Bordercollie
Senior Member
Why would they only use one tunnel? Is there not enough demand for both tunnels to be used?
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
crs1026
Superstar
^One nit to pick.... the Pontiac route is not really a separate "service" but just an extension of the Chicago trains. To me this is indicative that Detroiters don't have much of a habit of coming downtown for a train (...yet...) it's more like VIA customers using the former through trains that offered stops at Oshawa, Union, and Aldershot.
It's possible to theorise a service that uses Ford as the central terminal, but it really isn't as yet.
But that does suggest that a VIA train would need to terminate at Detroit and through passengers would transfer.
- Paul
It's possible to theorise a service that uses Ford as the central terminal, but it really isn't as yet.
But that does suggest that a VIA train would need to terminate at Detroit and through passengers would transfer.
- Paul
roger1818
Senior Member
Interesting. Even if they did build a separate platform on the south side of Michigan Central, the passenger trains would still need to cross over the tracks to get to Windsor's Train Station. Another theoretical option is that CP is hoping to get money from Amtrak to refurbish (and enlarge) the southerly bore to increase capacity so that Amtrak can use the tunnel. Then, even if the northerly bore was reserved exclusively for passenger use during the day (probably not necessary), CP would still see an increase in capacity since they could use both bores at night.
If as @smallspy suggests. it hasn't been enlarged for double stacks and autoracks, it may not have been worth the cost of enlarging it, but if they can get Amtrak to pay for it...
smallspy
Senior Member
Two reasons - one, traffic levels aren't high enough to require the use of both tracks. And the second, only the northern bore has been enlarged to handle larger rolling stock, largely due to the first.
Well, maybe this is the second part of the hypothetical....
Why remain at Walkerville?
VIA has made mention of using the CP tracks for many years to access Windsor, as they are a little bit closer to downtown than the former CN station was. (I don't know why, it'd never seemed that much further to me.) CP currently crosses the Chatham Sub at Ringold at grade, and at a fairly oblique angle, meaning that a connection track would not be hard to add, and it could even be done as a reasonably high-speed connection.
Dan
Bordercollie
Senior Member
roger1818
Senior Member
The way I see it there are three ways for VIA to get to Detroit:
- Build a wye as you proposed.
- Not bother with the wye and back in/out of the station when going from/to Detroit.
- Bypass the station in Windsor (possibly building a new station) and use CP's Windsor Sub west of the junction with VIA's Chatham Sub, as @smallspy suggested.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Not serving Windsor would defeat the purpose.
dowlingm
Senior Member
The City of Windsor and Transport Canada did a "Community Based Strategic Rail Study" in 2008. Several options revolved around relocation of VIA to the CP, removal of the Chatham west of Ringold in favour of using the Windsor Sub, or a dogleg onto the CASO sub (or further, removing CASO sub too!)
Study can be found on this page: https://www.citywindsor.ca/resident.../transportation-studies,-eas-and-reports.aspx
Press write-up: https://www.pressreader.com/canada/windsor-star/20081028/281560876624764
DirectionNorth
Active Member
What would be the disadvantages of the wye?
crs1026
Superstar
Possible land acquisition costs, plus the need to change ends at Windsor, plus more complext signalling.
For the short distance required, and assuming use of double ended VIA Siemens trainsets, backing out would be an acceptable alternative. Moving the depot might be in the same cost ballpark.
- Paul
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Moving Windsor station would cost the same as building a WYE?
And who's land are they going to build a station on? There are no buildings where the wye would be so why would that be so expensive?
You could ask CP to build it and they would recoup the costs through track fees.
The bigger issue is will ETR be cooperative to allowing passenger trains on their network and what it would cost to connect it to VIA or Amtrak CTC system.
roger1818
Senior Member
The money VIA pays to the freight railways to use their tracks covers little more than the costs of having the trains on the tracks. Even if they make a bit of money from it, it will hurt their Profit Margin (which is a key performance indicator), as it isn't as profitable as moving freight. That is why the railways will often cut routes that are only slightly profitable and focus on the highly profitable ones.
Frank_Lee
New Member
Not much new, but something perhaps of interest to the people following this thread:
edmontonsun.com
Resurrecting the Dayliner? A new push for Calgary-Edmonton rail line
Alberta Regional Rail is proposing a commuter line between the two cities, stopping at communities along the Highway 2 corridor
edmontonsun.com
Bordercollie
Senior Member
This is not a VIA initiative but a provincial one?
Frank_Lee
New Member
It seems to me more like a new lobby/activist group. It's unclear if the government has much involvement with this.