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VIA Rail

alexanderglista said:
Seamless travel between VIA Rail and Train de Charlevoix
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Looks like some people from VIA have been reading the UT forums I’ve written about this several times.

This is great news. But a true seamless experience would be allowing the Train de Charlevoix to enter the Palais Station by Old Quebec.

A great step in the right direction nevertheless.

Hey VIA Rail employees, please look into running a night train from Toronto to Quebec City. This would be great for ski trips in the winter, vacations to Toronto, tour groups from overseas who fly into Toronto, and weekend getaways.

Have the train leave at around 10pm, a stopover/crew change in Montreal (and or Ottawa) and arrive in Quebec at 8am.
 
Garuda said:
Looks like some people from VIA have been reading the UT forums I’ve written about this several times.

This is great news. But a true seamless experience would be allowing the Train de Charlevoix to enter the Palais Station by Old Quebec.

A great step in the right direction nevertheless.

Hey VIA Rail employees, please look into running a night train from Toronto to Quebec City. This would be great for ski trips in the winter, vacations to Toronto, tour groups from overseas who fly into Toronto, and weekend getaways.

Have the train leave at around 10pm, a stopover/crew change in Montreal (and or Ottawa) and arrive in Quebec at 8am.
Click to expand...

We do have people from VIA on our forums, @Urban Sky is an example!
 
^I think there's a regulatory issue nothing to do with VIA on this, is there not? Platform height?

[...]Le Massif's regional rail transit serving Charlevoix is looking forward to expand to Québec, and Côte-de-Beaupré wants its share of the deal. (Réseau Charlevoix; wiki). I'd be awfully excited if the german-built cutie-pie DMUs were to serve the capital. However, I hardly see how is that possible, as the speed limits west of Montmorency falls are pretty weak and ssss llllllll ooooo wwww, and Gare du Palais station has high platforms only ― although passenger movements just out of the station would not be impossible.
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https://cptdb.ca/profile/4576-webfil/content/?type=forums_topic_post&page=12

Discussed here:
https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/36-1/TRAN/meeting-16/evidence

Story here:
http://www.wboc.com/story/38978937/seamless-travel-between-via-rail-and-train-de-charlevoix
 
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steveintoronto said:
^I think there's a regulatory issue nothing to do with VIA on this, is there not? Platform height?
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The bigger issue is the temporal separation, a consequence of the non-compliance of their ex-DB BR 628 with FRA regulations. There is not much use in sharing a station if you can't operate at the same time... ;)
Garuda said:
Hey VIA Rail employees, please look into running a night train from Toronto to Quebec City. This would be great for ski trips in the winter, vacations to Toronto, tour groups from overseas who fly into Toronto, and weekend getaways.

Have the train leave at around 10pm, a stopover/crew change in Montreal (and or Ottawa) and arrive in Quebec at 8am.
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You seem to assume that there is an abundance of slots (provided by the host railways) and fleet...
 
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For @Garuda and anyone else interested, I found two excellent reports/studies about the difficult operating environment for night trains in Europe, which is evidenced by a certain fleet type VIA Rail operates on its The Ocean service and on selected trains of its Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec route...:

The article (for a medium-long read): https://www.railway-technology.com/...r-for-europes-passenger-night-trains-5885394/
The study (for a long winter night): http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/601977/IPOL_STU(2017)601977_EN.pdf
 
Night trains are pointless in the age of AirBnB and low cost carriers. Europe is proving that. There are some rough exception where they make sense in Canada. Ocean and Canadian make sense. In the Corridor? Not at all. Every penny should be spent on making service faster and more comfortable. If we had HFR and it only took you 6 hrs to get from Toronto to Quebec City, almost nobody would be springing for a sleeper train. They'd just want a 5 am departure from Union so they could reach Quebec City for lunch.
 
I tend to agree, but bear in mind that a lack of sleeper service doesn't mean there shouldn't be an "overnight" service leaving at whatever hour of the morning allows for an arrival in time for a business day at the destination. We don't actually have that now.

kEiThZ said:
Night trains are pointless in the age of AirBnB and low cost carriers. Europe is proving that. There are some rough exception where they make sense in Canada. Ocean and Canadian make sense. In the Corridor? Not at all. Every penny should be spent on making service faster and more comfortable. If we had HFR and it only took you 6 hrs to get from Toronto to Quebec City, almost nobody would be springing for a sleeper train. They'd just want a 5 am departure from Union so they could reach Quebec City for lunch.
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Bureaucromancer said:
I tend to agree, but bear in mind that a lack of sleeper service doesn't mean there shouldn't be an "overnight" service leaving at whatever hour of the morning allows for an arrival in time for a business day at the destination. We don't actually have that now.
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I'd actually be even more supportive of running a dome car once a day on weekends over the HFR line, for those wanting a more scenic experience, for a premium cost of course. Most likely not possible with the new fleet however, and more of a fantasy idea.
 
Bureaucromancer said:
I tend to agree, but bear in mind that a lack of sleeper service doesn't mean there shouldn't be an "overnight" service leaving at whatever hour of the morning allows for an arrival in time for a business day at the destination. We don't actually have that now.
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That really depends who your train service is for, and what it would cost to run at night.

Unlike Europe, VIA is sharing tracks with CP and CN. Running overnight is probably more complicated. I'm sure the freight operators like the break from VIA at night. Taking that way will undoubtedly come with costs.

And next, what's the market in the Corridor, for time sensitive rail travelers who want to arrive for business in the morning? Hardly anybody traveling for business even takes the train in Canada. Even fewer of them will agree to overnight travel. Heck, even in Europe, you won't see any business travelers overnighting. They take HSR. The overnight market was always hugely dependent on tourists looking to avoid hotel costs. But since AirBnB, that's not an issue. Which is why overnights are dying in Europe. In Canada, where you still get hotels in downtown Toronto or Montreal for less than <$200 a night and AirBnB for half that, the cost avoidance drive is just not there. Our biggest issue is usually the cost and time of the trip rather than avoiding a night of hotel stay.
 
alexanderglista said:
I'd actually be even more supportive of running a dome car once a day on weekends over the HFR line, for those wanting a more scenic experience, for a premium cost of course. Most likely not possible with the new fleet however, and more of a fantasy idea.
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What view would you get going by Peterborough? It's not even as scenic as Lakeshore service.
 
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