innsertnamehere
Superstar
Aldershot is there because it’s Via trying to serve Hamilton, not Burlington. Hamilton just doesn’t have a train station on the line.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Indeed, VIA consolidated its existing stations at Hamilton, Dundas and Burlington at Aldershot on May 25, 1992.
Just a short operational history of these 4 stations:
Hamilton
Hamilton's CN Station at James Street North was used by almost all its Toronto-Brantford-London trains until April 1962:
Source: CN timetable effective 1961-10-29
On April 29, 1962, all such trains dropped Hamilton as a stop (thus saving approximately 20 minutes in travel time), except for
Source: CN timetable effective 1962-04-29
Train 77 had its last scheduled run on December 31, 1964, the "International Ltd." its last scheduled stop in Hamilton on October 29, 1966 and the night train Toronto-Windsor ceased operation on June 30, 1967.
Nevertheless, the Toronto-Niagara Falls service continued to serve Hamilton until April 24, 1992:
Source: VIA timetable effective 1992-04-26
Dundas
Dundas had always been a minor stop for CN, but initially, they tried to ensure connectivity between London and Hamilton, by
Source: CN timetable effective 1962-04-29
However, within months that experiment was dropped in favor of having passengers connect at Burlington or running a connecting bus between Hamilton and Dundas. VIA inherited that connecting bus service to selected departures of the Toronto-London service and rerouted it first to Brantford (in April 1977) and soon after to Burlington (in October 1978), before discontinuing it in November 1987.
Nevertheless, the stop at Dundas survived until May 24, 1992:
Source: VIA timetable effective 1992-04-26
Burlington
Most, though not all CN services stopped at Burlington and VIA continued to do so until May 24, 1992.
Aldershot
Aldershot was only used by 1-2 of CN's Hamilton-Toronto commuter trains until the stop disappeared with the timetable change on 1965-10-31 (after which the station was not used by any intercity trains until VIA decided to consolidate its Burlington/Hamilton/Dundas stops on May 25, 1992 at GO’s new station which had been built approximately 0.3 miles East of the old location):
Source: CN timetable effective 1965-04-25
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With all of that said, I can see VIA returning to stop at GO's West Harbour Station, but only if CN allows GO to build a connection from GO's platforms to its main tracks (which would shave quite a few minutes off GO's weekday commuter service from/to Niagara Falls) and obviously only for the Maple Leaf, as for Toronto-London-Windsor trains, the penalty of going via Hamilton will always be too much of an inconvenience. This is why I struggle to imagine that they would move their stop back to Burlington, as it would be quite a bit further from Hamilton, but in the end, Hamilton is located at the wrong rail corridor...
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Bordercollie
Senior Member
Where was/is Dundas Station?
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Xav
Active Member
Being a CPA, I almost cried reading your post (in a good way)
FP&A teams have access to pretty incredible data that would never make it's way in a publicly reported publication (such as an annual report) and they're pretty amazing at working with network planning. It's the same thing with airlines, and trust me they do it pretty efficiently with a lot more uncertainty than Via.
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roger1818
Senior Member
That one phrase says a lot. While some fixed costs are easy to allocate to a specific service (ex. costs associated with a station that is used exclusively by corridor trains can be attributed to corridor service), costs that are shared by multiple (or all) services can be more difficult to allocate in a fair way.
Xav
Active Member
Typically you'd allocated using a prorated value like ridership and that would provide a strong basis for auditors. However, Via doesn't present segmented information by service in their audited financial statements. The annual report mentions it, but it's a grey zone from an accounting standpoint since it's unaudited (which means that they basically can say whatever they want provided that it's generally in line with what the audited FS say). They can use managerial accounting notions in the MD&A portion of the report if they so choose.
hw621
Senior Member
Reminding you how many level crossings there are...
kEiThZ
Superstar
So, guess they missed the promise for "launching the HFR procurement process" in the Fall.
roger1818
Senior Member
If you read the video description you will realize that it was recorded at the same crossing. The train was traveling back and forth multiple times and filmed from two different camera angles.
roger1818
Senior Member
Technically there are still 7 days remaining in the fall.
JasonParis
Moderator
Does that mean Niagra Falls-bound trains backtracked a bit to serve Dundas on the line?
roger1818
Senior Member
Do you use the number of passengers boarding/alighting each train, the revenue generated from those boardings/alightings, or the total revenue from the train(s), or some factor of the perceived value? Things get even more complicated when you look at trains like the Ocean, which serves as an additional corridor train between Montreal and Sainte-Foy. The passengers that travel east of Sainte-Foy generate more revenue, but their direct costs are also higher, so is it fair to assign a higher percentage of the in-direct costs to it?
One thing to consider is having VIA transfer ownership and responsibility of stations that they own outside of the corridor to the local government. Those non-corridor stations are underutilized and the local government is better able to find alternate uses for the station when not needed by VIA.
Allandale25
Senior Member
True, but I think that promise was made before the federal election. Is it possible that VIA had to delay it because of the election and while they waited for a new Minister to be sworn in?
kEiThZ
Superstar
It was a promise made in the run up to the election. Basically an election promise. If they didn't have the ability to meet it, why make the promise? Alghabra could have easily pledged a January launch.