VIA Rail

[kEiThZ]

Well, my hopes are that it doesn't become, again, a commuter service only.

Turning 12 departures to Toronto per day into solely commuter service would be quite the accomplishment. That's better commuter service than any actual suburban railway in Canada today.

The 6 departures each to Ottawa and Montreal is more akin to commuter service, but entirely in line with the level of demand they have today.

Let's not forget, for all this heartache over Kingston, it's a small city of 170k. It's not going to be generating much ridership to begin with. As it stands, even today, it's filling up maybe one coach on each train.

 

[crs1026]

Would the JPO report cover the Kingston hub? It's not like that is integral to building HFR.

There’s not a lot of technical or financial study required, so the full JPO focus won’t be needed, no.
But as a matter of transparency and full disclosure, one would expect that VIA would articulate its business and service plan for the route.
To the extent that the JPO work represents the project’s EA...the core obligation of an EA is to identify and study all the impacts of a project. The change in service plan would be a direct impact and might be meaningful in presenting the pro’s and con’s. If it were omitted, it might be grounds for anyone opposed to challenge the EA as incomplete. No one wants that kind of delay.

- Paul

 

[ec_traindriver]

Turning 12 departures to Toronto per day into solely commuter service would be quite the accomplishment. That's better commuter service than any actual suburban railway in Canada today.

Calling a 250 km long service "suburban" is quite funny. But I get your idea.

The 6 departures each to Ottawa and Montreal is more akin to commuter service, but entirely in line with the level of demand they have today.

If it were, i.e., 8–12 regional departures/day to Toronto, and 6 regional departures/day each to Ottawa and Montréal, without eliminating through services à la #42 (Toronto–Ottawa), and #66 (Toronto–Montréal), then I would sincerely be okay with it. IMHO, there needs to be some sort of non-stopping service between Belleville and Kingston, and Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal. The bulk of the most direct trains would surely run uninterrupted on the HFR line, but there needs to be at least two or three "fast" departures per day. The last schedule I got for train #651, which I suppose is your "model" for the regional services to Toronto, says it's a 2 hour 53 minutes journey (Google Maps estimates a 2 hour 30 minute to 3 hour 30 minutes drive for the same route by car), while train #40, which runs no-stop between Toronto and Kingston, takes only 2 hour 9 minutes.

50-something minutes less journey time isn't something that I would renounce that easily if I were a Kingston resident commuting to any of the three major cities.

Let's not forget, for all this heartache over Kingston, it's a small city of 170k. It's not going to be generating much ridership to begin with. As it stands, even today, it's filling up maybe one coach on each train.

How much ridership did it generate before the pandemic?

 

[crs1026]

Let's not forget, for all this heartache over Kingston, it's a small city of 170k. It's not going to be generating much ridership to begin with. As it stands, even today, it's filling up maybe one coach on each train.

You point may be valid, but I’m tripping over your comment..... filling one coach of a four car train is pretty material.

I’m mobile and can’t scroll back to cut and paste, but I’m sure we have seen the exact numbers for Kingston ridership posted on this thread, both in absolute and ranked against other stations. My recollection is that it ranks pretty high. That may not outweight the merits, but one ought to look at those numbers and ask how will a new service plan change the numbers. My recollection is that Kingston ranks high enough that VIA should be worrying about retaining that much revenue, and future potential.

- Paul

 

[roger1818]

How much ridership did it generate before the pandemic?

According to this Access to Information Request, in 2018, VIA Rail had 456,586 passengers board and alight in Kingston, making it VIA's 5th busiest station. That puts it just behind London (at 508,955 passengers) and ahead of Quebec City (at 324,037 passengers).

 

[Urban Sky]

According to this Access to Information Request, in 2018, VIA Rail had 456,586 passengers board and alight in Kingston, making it VIA's 5th busiest station.

It's a shame that the ridership table is not sorted by passenger volume, but a look at your previous comment shows that current ridership in Belleville and Cobourg is non-negligible, especially once we consider how much inferior service is to these stations (thanks to the existence of exactly the kind of Kingston-to-Toronto-non-stop trains @ec_traindriver seems to want to make the model for lakeshore services):

Yes they will be shorter (VIA currently uses 5-7 car trains along these routes). The question is will they be short enough for DMUs to make sense? VIA will have the best information for determining this, but looking at VIA's Total passengers at stations (boarding and deboarding) in 2018 for the top 6 stations along the "lakeshore" corridor (ignoring Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Fallowfield and Dorval as they will have HFR, but including Oshawa as it won't).

Rank	Station	Total Passengers
5	KINGSTON	456,586
9	OSHAWA	207,037
12	BELLEVILLE	146,395
13	COBOURG	136,541
18	BROCKVILLE	61,305
20	CORNWALL	55,890
	Total	1,063,754

Now if you divide that by 52, you get 20,457 passengers per week. Assuming ridership remains the same, and that there will be 12 trains a day weekdays, 10 trains on Saturdays and 8 trains on Sundays (a guesstimate) each way, that is a total of 78 train each way or 156 trains total per week. Divide that out and you get an average of 131 passengers per train, using 2018 ridership. With a schedule that tailored for the lakeshore service rather than to/from Ottawa and Montreal, that number should grow significantly (this is just a starting point). One of VIA's new "Extra short," 3 car trains will have a capacity of 176 passengers, so that will be a good starting point, and more cars can be added seasonally as ridership grows.

I admit these calculations assume that no one is traveling between those stations (instead they are going to/from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa or one of the other stations not listed), but I also ignored the smaller stations (like PORT HOPE, GUILDWOOD, TRENTON JCT, etc.), so that should balance out reasonably well.

 

[roger1818]

It's a shame that the ridership table is not sorted by passenger volume,

I copied the data into Google Sheets and then sorted it by passenger volume. I updated my previous post to indicate the volume at the 4th and 6th ranked stations.

 

[ec_traindriver]

It's a shame that the ridership table is not sorted by passenger volume, but a look at your previous comment shows that current ridership in Belleville and Cobourg is non-negligible, especially once we consider how much inferior service is to these stations (thanks to the existence of exactly the kind of Kingston-to-Toronto-non-stop trains @ec_traindriver seems to make the model for lakeshore services):

IMHO, both types of services should co-exist. It's not up to me to say which proportions should be maintained between stopping and non-stopping services, but I would say that a Kingston–Toronto semi-fast service, stopping in Belleville and Oshawa only, wouldn't be that bad considering the 45-minute difference compared to the stoppers.

 

[kEiThZ]

IMHO, both types of services should co-exist.

Not enough riders to support both. The segment that can support some express/skip-stop service is getting double the departures of others (Kingston-Ottawa).

If it were, i.e., 8–12 regional departures/day to Toronto, and 6 regional departures/day each to Ottawa and Montréal, without eliminating through services à la #42 (Toronto–Ottawa), and #66 (Toronto–Montréal), then I would sincerely be okay with it.

The whole point of HFR is to move traffic between the major metros to the new HFR line. And the whole point of Kingston hub is to start in Kingston.

Keeping the current trains would be pointless. Why would anybody take a 5-6 hr train from Toronto to Ottawa or Montreal when a 3-5 hr train exists?

Also, the whole issue we have with through service today is cascading delays. Get stuck behind a freight train early in the journey and you keep adding delays the whole way. Breaking the trips in Kingston improves reliability for all the Lakeshore customers by allowing more schedule flex.

 

[kEiThZ]

My recollection is that it ranks pretty high.

Which really isn't saying much given that VIA has rather poor marketshare today and Kingston is a university and garrison town with plenty of young people who don't own a car. If the ridership doesn't grow substantially with the Kingston hub, they'd be in trouble maintaining service, since they can't use TOM traffic to prop them up anymore. Ergo, why catering service to those who actually have jobs makes sense. Students and Army privates are far less schedule sensitive.

According to this Access to Information Request, in 2018, VIA Rail had 456,586 passengers board and alight in Kingston, making it VIA's 5th busiest station.

Thank you.

That works out to a little over 1250 pax per day on average. Given that the Kingston hub is supposed to have 24 departures per day between all its branches, that works out to an average of 52 pax per departure, less than one full economy car.

1.5 economy (includes cab car) + 1 business coach on 24 departures out of Kingston is looking like plenty of service for the Lakeshore, when you look at the numbers. If you really want to be generous, add one more economy coach.

 

[ec_traindriver]

Not enough riders to support both. The segment that can support some express/skip-stop service is getting double the departures of others (Kingston-Ottawa).

I absolutely agree: there should be more regional service with a consistent schedule and stopping pattern. Skipping stops here and there, almost randomly, isn't helping at all.

The whole point of HFR is to move traffic between the major metros to the new HFR line. And the whole point of Kingston hub is to start in Kingston.

Keeping the current trains would be pointless. Why would anybody take a 5-6 hr train from Toronto to Ottawa or Montreal when a 3-5 hr train exists?

Nobody, exactly. But that further proves my point: if I had to entrain in Oshawa or Belleville, en route to Montréal, what would be my options? Taking a 2 hour stopping regional to Kingston, and another 3 hour stopping regional from there to Montréal!? Or maybe taking the regional westward to Toronto, and then change to an HFR train!? What a perfect way to completely pull ridership apart. It's basically an assist to car travel.

Drawing a parallel with Amtrak, there exist both non-stop Acelas, stopping Acelas, and stopping Regionals on the NEC. If tomorrow morning Amtrak decided to shut down all stopping Acelas, and replace them with non-stop New York to Washington, DC ones only, ridership would likely plummet.

"Only this, or only that", is not a good transportation policy.

 

[Darwinkgo]

Saving for a budget splash?

I'm more curious about the JPO report than the actual approval announcement. The latter is formality to some extent. The former is the real meat that will tell us how they looked at and analyzed the situation and the various solutions.

Not for the budget. The money doesn’t need to be voted by parliament. I bet it comes as early as possible - once daily vaccine updates are boring and hopefully after the hospital crunch is past so it doesn’t look tone deaf.

 

[robmausser]

I absolutely agree: there should be more regional service with a consistent schedule and stopping pattern. Skipping stops here and there, almost randomly, isn't helping at all.

Another issue with trying to get riders in a regional approach is that VIA has assigned seating and advanced ticket purchasing. Unlike GO or other regional services, you cant stand and you must have a seat, like a plane.

But, at the same time, they offer a commuter pass, that has something like 40 prepaid tickets a month.

Its a mess though, my friend used to work from Port Hope, and you had to pre-buy your ticket every day using the commuter pass.

If the trains full, I guess youre not getting to work!

 

[Darwinkgo]

Would the JPO report cover the Kingston hub? It's not like that is integral to building HFR.

No. Why would it?

 

[sacred]

Another issue with trying to get riders in a regional approach is that VIA has assigned seating and advanced ticket purchasing. Unlike GO or other regional services, you cant stand and you must have a seat, like a plane.

But, at the same time, they offer a commuter pass, that has something like 40 prepaid tickets a month.

Its a mess though, my friend used to work from Port Hope, and you had to pre-buy your ticket every day using the commuter pass.

If the trains full, I guess youre not getting to work!

Might that be covered under the new reservation system?