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VIA Rail

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lenaitch said:
TSB investigations take months. If there are indications it was criminal act (which I haven't heard), then the police will become involved and we'll hear if/when charges are laid.
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They know exactly what was hit on the tracks - why not say?

Why it was put there is a question that may need more time to answer, but why not be open with what they know so far?
 
BurlOak said:
They know exactly what was hit on the tracks - why not say?

Why it was put there is a question that may need more time to answer, but why not be open with what they know so far?
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What good is it to know what it was, but not why? Better to wait for the TSB investigation to see the full picture rather than to promote pointless speculation.
 
reaperexpress said:
What good is it to know what it was, but not why? Better to wait for the TSB investigation to see the full picture rather than to promote pointless speculation.
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To some degree I accept this.
The analogy would be that the government should start building a subway line or highway and then when construction is finished - they would let the public know what they did and why. I am sure we would accept this reasoning as well.
 
BurlOak said:
To some degree I accept this.
The analogy would be that the government should start building a subway line or highway and then when construction is finished - they would let the public know what they did and why. I am sure we would accept this reasoning as well.
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The correct analogy would be to conduct a full study before publishing the information all stakeholders concerned need to make an informed decision for or against the construction of your hypothetical subway line, so almost the complete opposite of what you wrote...
 
lenaitch said:
TSB investigations take months. If there are indications it was criminal act (which I haven't heard), then the police will become involved and we'll hear if/when charges are laid.
Click to expand...

Further to my previous post, there is no indication on the TSB website that an investigation has been initiated. Their site lists underway investigations as well as "team deployments". The incident possibly did not reach their response criteria; they don't respond to everything. No mention either on the VIA or CN websites media pages.
 
Meanwhile in BC, the next phase of a study into a high speed rail corridor linking Vancouver, Washington and Oregon is getting another round of funding. Interesting to note that in addition to state and provincial governments, Microsoft is contributing $300,000 to the study (equal to what BC is contributing in this round). According to this Geekwire article, the motivation is pretty simple; they want to help create a high tech corridor to rival Silicon Valley and see high speed rail as a way to do that. Who knows how far it will go, but it is something to watch.

https://www.renewcanada.net/b-c-invests-in-high-speed-rail-corridor-study/
 
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Reecemartin said:
The impetus is that Microsoft has several large offices in Vancouver and is of course based in Seattle so lots of people are travelling back and forth. The current options kind of suck. The train isn't super fast but the flight is pretty short (but a flight).
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You are right. I edited my post right after since I realized it would take me all of a minute to answer my own question.
 
This LA Times article about cutbacks to California’s HSR project isn’t good news for the rest of us.

The actual degree of cutback is not yet clear, with some people saying the project is still moving ahead in some aspects and others saying it’s dead. It sounds like they will complete some sections of the line, but not attempt a full San Francisco- LA high speed route.

It doesn’t directly compare to VIA’s much more modest proposal, but It does open the door for every HxR critic everywhere to say “I told ya so”, and public perceptions of HxR will be impacted accordingly. That won’t help VIA any.

This particular project may have been a tad overoptimistic, with politics perhaps glossing over some of the risks and pitfalls. (I can’t imagine how one could understate the difficulty of building a new rail line into the Los Angeles area. If the “easy” parts of the route got into trouble, that segment remains a very tricky and pricey proposition.) One would hope that VIA is doing its homework carefully on the costs and underlying technical issues, as well as planning its governance and oversight so that contractors are held in check.

I was cautiously optimistic that the Liberals would trot out VIA’s HFR proposal as a pre-election bauble. That may now backfire - the Liberal ‘brand’ may not survive the election. If the Liberals attach themselves too much to HFR, it could be discarded by a Tory government for that very reason.

Anyways, while California is a long way away, and while their project is nothing like what VIA contemplates, in the public’s eye they are pretty much the same.

- Paul
 
Even if they can't get HSR all the way to Lancaster/Palmdale, it seems to me a bad idea not to have some diesel service bridging to there from Bakersfield, even if it means crossing UPRR's hand with much silver.
 
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