VIA Rail

[CapitalSeven]

Federal goverment has mostly been fine with VIA One/Business for everyone, as it is usually less expensive than flying. There may or may not be others with that position.

 

[kEiThZ]

I've certainly never had an employer tell me I should be taking business class for rail. It's never even crossed my mind ...

You not having an employer who tells you to do something, doesn't mean the practice isn't common elsewhere.

They are certainly very explicit about not taking business class for air travel, without a million people above you signing off on it ... I'm not sure why VIA would be different.

Mostly because business class on a train is about the same or cheaper than air fare. With the added benefit of saving one meal allowance. This is why they allow it. Most employers are only all to happy to spend less on travel if that's what you want. If VIA One turns out more expensive, you're probably taking the plane.

It's equally the norm in Europe for most business travel on rail to be on First Class (which confusingly is below Business/Executive Class but above Economy).

Post-HFR as business travel on VIA picks up substantially, we'll see new norms emerge on such travel.

Federal goverment has mostly been fine with VIA One/Business for everyone, as it is usually less expensive than flying. There may or may not be others with that position.

It's more than the feds. But rail travel is just way less common in the private sector.

 

[crs1026]

It's more than the feds. But rail travel is just way less common in the private sector.

The Province of Ontario’s travel expense policy is online. It restricts business class travel by rail to exceptional circumstances and requires prior approval at a ver high level.

My recollection is that Business Class used to be OK but this was trimmed back after one of the high publicity AG findings some years back. I recall taking Business Class back in the mid 90’s, but all my business travel post-2000 was in coach.

- Paul

 

[roger1818]

You not having an employer who tells you to do something, doesn't mean the practice isn't common elsewhere.

Nor does you having an employer who tells you to do something.

It's more than the feds. But rail travel is just way less common in the private sector.

Bingo! There may be some employers in the private sector who have policies around rail travel, but from my experience most (at least in high tech) treat the train like flying. For fun, I just doubled checked my company's travel policy (they are based in downtown Montreal) and for transportation they list "Air Transportation," "Personal Vehicle," and "Car Rental." I have never had a problem expensing train tickets (even full fare economy ones) but have never tried expensing business class.

 

[smallspy]

People like to feel valued. I'd extend the offer though: very frequent users should be able to gift upgrades to friends and family. Let them be your rail evangelists.

They can. I've "bought" tickets for friends and family many times using my points.

Dan

 

[kEiThZ]

For places that allow business class on VIA, the justification is usually about the cost being close to airfare.

There's no incentive to mandate economy travel on a train because the alternative then becomes air travel.

If you have a policy of lowest fare on any carrier, that naturally lends itself to being restricted to economy class.

Right now train travel for business is basically novelty. Even for federal government employees. Will be interesting to see how this changes with HFR and what norms develop. This is where I think VIA expanding the business class offering and reducing the cost would help.

 

[crs1026]

For places that allow business class on VIA, the justification is usually about the cost being close to airfare.

There's no incentive to mandate economy travel on a train because the alternative then becomes air travel.

Many of the "legacy" public service travel and expense policies (which I had to painfully research once upon a time, when a particular hammer came down) put a time threshold on business class for both air and rail travel, in the 4-5 hour range. For air travel that was intuitively sensible, because it tended to allow business class for travel beyond North America (where fatigue and comfort certainly are material) but not within.

More recently, as governments have discovered just how easily the media can stretch a story about public sector travel expense excesses, the rules have become much more restrictive. Most common is a statement along the lines of "most economical travel" which not only supersedes the business-rail-beats-air theme, but demands an auto vs rail coach comparison. Having said that, many treat air and/or auto travel as the default.

I have always been fascinated by the rebuttal argument that says "private sector is much more businesslike about things like expenses". Its certainly harder to research the details, and clearly not everybody is held to the same rules, but I know just so many people in the private sector who moan about the annoying rules of business travel and the arcane bureaucracy they face in claiming expenses. Everybody watches the pennies.

- Paul

 

[roger1818]

For places that allow business class on VIA, the justification is usually about the cost being close to airfare.

I think it is largely ignored in the private sector because so little of their travel is to a destination that could reasonably be done by train.

There's no incentive to mandate economy travel on a train because the alternative then becomes air travel.

Actually, the alternative is usually driving. For driving longer distances (over about 200km), the company usually insists on renting a car as it is cheaper than paying mileage on an employee's car. Compared to driving, economy train tickets are similar in cost (if only one person is traveling) but business class will likely be more expensive (especially if a car is needed at the destination).

 

[nfitz]

Actually, the alternative is usually driving. For driving longer distances (over about 200km), the company usually insists on renting a car as it is cheaper than paying mileage on an employee's car.

That's more my experience. Though once you hit 500 km or so, if there's a flying option, if you aren't taking it, you are costing the company money from being less billable. At least on the train, you can work. Pretty hard to write emails and read reports while driving on the 401!

I'm guessing that companies that mandate the use of business class on VIA are the exception.

 

[crs1026]

We've probably beaten the topic to death, but the point all seem to agree on is that the Business travel market is a big game for VIA. I'm sure they already do plenty of things today to promote their network to the business market. One assumes they will redouble that effort when HFR comes on line.

I will share two chuckles and then drop the topic

One, for a time we had a CFO who telecommuted from London to Toronto almost daily by VIA. My employer's policy of that era required the CFO's signoff on all requests to upgrade to business class for travel. Not many upgrades got approved, because if coach was quite pleasant enough for the CFO, well then......

Second, if you want the extreme in arcane company policies, check out the U of Toronto travel policy at

https://finance.utoronto.ca/policie...penses-policies-and-guidelines/#airrailtravel

They require rail travel to only be procured from an “approved supplier for train travel” which is captured on another page

https://www.procurement.utoronto.ca/supplier-network/directory/train-travel

Restricting corporate procurement to Approved Suppliers lists is a pretty common practice in supply chain space, but in this case it’s a bit perverse. There are, of course, only two approved suppliers on the list....VIA Rail Canada and Union Pearson Express.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

Restricting corporate procurement to Approved Suppliers lists is a pretty common practice in supply chain space, but in this case it’s a bit perverse. There are, of course, only two approved suppliers on the list....VIA Rail Canada and Union Pearson Express.

No GO Trains? Working near Union, I've found it's invariably faster to take GO to various meetings near the Lakeshore corridor, and grab a taxi from the suburban GO station (or a bus, if there's one there heading the right way). More convenient too, as I can write up notes from the meeting, or eat lunch en-route. I keep hoping that service on the other 3 all-day lines improves for that to be an option near those as well.

 

[afransen]

Nor does you having an employer who tells you to do something.

Bingo! There may be some employers in the private sector who have policies around rail travel, but from my experience most (at least in high tech) treat the train like flying. For fun, I just doubled checked my company's travel policy (they are based in downtown Montreal) and for transportation they list "Air Transportation," "Personal Vehicle," and "Car Rental." I have never had a problem expensing train tickets (even full fare economy ones) but have never tried expensing business class.

We have a field for public transit fares, I think that is where we would put rail/GO fare. I was travelling to all-day sessions near Union and taking GO. Had a few bad experiences with lengthy delays arriving at Union... I was tempted to just accept guaranteed delay driving.

 

[kEiThZ]

I'm guessing that companies that mandate the use of business class on VIA are the exception.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting there's any company that mandates business class on VIA. Just that some will allow it, in lieu of airfare.

One assumes they will redouble that effort when HFR comes on line.

I should hope so. HFR would make any trip of 400 km or less somewhat competitive with air travel. They will be getting multiples of the amount of business travelers they get today.

 

[roger1818]

Hardly. It's still a high capital cost to buy a whole new fleet. A cost that a lot of poorer jurisdictions might not be able to afford or justify at the traffic levels they have on some lines. There's a reason a lot of older rolling stock does end up in the developing world. And yes, if you're in the developing world, you probably aren't likely to care prioritize emissions as much as providing service.

Which is why I said it was "a long winded answer to say VIA would sell them to a developing country that doesn't have any carbon emission standards."

I mean depot level reconfiguration. Unless there's specific fittings for business class coaches, the only difference is the the floor plan of the seating area. The attachment points for seating, tables, window covers, etc will all be fairly standard and reconfigurable. If these aren't reconfigurable within a few days at depot, VIA is doing something wrong.

I am not so sure. I took the "Long" Trainset layout from VIA's presentation at the 2020 NGEC Meeting (referenced previously), and reorganized it so that the cars are stacked vertically to make it easier to compare them. Granted there is no legend to say what is what, and the design could still change, but I assume it is reasonably representative and you can get a good idea of the layout of each coach type. From this, there seem to be significant differences to the ends of the car, where the washrooms, luggage racks and galley are located. What those differences are, it is hard to say.

Also, don't forget that the seats in business class will be different than the ones used in economy, so they would need to buy approximately 66 new seats. I don't know how much they cost, but if you consider a good quality office chair can run you $1000, these will probably be at least that, and probably significantly more, so you are probably looking at a price tag of well over $100,000 to reconfigure one coach. If they end up needing to redo the plumbing for the washrooms and galley, the reconfiguration won't be so trivial.

Hardly. Like I said the markets for business travel and economy travel tend to be independent. The only reason we perceive them as linked is because we put both sets of passengers on one train. There's no reason VIA couldn't run business only service. The only question is one of market for such a service. They have to enough customers to justify that.

So you think there are times of the day that there won't be any demand for economy passengers and if there is, they won't mind waiting a few hours for the next train? Even with the hourly service of HFR, having some of the trains business class only would mean a significant wait for those economy passengers who wanted to catch it. I just don't see the benefit for VIA. If the business class passengers don't want to risk having the peasants in economy class enter their coach, just lock the doors connecting the two.

Acela is a totally different situation. First of all you have an extremely high frequency of service on the North East Corridor (more than double what HFR will have). Secondly the HSR trains are charging a premium price in the first place, because of the speed, so making them start at business class makes sense.

In any event, going back to my original point, it's good that VIA is growing business class starting offering. Their current setup of one business class car is probably a little too low. When HFR comes, they will need even more business class seating. Especially if HFR is competitive with air.

Growing business class is one thing. Shrinking economy class is another.

 

[sacred]

With HFR taking the more northerly route, I'd assume that cellular coverage might get even worse. I wonder if Starlink could provide enough bandwidth for the whole train at a reasonable cost, improving the trip connectivity's even more.