cplchanb
Senior Member
The seating and interior fit out is the easy part and obviously will be be different froom upx. What i meant is to tag on the order so that they can maintain the production line.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
cplchanb
Senior Member
why cant the rdcs go up to chuchill?
Admiral Beez
Superstar
All seven of them in this instance.
FFS, it would have been cheaper to give these seven a 2nd hand minivan free of charge.
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MisterF
Senior Member
A lot of good a minivan does to get you in and out of a town with no roads.
Funny how you never hear people apply the same standard to roads. The same logic would see many thousands of kilometres of remote roads shut down all over the country. But we don't do that because land based transportation is needed to these places, even if the infrastructure gets very little traffic and has to be subsidized.
As Canada's only real Arctic port, Churchill has strategic importance. The alternative to the rail line to Churchill would be a new road, which would make running a couple trains a week look like a bargain.
littlewill1166
Active Member
nvm, no RDCs got them mixed up with a different route. VIA does have a bunch of RDCs sitting at the TMC and they might buy some from Vermont if their project fails.
smallspy
Senior Member
First off, that train is covered by the "remote services agreement", and so receives a special subsidy to operate above and beyond the regular VIA subsidy.
Second, the passenger loads are quite substantial on the northern parts of the line. My understanding is that the traffic levels drop off to the south of Dauphin.
Dan
lenaitch
Senior Member
No RDCs on this line. I'm not sure but I don't think the Keewatin Rail connection to Pukatawagan (former CN Sherritt Sub @ The Pas) use RDCs either. The only RDC service that I am aware of is Sudbury-White River using Budd units.
This is a 2day/2 night run, not commuter rail. In the CBC clip I counted five cars - a variety of coach and sleeper configurations, baggage and no doubt dining facilities. The old Budd RDCs came in a variety of passenger and baggage layouts but I'm not aware of any that had diner or sleeper layouts, and I'm not sure if any modern RDC/RECs have those configurations either.
littlewill1166
Active Member
Yeah, I corrected myself in a later post.
Allandale25
Senior Member
Out of curiosity, what kind of rolling stock does Keewatin Rail use?
crs1026
Superstar
littlewill1166
Active Member
VIA Rail Canada - CPTDB Wiki
^The stuff that says "Used on Northern Manitoba services."
crs1026
Superstar
^I am always puzzled by the knee-jerk proposals to resurrect Budd RDC’s whenever a route looks iffy. The RDC has its appeal in certain niches, but it’s not a silver bullet train. One size does not fit all.
I’m not aware of RDC’s ever being used on a route of that length. RDC’s were never equipped with sleeping accomodation, although some had pretty good meal facilities. Their value was labour savings through reduced crew over a steam era conventional train crew ( no longer an issue with VIA), maintenance and fuel economy (but mostly in a very short train configuration), non-steam heat (that mattered in the 50s and 60s, but not today), bidirectionality, and excellent acceleration and top speed capability for fast, quick-stop services (which is wasted on the Churchill train).
VIA’s HEP fleet is perfectly appropriate for a route that needs to offer sleeping and meal service and a mix of “local” and long distance coach service. And has substantial baggage car traffic. And is up-sizeable for tour groups.
I can’t imagine grinding along at Churchill train speeds with the RDc diesels throbbing away under the floor, being trapped in a single car, with food served in cellophane wrappers. I can’t imagine RDC cabs being much fun to work in at -30, either.
The RDC has its lore, and they were a great solution on branch lines back in the day, but none of that fits with Churchill.
- Paul
Edit: The only exampleI can find of the RDC being used in long distance, overnight service is Medecine Hat to Spence’s Bridge on the old Crowsnest route. That was short-lived, and it was way back in the early 1960’s.
I’m not aware of RDC’s ever being used on a route of that length. RDC’s were never equipped with sleeping accomodation, although some had pretty good meal facilities. Their value was labour savings through reduced crew over a steam era conventional train crew ( no longer an issue with VIA), maintenance and fuel economy (but mostly in a very short train configuration), non-steam heat (that mattered in the 50s and 60s, but not today), bidirectionality, and excellent acceleration and top speed capability for fast, quick-stop services (which is wasted on the Churchill train).
VIA’s HEP fleet is perfectly appropriate for a route that needs to offer sleeping and meal service and a mix of “local” and long distance coach service. And has substantial baggage car traffic. And is up-sizeable for tour groups.
I can’t imagine grinding along at Churchill train speeds with the RDc diesels throbbing away under the floor, being trapped in a single car, with food served in cellophane wrappers. I can’t imagine RDC cabs being much fun to work in at -30, either.
The RDC has its lore, and they were a great solution on branch lines back in the day, but none of that fits with Churchill.
- Paul
Edit: The only exampleI can find of the RDC being used in long distance, overnight service is Medecine Hat to Spence’s Bridge on the old Crowsnest route. That was short-lived, and it was way back in the early 1960’s.
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littlewill1166
Active Member
It's just that VIA has a bunch of RDCs sitting at the TMC in storage which is a waste. They should really find a way to use them (attaching them to corridor trains as coaches, expand remote services, etc),
smallspy
Senior Member
It would only be a waste if they were actually fit for service.
As they sit right now, they aren't. They all need lots of work - possibly as much as a million dollars per unit - to upgrade them and bring them in line with the other units currently running today.
Dan
cplchanb
Senior Member
On that note, why doesnt Via ever consider getting new DMUs for their services that actually use them? These relics belong in a museum and just shows the lack of progressive thinking on Via.
Its just like the US battleships on display right now. Sure they are built to last 100 years but they have been rightfully retired because they are simply obsolete.