, the passengers don't since they get kicked off at the border. With a decoupled service, rather than delaying everyone by two hours at the border, some passengers could be delayed only one hour and get an earlier train, while the remainder would be delayed two hours, exactly the same as before.

What is needed at the border is some sort of higher tech arrangement that would let the border inspection happen on board with full computer access. These days, the questions that you get asked at the border are mostly just chitchat until the computer tells the officer what it knows about you. Nexus works via fingerprint or optical scan and really speeds thing up, but requires hardware and connectivity.

The other thing that's needed - especially if you do decouple - is a high level platform. Loading and unloading at the border at a low level is very slow, inconvenient, and mobility unfriendly.

There certainly is a great deal of improvement that we can get to the customs procedure. Introducing a consolidated station will hopefully build passenger volumes enough to support investment in the customs infrastructure. Additionally, building a pedestrian/bike connection using the Michigan Central bridge could boost crossing volumes by allowing people to walk or bike across the border.

 

[crs1026]

These statements seem contradictory to me. The whole point of decoupling is to improve service reliability, which you state is the biggest current issue. And that extra "protection train" is not only an added cost, it also represents another potentially useful departure for residents in Hamilton-Niagara. Having the two services operated separately doesn't actually have any negative effect on passenger convenience. The current service is not really direct anyway. While the trains do travel directly from New York to Toronto, the passengers don't since they get kicked off at the border. With a decoupled service, rather than delaying everyone by two hours at the border, some passengers could be delayed only one hour and get an earlier train, while the remainder would be delayed two hours, exactly the same as before.

Decoupling doesn't make the train from New York arrive more precisely. If you hold the Toronto-bound GO for Amtrak, you inconvenience everyone on the Ontario side. If you run the GO side to schedule, regardless of Amtrak timekeeping, you have to protect Amtrak somehow.

I think we are saying the same thing.....run the GO side for the convenience of local customers. But I'd suggest letting the Amtrak train continue on to Toronto whenever it turns up, with fewer stops. Maybe it costs you a slot, or maybe you just let the Seaway hold them up for whatever it takes. There isn't that much laker traffic, the Seaway just needs a schedule so they know they won't be blocked for hours at a time (which they could be if the slots overlapped). If you need more frequency than the available slots allow, interleave with trains that turn back at St Catharines.

- Paul

 

[dunkalunk]

I think that it's simply a convention for airports. If we just built pre-clearance haphazardly at airports on both sides of the border, we could end up with some CAN-US pairs that have pre-clearance at both airports, and others with neither. That issue doesn't apply here, it makes no difference to operations whether the station is on the Canadian or the American side of the border.

I was wondering about consolidating everything into the new Niagara Falls NY station and discontinuing the current Niagara Falls ON station.
Access from Canada could be via the Michigan Central Railway Bridge, repurposed to carry a multi-use trail and/or a DMU into Niagara Falls along the abandoned ROW:

In all seriousness, I think this route is actually perfect for a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail! Niagara falls is exactly the kind of tourist trap destination that could support it, and it would revitalize the downtown and connect it to the casinos. Extend it to Marineland and you have somewhere to build a maintenance facility.

 

[dowlingm]

In all seriousness, I think this route is actually perfect for a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail! Niagara falls is exactly the kind of tourist trap destination that could support it, and it would revitalize the downtown and connect it to the casinos. Extend it to Marineland and you have somewhere to build a maintenance facility.

Getting rid of Marineland to have a railyard? That works.

 

[gweed123]

I think that it's simply a convention for airports. If we just built pre-clearance haphazardly at airports on both sides of the border, we could end up with some CAN-US pairs that have pre-clearance at both airports, and others with neither. That issue doesn't apply here, it makes no difference to operations whether the station is on the Canadian or the American side of the border.

I was wondering about consolidating everything into the new Niagara Falls NY station and discontinuing the current Niagara Falls ON station.
Access from Canada could be via the Michigan Central Railway Bridge, repurposed to carry a multi-use trail and/or a DMU into Niagara Falls along the abandoned ROW:

And here's a sketch I made of a potential international station, from roughly the same perspective. The left platform is the US customs zone, and the right platform is the Canadian customs zone. Customs clearance itself would be under the Canadian platform, and people would come up escalators into the new structure at right (shown in the style of the existing station building).

When I drew this, I didn't realize they were actually building a second building on the left side where I have shown the fourth track. But I think the station should still be able to function with just a single American track, there isn't all that much service on that side anyway.

I really like this proposal. It provides easy access to the two main tourist areas of Niagara Falls. As long as GO-Niagara Falls Local connections are easy on the American side (i.e. don't have to clear customs just to transfer from the green line to the red line), it would probably work. I know that if I had the choice between taking GO and this DMU/EMU system vs driving and paying $20/day for parking, I'd take GO for sure.

The design of the station will have to be done very carefully though, in order to keep Canadian-only and US-only trip patterns separate, but still provide an easy connection between the two. Given that customs would only be foot traffic, the amount of space required shouldn't be that substantial. It's just making sure that people making that GO-NF Ontario transfer don't accidentally (or purposefully) end up in the US by going down the wrong staircase.

I wonder how much such a shuttle would cost to build. There are a couple of overpasses already in place. I would think going with LRT would probably be best, considering that it would be easier to integrate it into the urban built form. You could even take a page from San Francisco and operate it as a streetcar line using historic streetcars. That's just the kind of kitchy tourist thing that Niagara Falls would probably embrace.

 

[mdrejhon]

While we're talking about Niagara:

Let's think for a moment of the implications of such government unity:

I am pleased to see the normally-disagreeing mayors so super-enthusaically unified over Niagara GO service (and this raises the profile of Hamilton GO service as an important middle stop). It's so impressive a agreement between mayors that have fought each other on many issues, but suddenly think of almost the same mind when it comes to GO service, and actually pre-emptively commit their 1/3rd share of money, towards the cost of all this, even before a now literally-expected Ontario official announcement by 2017.

Just look at this example newspaper headline: "Niagara smashes through barriers to GO rail expansion" -- the wording! -- and all the normally-bickering mayors apparently get to real work, solving every single problem (all seventeen of them) that Ontario has mentioned about Niagara GO service, even succeeding in getting Welland Canal drawbridge priority guarantees for GO train trips!

How can we see this unified zeal -- such unity of agreement -- in Toronto transit to Move Ontario Forward (pun!) faster?
Everyone seems to disagree on VIA, Toronto transit, etc -- Rob Ford -- Transit City -- Brampton LRT -- Subways, Subways -- Etc.
but there's so much unity over Niagara Falls GO service over there!!

 

[Northern Light]

Considering that the US and Canadian stations are within sight of each other....with border services offices built into the bridge itself.....you'd think they could make the crossing much more efficient.

- Paul

I've never understood why we can't handle train customs the same way they do in Europe. Customs boards the train, the train keeps going. Customs checks passports/paperwork as the train moves, they get off at the next stop and presumably shuttle back.

ie. US customs could pre-board @ Hamilton or Grimsby and the customs issues are resolved by the time you hit the border.

Cars/train sections can also be isolated from one another so as to allow for more than an express route.

ie. one car could becsaved for passengers boarding in St. Kitts that would remain isolated from the rest of the train till after customs. (so that earlier passengers could have been cleared already)

 

[reaperexpress]

I really like this proposal. It provides easy access to the two main tourist areas of Niagara Falls. As long as GO-Niagara Falls Local connections are easy on the American side (i.e. don't have to clear customs just to transfer from the green line to the red line), it would probably work. I know that if I had the choice between taking GO and this DMU/EMU system vs driving and paying $20/day for parking, I'd take GO for sure.

The design of the station will have to be done very carefully though, in order to keep Canadian-only and US-only trip patterns separate, but still provide an easy connection between the two. Given that customs would only be foot traffic, the amount of space required shouldn't be that substantial. It's just making sure that people making that GO-NF Ontario transfer don't accidentally (or purposefully) end up in the US by going down the wrong staircase.

This is precisely why in my conceptual station design I divided the station into two halves for the two countries. Transferring from GO to the Niagara Falls DMU would simply a cross-platform interchange. I certainly hope that customs procedures are rigorous enough that passengers not cross the border inadvertently. If a passenger transferring between the two Canadian services does mistakenly end up downstairs, the sight of the customs clearance checkpoint should tip them off that they've gone astray.

I've never understood why we can't handle train customs the same way they do in Europe. Customs boards the train, the train keeps going. Customs checks passports/paperwork as the train moves, they get off at the next stop and presumably shuttle back.

ie. US customs could pre-board @ Hamilton or Grimsby and the customs issues are resolved by the time you hit the border.

Cars/train sections can also be isolated from one another so as to allow for more than an express route.

ie. one car could be saved for passengers boarding in St. Kitts that would remain isolated from the rest of the train till after customs. (so that earlier passengers could have been cleared already)

I seem to recall that this was how customs was done on the Amtrak Adirondack (Montréal - New York), but I can't find any information on it. On the Adirondack, there is a long stretch with no stops between Montreal and the US border.

But this method wouldn't help connect GO passengers to the US, it only applies to the one daily train that travels on both sides the border.

In any case, the governments of the US and Canada have agreed to construct a full pre-clearance customs facility at Gare Centrale in Montréal (Older article in RailwayAge here). That facility will actually serve far fewer passengers than the one we're proposing here, since it only serves one existing train per day, with the proposed addition of a second (the Vermonter).

 

[crs1026]

For those who didn't catch it elsewhere, VIA sent three Budd RDC's to London, ON today on the back of train 85, reportedly for a "test".

The logical candidate for the test would be on the London-Sarnia route, which VIA's CEO had indicated may get some additional service.

http://www.theobserver.ca/2015/06/17/more-passenger-train-service-may-be-arriving-in-sarnia

This 'test' doesn't guarantee anything, but it does point to VIA at least showing some inclination to improve service.

Time will tell.

- Paul

 

[dowlingm]

For those who didn't catch it elsewhere, VIA sent three Budd RDC's to London, ON today on the back of train 85, reportedly for a "test".

https://twitter.com/chrisjamesdrew/status/700484850306916352

 

[SaugeenJunction]

I'm not sure what the scope of this thread is in terms of what regions it covers for VIA Rail service, but I'm gonna post this anyways.

Banff ponders bringing back passenger train service from Calgary
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/train-passenger-banff-calgary-1.3445936

I think this would be a good idea - Whenever I visit the Rockies, I have to fly into Calgary then rent a car to get to the ski areas. I think people would use it for convenience, and for the sightseeing opportunities. Hotels like Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise could include a Calgary-Lake Louise train trip as part of their hotel packages. Just look at the success services like the Rocky Mountaineer train have had, maybe this could be replicated here?

 

[ottbike]

VIA should have an edmonton-calgary-banff route.