VIA Rail

[roger1818]

It was literally just a random dude who writes about trains saying that about 4 seems to be optimal because that's what the Irish use. And then, for some reason, you cut that down to 3.

Since we're going on opinion, I'd say 3-5 is probably about it. It depends on the operating profile of a given route and whether or not unpowered/undriven carriages are included in the consist. For a dozen DMUs out of a Kingston hub? I think DMUs could well be economical up to 4 cars.

First off, DMUs are probably great for the Kingston hub because of the number of stops they are including. Being able to accelerate back to cruising speed quickly is certainly an asset when the route has a stop every 30 km on average. Next, I based my math on your post from Kingston's mayor about 12 trains a day to Toronto and 6 each to Ottawa and Montreal, and assuming reciprocal service at the start of each day.

There are a total of 7 possible stops between Kingston and Toronto, but I wouldn't expect all trains to stop at all of them. Three of them in particular (Port Hope, Trenton Jct, and Napanee) might have more trains stop than today (prior to COVID), but not a lot more (the post from Kingston's mayor says there will be "Express trains to Toronto").

Given that the average trip time of these trains is 2.5 hrs +/- 15 min, with turn around times, a very generous estimate is 3 hrs per run or 6 hrs per roundtrip. That's at least 4-5 trainsets for Toronto-Kingston and 2-3 each for Kingston-Ottawa and Kingston-Montreal. Toss in a spare or two and another for the maintenance pipeline and it's easily in the 12-15 range.

That is almost exactly what I said, if you took the time to actually read my post (5 for Toronto, 2 for Ottawa and 3 for Montreal).

In a world with no spares and no longer term maintenance scheduling.....

I wasn't counting spares as they wouldn't be dedicated for a specific route. Besides, if using the Semmens trainsets, they would already have spares and wouldn't need to buy more (or at least not as many).

Fuel and other running costs (would CN cut a deal for less heavier rolling stock?) are usually much higher than maintenance costs. So the savings from commonality would have to be substantial along with minimal efficiency gains from deploying DMUs for this to be true.

Why do you think CN would "cut a deal for less heavier rolling stock?" Anything VIA puts on the tracks is light compared to what they are hauling. What CN doesn't like is VIA's speed.

Look at how many types VIA has now. In a world where they are down to just Chargers, Venture coaches and a DMU fleet, their operations and workforce would be substantially more streamlined than today. What this is then down to debating is specifically going even further to exactly one model of locomotive and one family of coaches.

I don't think it would be feasible for VIA to only have only "one model of locomotive and one family of coaches" coast to coast, but reducing the number of variations will greatly help reduce maintenance costs. The inventory of spare parts they need to keep would be much smaller and the staff would be much more familiar with the model of vehicle they are working on, knowing all of the ins and outs.

 

[smallspy]

Certain maintenance can only be performed at MMC. If the car doesn’t fit into Gare Centrale, you’ll have to run a deadhead train every time you need to move an oversized car between TMC and MMC...

On top of that....

The cars don't fit into the trainshed at Winnipeg, and probably don't fit into the trainshed at Union - which complicated operations when the cars were deadheaded across on the Canadian for work.

Dan

 

[micheal_can]

You know.... other rail companies build new facilities to maintain their equipment. Why not build a new building to fit new equipment?
I keep touting the ONR and the Northlander. The yard in North Bay has seen new buildings since it' inception in 1902. One would imagine Via could do the same on an as needed basis.

 

[smallspy]

You know.... other rail companies build new facilities to maintain their equipment. Why not build a new building to fit new equipment?
I keep touting the ONR and the Northlander. The yard in North Bay has seen new buildings since it' inception in 1902. One would imagine Via could do the same on an as needed basis.

VIA is rebuilding their facilities in Montréal and Toronto to better deal with the Siemens equipment. What more do you want?

Dan

 

[Mcurtis]

Given that we didn't see much out of the federal government in its fiscal update beyond some additional support to VIA to help cover the losses due to Covid-19. Should we look to the states in terms of the Amtrak State Supported rail lines model to try and get more service to areas that are presently underserved. The high-speed rail thing comes up every once and a while as a bit of a gimmick to try and win political points. If Ontario, for example, was willing to support Via Rail with an Ontario-based service could that be a viable option to provide the necessary funding for adequate service to communities like Sarnia, London, and Ottawa? I don't personally ever see Metrolinx expanding to the distance where London would be a viable option for them and I think that it would stretch them to thin. VIA presently has the services there but it needs assistance in funding for new trainsets and operational funds. Do you guys think that there could be enough political will in these areas to try and find a way to support VIA rail through direct funding from the province to help pay for the missing intercity connections and additional train runs? If you had to guess for VIA to become a viable option for people to take and stop driving or drive less to get around. What type of frequency or regularity would be needed to do so?

 

[tmlittle]

Given that we didn't see much out of the federal government in its fiscal update beyond some additional support to VIA to help cover the losses due to Covid-19. Should we look to the states in terms of the Amtrak State Supported rail lines model to try and get more service to areas that are presently underserved. The high-speed rail thing comes up every once and a while as a bit of a gimmick to try and win political points. If Ontario, for example, was willing to support Via Rail with an Ontario-based service could that be a viable option to provide the necessary funding for adequate service to communities like Sarnia, London, and Ottawa? I don't personally ever see Metrolinx expanding to the distance where London would be a viable option for them and I think that it would stretch them to thin. VIA presently has the services there but it needs assistance in funding for new trainsets and operational funds. Do you guys think that there could be enough political will in these areas to try and find a way to support VIA rail through direct funding from the province to help pay for the missing intercity connections and additional train runs? If you had to guess for VIA to become a viable option for people to take and stop driving or drive less to get around. What type of frequency or regularity would be needed to do so?

First you'd have to break the consensus even a lot of public transit fans seem to have, that regional cities don't deserve better transit.

 

[Urban Sky]

First you'd have to break the consensus even a lot of public transit fans seem to have, that regional cities don't deserve better transit.

I don’t recall much controversy - especially among “public transit fans” - about offering better transit to cities outside of this country’s largest metropolitan areas (and I wholeheartedly support such demands!), but I’m afraid that there is a misconception here if you seemingly regard intercity passenger rail as an integral part of transit rather than being only highly complementary to those intra-urban and intra-regional transport networks that actual “transit” is all about...

 

[micheal_can]

VIA is rebuilding their facilities in Montréal and Toronto to better deal with the Siemens equipment. What more do you want?

Dan

That....

The way some were talking, we shouldn't get new equipment that doesn't fit into the existing facilities.

 

[Urban Sky]

That....

The way some were talking, we shouldn't get new equipment that doesn't fit into the existing facilities.

Yawn...

I believe there is a less-than-subtle difference between upgrading your maintenance facilities at the same time as most of your fleet and buying cars which are incompatible with parts of the infrastructure on which they would be required to run.

 

[roger1818]

Yawn...

I believe there is a less-than-subtle difference between upgrading your maintenance facilities at the same time as most of your fleet and buying cars which are incompatible with parts of the infrastructure on which they would be required to run.

Exactly. There is a big difference between upgrading facilities for 32 new locomotives and 160 new coaches that will be heavily used on the busiest part of the network and a half dozen tourist coaches that can’t be used east of Portage la Prairie .

 

[smallspy]

That....

The way some were talking, we shouldn't get new equipment that doesn't fit into the existing facilities.

What makes you think that the Stadler cars wouldn't fit into the maintenance facilities? (Spoiler alert: they do.)

But......is it worth the purchase of a very limited fleet of equipment if the requirements to fit it on your network run into the hundreds of millions of dollars when there exists the possibility of buying equipment that fits without those changes? I don't happen to think that's prudent.

Dan

 

[micheal_can]

What makes you think that the Stadler cars wouldn't fit into the maintenance facilities? (Spoiler alert: they do.)

But......is it worth the purchase of a very limited fleet of equipment if the requirements to fit it on your network run into the hundreds of millions of dollars when there exists the possibility of buying equipment that fits without those changes? I don't happen to think that's prudent.

Dan

What if the cost of the new equipment, plus the new building is cheaper over the long run, than running equipment over 50 years old?

 

[kEiThZ]

What if the cost of the new equipment, plus the new building is cheaper over the long run, than running equipment over 50 years old?

That's not mathematically possible. At least over any reasonable timeframe.

 

[Urban Sky]

What if the cost of the new equipment, plus the new building is cheaper over the long run, than running equipment over 50 years old?

Nobody questions the need to replace 50+ year old equipment. Things only start to become questionable when people here start suggesting to chose a rolling stock design which requires expensive modifications to existing infrastructure over alternative designs which don’t.

You certainly can enjoy the cost savings and revenue gains associated with operating a modern fleet without causing the need for expensive modifications to the existing infrastructure...

 

[roger1818]

Nobody questions the need to replace 50+ year old equipment. Things only start to become questionable when people here start suggesting to chose a rolling stock design which requires expensive modifications to existing infrastructure over alternative designs which don’t.

You certainly can enjoy the cost savings and revenue gains associated with operating a modern fleet without necessitating expensive modifications to the existing infrastructure...

Especially when those modifications are to designated Heritage Railway Stations.

Union Station at 123 Main Street - Home of the Winnipeg Railway Museum - Heritage Winnipeg

Article by Laura McKay, on behalf of Heritage Winnipeg Corp. To follow up on this or any other articles on the blog, contact Heritage Winnipeg’s Executive Director. Thank you to Greg Agnew for his assistance with photos for this piece. VIA Rail Station (aka Winnipeg’s Union Station) Union...

heritagewinnipeg.com