VIA Rail

[crs1026]

The pining for the status quo is what I don't get. What exactly is good about the current service which only works for those who aren't time sensitive and those in big cities, and reduces demand in the large metros by extending travel time (because of all the intermediate stops)? Not to mention the cascading delays. I don't see anything redeeming in this model.

It’s not opposition to change per se - it’s the observation that Kingston most typifies what HFR will look like, and I find it counterintuitive that VIA would sacrifice what they are working towards, where they have already built it and proven its value.

As you note, Kingston is smaller than other key cities, yet its ridership is disproportionate. I would attribute that to having the highest frequency of departures firstmost, and good timings also. If this is true, then adding frequency to Windsor, London, Kitchener would be compelling.

Kingston also has a choice of express and local trains. I have no data as to whether riders show preference for the expresses. VIA would know that. As a midpoint station that isn’t that many hours to each end, I would guess that the difference in trip times matters less than the wide choice of times. However, even for shorter runs I would predict that the general rider experience is subjectively different when a train makes many stops. So I am loathe to lose those, although that may just have to happen.

You say this as though the schedule change doesn't add significant value. It does.

Since COVID reduced VIA’s operations (and put me in front of my monitor so much more!) I have been watching VIA’s moving maps, and have had the benefit of chats with a few operating folks. My impression, supported by others’ comments, has been that VIA’s timekeeping has improved lately because there are fewer passenger trains out there (yet just as many freights).
What I have observed is that late trains seem to be able to recover from delays quite well with the current operating plan. If current conditions are a snapshot of how the line will look post-HFR, I would say the concern about cascading delays is less serious, and the operational value of splitting schedules at Kingston is lower. I would not be upset if VIa chose to do that, but in many cases their logistics might prefer that a trainset continue on in the same direction. In that case, I would say join the two schedules and not break it for the sake of configuring as a hub.

What’s disappointing is how often trains reach the limits of Metrolinx territory on time (sometimes even having recovered from delays) only to arrive at Toronto late, because (even with GO service cut back) VIA is run behind a slower GO train. The problem of VIA not having priority transcends freight vs passenger.

HFR was originally pitched as making Corridor East net profitable. And I believe it. I think the Kingston hub will be quite successful at growing Lakeshore traffic. Heck, I think it's the only way to actually make the service grow: by optimizing around Kingston departures.

But even if cross-subsidy is required, I fail to see the huge challenge. Either the CIB accepts it, or some deal is worked out with the government to continue subsidizing Lakeshore service. And hopefully that level of subsidy will be less than commanded today, with fewer and smaller trains to subsidize. And hopefully higher load factors.

I would keep it simple - leave HFR as a standalone profit/loss center, and leave Lakeshore service as a line item in the customary list of corridor services, with whatever cost recovery it earns, and let the overall subsidy to the Corridor include it. My rationale is that post HFR there will be a reckoning in Ottawa over the remaining Corridor shortfall. Ottawa will still be left in a quandry about whether to support services that don’t show full cost recovery.... and will have fewer options to invest in a separate right of way for these. I’m kind of guilty of trolling to draw that out. There will be people insisting on cutting the subsidy altogether, and VIA may not be able to justify expansion fast enough to prevent cutbacks.

I can envision HFR reaching London eventually, but unlike the East Corridor, there are no abandoned parallel corridors that can be reactivated. CN may assist, provided VIA sticks to the Stratford line, but we still have no public resolution of the Halwest to Georgetown corridor which they will be protective over. Entry to London, and increased frequency over the short stretch of CN west of town, will also be sensitive. New constuction may be cheaper, but land is scarcer and costs more, with strong local opposition as we saw in Oxford County.

That brings me back to the “topic that we must discuss elsewhere”.... the reality that even with the improvements in HFR, VIA will remain a tenant on others’ lines, and has inadequate stature to defend its interests. This applies to Kingston also - as CN volume grows, can VIA maintain that improved operation, and can it add more trains when business warrants it, or where it will support HFR? What VIA promised that Mayor may not be sustainable without both funding commitment and some clout to ensure priority.


- Paul

 

[robmausser]

I can envision HFR reaching London eventually, but unlike the East Corridor, there are no abandoned parallel corridors that can be reactivated.
- Paul

The GEXR corridor is a good candidate for HFR.

It was just sold to CN, but they bought it almost out of the fact that they didn't want to lose it. Its really underused for freight and is not a mainline by any stretch of the imagination.

Not only that, but it would make more sense for the HFR route to go through Kitchener.

I could easily see VIA buying the GEXR from CN between Kitchener and London, and putting passenger rail priority over freight on it, or adding another track from Kitchener to London in the corridor. The tracks are in bad shape and would need replacement anyways, and it was at one time double tracked, so theres room. Lots of at-grade crossings though, so for the time being would be 177kmh max.

^^ Its also important to note that this is no different than the portion of HFR from Toronto to Peterborough. That's not an abandoned corridor, its a currently owned and operated CP branch line, just like the GEXR line and CN. They share many similarities, its a lightly used corridor with tracks in poor shape.

In fact, the GEXR line has one advantage over the CP one to Peterborough, and that is that VIA already is operating trains on it, it gives them some clout.

The portion from Union to Kitchener is owned by Metrolinx (except the portion we all know between Bramalea and Georgetown) and would be easy to negotiate schedules with. Passenger rail lines, even if not owned by the rail company requesting their use, are always more accommodating to other passenger rail services. They already have the infrastructure in place, and while you might get stuck behind another train, its not a huge freight going 20kmh, its another passenger train trying to make good time.

 

[Urban Sky]

Wouldn't a Toronto-NYC rail line struggle a bit to compete with air travel? It couldn't really be all that direct with Lake Ontario in the way.

The obvious route to kick off frequent cross-border service would be Toronto-Detroit, as all what is needed from Amtrak is to move back into Michigan Central Station which is currently getting restored by Ford...

 

[Allandale25]

I didn't realize VIA still made paper trains. Got this today at Union. Great gift for young and young at heart railfans. If anyone wants one and can't get to Union, DM me and I'll send it (just send me the postage).

 

[kEiThZ]

As you note, Kingston is smaller than other key cities, yet its ridership is disproportionate. I would attribute that to having the highest frequency of departures.

I am going to suggest that a huge part of that ridership is simply the demand from Kingston being a university, garrison and retirement town that is also roughly equidistant to three major metros. Since Kingston is going to much of a cut in total trains serving it, there should not be much impact in a change in the number of trains. And more demand generated by a better schedule.

Kingston also has a choice of express and local trains. I have no data as to whether riders show preference for the expresses. VIA would know that. As a midpoint station that isn’t that many hours to each end, I would guess that the difference in trip times matters less than the wide choice of times. However, even for shorter runs I would predict that the general rider experience is subjectively different when a train makes many stops. So I am loathe to lose those, although that may just have to happen.

This obsessive focus on Kingston ignores all the other communities along the Lakeshore who don't get that level of service. Which presumably also impacts riders who want to travel along the Lakeshore and aren't bound for a major metro. They aren't well served right now either. But we know from what Mayor Patterson put up that there will at least be some express trains to Toronto.

My rationale is that post HFR there will be a reckoning in Ottawa over the remaining Corridor shortfall. The point of my concern is that Ottawa will still be left in a quandry about whether to support services that don’t show full cost recovery.... and will have fewer options to invest in a separate right of way for these. I’m kind of guilty of trolling to draw that out. There will be people insisting on cutting the subsidy altogether, and VIA may not be able to justify expansion fast enough to prevent cutbacks.

Worrying about what might happen post-HFR and using that to rationalize avoiding HFR is bizarre. And basically is a viewpoint that leaves VIA perpetually hostage to the current gradually failing status quo. Let's not forget, if there's no HFR and freight traffic keeps rising, VIA is screwed. VIA is going to keep seeing travel times worsen, fares rise and traffic fall. If there's no HFR, we may be looking at the end of VIA in a decade.

I can envision HFR reaching London eventually, but unlike the East Corridor, there are no abandoned parallel corridors that can be reactivated. CN may assist, provided VIA sticks to the Stratford line, but we still have no public resolution of the Halwest to Georgetown corridor which they will be protective over.

A good chunk of whatever happens West of Union will come down to what happens with GO RER and even plans for the Pearson Transit Hub. Getting to London may need new track or even a new corridor. That's fine. Worry about that when it's time.

 

[ec_traindriver]

Worrying about what might happen post-HFR and using that to rationalize avoiding HFR is bizarre. And basically is a viewpoint that leaves VIA perpetually hostage to the current gradually failing status quo. Let's not forget, if there's no HFR and freight traffic is screwed, VIA is going to keep seeing travel times worsen, fares rise and traffic fall. If there's no HFR, we may be looking at the end of VIA in a decade.

We should not put the cart before the horse but, considering the recent past, that doesn't look promising: it has been cuts after cuts after cuts for decades. Why should it be any different now? That has happened before, so I feel for anyone fearing further doses of the same treatment.

A good chunk of whatever happens West of Union will come down to what happens with GO RER and even plans for the Pearson Transit Hub. Getting to London may need new track or even a new corridor. That's fine. Worry about that when it's time.

This doesn't sound good and is the exact reason why I questioned the soundness of having no public transportation policy on a supra-provincial level. Railway corridors are a finite resource, abandoned corridors in urban areas get filled up pretty much soon by "urban renewal" projects, so the "worry about when it's time" looks a ludicrous proposition. In the end, this mess looks like a bellum omnium contra omnes ("the war of all against all").

 

[roger1818]

How exactly are they going to make Kingston a Hub when they only have two tracks? There is nowhere for trains to layover, so you would need to deadhead from Toronto in the morning to start trips there.
You could make the second platform an Island and put in another track on the other side, and add wayside power.

Don't forget, prior to COVID, VIA had a daily train that originated in Kingston in the morning to Toronto and one that returned to Kingston in the late evening. I am not sure where that train would layover (maybe on one of the two sidings 600m east of the station?), but it probably wouldn't be too hard to have layover two more .

And there is a WYE at the Lafarge plant, but doesnt look long enough for a locomotive and 5 cars to clear the switch.

I measure it to be over 800m (assuming they can use the whole thing). Considering a Siemens Venture coach is 26 m long and a Siemens Charger is just under 22 m long, that is a total train length of 152m, so would leave about 650 m to spare. Besides, they are bidirectional so there is no need to turn them around.

I am going to suggest that a huge part of that ridership is simply the demand from Kingston being a university, garrison and retirement town that is also roughly equidistant to three major metros.

The fact that Kingston had more daily VIA Rail departures than any other station in the country doesn't hurt either.

Since Kingston is going to much of a cut in total trains serving it, there should not be much impact in a change in the number of trains. And more demand generated by a better schedule.

Agreed.

This obsessive focus on Kingston ignores all the other communities along the Lakeshore who don't get that level of service. Which presumably also impacts riders who want to travel along the Lakeshore and aren't bound for a major metro. They aren't well served right now either. But we know from what Mayor Patterson put up that there will at least be some express trains to Toronto.

It depends how you define express. I highly doubt if there will be any trains (like the pre COVID 40, 43 and 45) with no stops between Kingston and Union, but I suspect there will be some (maybe half) trains that only stop in Belleville, Cobourg and Oshawa.

EDIT: Fixed bad formatting.

 

[kEiThZ]

We should not put the cart before the horse but, considering the recent past, that doesn't look promising: it has been cuts after cuts after cuts for decades. Why should it be any different now?

We are literally talking about a proposal for a $4B capital program and people think this will lead to cuts? That's pretty illogical.

Could cuts happen? Sure. Anything could theoretically happen. Is it likely? No. Not in the least because cutting services along the Lakeshore is going to be politically sensitive. There's almost a dozen ridings along that corridor. No government is going to risk losing seats with cuts to literally save $10-20 million.

This doesn't sound good

It sounds just fine. The GO RER investment will build VIA track that gets them to at least Kitchener. And as others have pointed out, there's ways to get to a London from there. The worst case scenario being a new corridor. But that's a far stretch. And not really all that bad a situation. This is starting to border on absolutely any and every excuse to avoid HFR.

And let's be clear if HFR doesn't happen and VIA bleeds passengers, there is a real risk, a future government will simply cut up VIA, hand off some services to the provinces and cut the rest. HFR is a bet on the future of intercity passenger rail in Canada. Anybody who truly cares about the future of VIA should be cheering this on.

The pessimism from people who say they care about passenger rail is rather bizarre. With friends like these....

 

[roger1818]

Railway corridors are a finite resource, abandoned corridors in urban areas get filled up pretty much soon by "urban renewal" projects,

Are you familiar with Canada's process for transferring or discontinuing railway line operations?

EDIT: Found the correct link.

 

[ec_traindriver]

Wouldn't a Toronto-NYC rail line struggle a bit to compete with air travel?.

End-point to end-point? Yes, of course. Probably Toronto to NYC through ridership would be a little higher if the Maple Leaf operated on a night schedule as, according to Google Flights, the first Air Canada plane lands in Newark at 10.15. Skipping to a night service would also potentially shave off some of the travel time, as some intermediate stations could be dispensed with, up to the point that the service could save the 2-hour border-checks in Niagara Falls with border preclearance done in Toronto (and no intermediate Canadian stops all the way to Buffalo). After all, the Empire Corridor is already well served, with 4 services already originating in Buffalo and 20 from Albany (in both cases, not including the Maple Leaf).

 

[ec_traindriver]

Are you familiar with Canada's process for transferring or discontinuing railway line operations?

EDIT: Found the correct link.

I admit my own ignorance. Thanks for the link!

 

[crs1026]

We are literally talking about a proposal for a $4B capital program and people think this will lead to cuts? That's pretty illogical.

Good grief. If I weren’t on mobile I would scroll back and cut and paste the @kEiThZ posts from ~2017 turning into 2019 with no headway made on HFR. If it weren’t for YDS going to the mat, this thing would be dead and buried. Never has a government dithered for so long over such a small step forward. If you believe Ottawa is clearing the path for HFR, well.....

The pessimism from people who say they care about passenger rail is rather bizarre. With friends like these....

The pessimism is not about HfR as a project, it’s about the strong signals Ottawa is sending that this is, well, maybe on, some day, no rush.

With friends like Ottawa bureaucrats and politicians....

- Paul

 

[Bordercollie]

Did that morning Kingston train come from Toronto? Did it layover somewhere overnight?
If it came from Toronto in the morning, it would need to be wyed before going back to Toronto unless it was a train with a locomotive on each end.

 

[micheal_can]

I didn't say they will be shuttered. But I have said before that I don't really care if they were shuttered. The needs of the 6 million in the major metros outweighs the needs of the 700k along the Lakeshore. That said, I hope VIA can make the Kingston hub work for them and offer them service tailored to their schedules. Will be better for them and remove political obstacles to HFR.

So, put it to 1 train every 2 days like the rest of the network. Problem solved...... Not really, but you see how your comments sound like it? Supposedly the HFR sections will be a profit for Via on those routes. That means they should have some money so that they can invest elsewhere. Using Kingston as a hub makes some sense. No reason A train every 1-2 hours going to each destination couldn't work, and couldn't be cost effective.

Are y'all forgetting what kind of service Kingston and the Lakeshore communities get today? I've spent time in Kingston. VIA is seen entirely as a student and pensioner service because the timings are largely inadequate for them today. Nobody who is actually employed uses VIA. This is a direct consequence of a service schedule that is optimized around departures from Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Starting in Kingston is a gamechanger for all the Lakeshore communities.

I don't get the derision of the the Kingston hub as "commuter service". Talk to anyone who lives in Kingston. They'd rather have "commuter service" than the current service of mostly useless timings. I know because I have colleagues who occasionally commute from Kingston to Ottawa. And they all drive today.

There is talks in London for commuter service. Extending the GO to Kitchener effectively did this to London. I could see an eventual extension of GO to Kingston in the next 20-50 years at this rate.

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

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).

It is impressive that there is such a high number of travelers at that station. One wonders why it's so successful.

 

[afransen]

Millennials save earlier than past cohorts at the same age:

Millennials started saving earlier than other generations, but they still have less wealth than their parents did at their age

Millennials began saving in their 20s, but their parents waited until their 30s. It goes to show how the Great Recession put them financially behind.

www.businessinsider.com

They work more than others:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/18/more-work-more-sleep-new-study-offers-glimpse-daily-life-millennial/

You're right that they eat out more. Seems to have changed from a few years ago. Could have something to do with working more hours. In any event, relevant to this discussion is that Millennials and Zoomers clearly see a car as a liability, not an instrument of freedom. They use transit a lot more. And buy cheaper cars when they do buy vehicles.

They have also had a preference for urban living. Though there's evidence that's changing as they start families. But all this makes for a generation that's primed to use intercity rail. I think Boomers are far more likely to buy a $100k Tesla with Full Self Drive and take roadtrips in that than Millennials who might take a $60 train ticket instead.

I remember a lot of Gen Xers in my office trying to talk me into buying a luxury vehicle when I was still in an entry-ish level position. Rather save and buy a home with that money.