smallspy
Senior Member
No.
But they didn't have to slow down as much. Just because the track may be rated for 100mph doesn't mean that the signals will allow you to do that.
Dan
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
But they didn't have to slow down as much. Just because the track may be rated for 100mph doesn't mean that the signals will allow you to do that.
Dan
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
no; that is the case for the Mascouche line, but the Deux-Montagnes has been fully electrified since 1918, and entirely EMU since 1995.
hard to really call REM a step back for that line in isolation though.
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roger1818
Active Member
I stand corrected. Still, did they operate them on any routes that didn't use the tunnel?
crs1026
Senior Member
It’s mathematically possible to do the distance at that speed - if - there are no slow orders, crossover routings, or extraordinary dwell time.
In practice, those things happen.
One would need to see the on-time performance toknow if that schedule was ever realistic, or how it may have deteriorated over time.
RTC’s have told me that in practice, they were discouraged (for good reason) from crossing freight trains over to get them out of the way of overtaking passenger trains. So the passenger trains are crossed over. Each crossover event requires the train to slow, and that adds delay. . As @smallspy noted, with added frequency, even crossing over is difficult without encountering and delaying a train coming the other way. And since little was done to add platform capacity, some stops required local trains to cross over to make stops…. another potential for a conflicting movement that gets in the way of the express.
The original track configuration for the Kingston Sub circa 1970 (which was designed to accommodate the Turbo) had overtaking sidings every 30 miles or so. The shorter freights of the day could be slid into those sidings to get them out of the way. As trains got longer - and as CN became more a more bottom line focussed business - that concept was discarded. Those sidings are gone. The triple tracking of 15 years ago attempted to restore that overtaking functionality, but not enough got built to sustain that idea.
- Paul
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roger1818
Active Member
Also, CN was a crown corporation back then, so it was easier for VIA to negotiate a deal with them to give them priority. As a publicly traded company, CN would want to be well compensated (to maximize ROI for their investors) for giving a VIA train top priority on the line, especially with so much traffic.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Yes and no.
There's fare sensitive travelers, time sensitive travelers and value sensitive travelers. Fare sensitive travelers will always be a tough proposition for rail companies anywhere. These are the folks who will seek out rideshare, buses, etc. Very hard to win them. Likewise, those who are absolutely time sensitive will always fly. The real opportunity for rail companies is in those who are value sensitive. And usually they are putting an implicit cost/value on time saved from road or increased from air, against the cost added or saved with rail.
A lot of people assume that business travel is time sensitive. In my experience, it's value sensitive and part of that calculation includes the time of the employee in transit. At 5+ hrs for the train with low reliability, businesses will almost always choose air. At ~4 hrs, with high reliability, I think business would mostly choose rail. Especially, if the argument can be made that there are less hassles accessing stations than airports and the time onboard can be more productive. Unless, it's a day of round trip, for most businesses the extra 1 hr would be no big deal.
IRT_BMT_IND
New Member
What if I told you that the fastest train between Berlin and Munich (virtually the same Euclidean distance as Toronto-Montreal: 504.2 km vs. 504.5 km) took 8:47 hours that year?
I'd say your example is a bit of a special case, because in 1992 much of that time (looks like around 6 out of those 9 hours) would be spent on poor quality track in the former East Germany.
MisterF
Senior Member
I don't think population density has all that much to do with why passenger trains are better in Europe. People tend to overestimate the density of Europe and underestimate it in North America. Sure, Europe is denser overall but that's not really relevant to specific regions. Southern Ontario, for example, is denser than all but a handful of major European countries. And Toronto's urban area is denser than a surprising number of European urban areas.
The other thing North Americans tend to assume is that you need a lot of density to support trains. I don't think that's necessarily true. In Europe, even remote regions have excellent train service. And it works because trains are competitive with driving - they haven't built extensive expressway networks in remote areas like we have. Simply put, Europeans have prioritized trains for the last 70 years, even in lightly populated areas, while we prioritized cars.
kEiThZ
Superstar
^ And that CNN article doesn't mention density once. I think a solid and recent example, applicable to major North American population corridors, that shows what can be accomplished with intercity rail investment is Italy.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Trust me, as a native German I know how bad tracks were in the former GDR, but this doesn't change that Toronto-Montreal at 3:59 hours (or in 1990 still: 4:30 hours) was faster than any major rail corridor in Germany until into the start of the 21st century, even though many of them had already hundreds of kilometers upgraded to HSR by then:
Since then, Canada has of course fallen back, but Toronto-Montreal is still surprisingly competitive against some of these German corridors:
I'm of course not trying to convince you that VIA is better than the ICE, but to make you realize how insanely ambitious a travel time of 4 hours is for a train linking two cities more than 500 km apart without ever exceeding 160 km/h...
smallspy
Senior Member
Nope, not the last generation of equipment anyways.
While I agree with you on the definitions.....
My experience has been that a lot of businesses use VIA service as the time in motion becomes usable work time, whereas the time on the plane more-often-than-not is not. A 5 hour train trip allows for 4 and a half hours of work. A 1 and a half hour flight allows for none.
I know of quite a few firms that have prioritized travel by train for just that reason if the trip is scheduled to be longer than one day.
Dan
kEiThZ
Superstar
I don't doubt that some companies have done so. But the bulk of business travel is still going by air or by car. I would argue that sub 4.5 hrv travel time and reliability closer to 95% is needed to get rail a majority share.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Which is what they want to achieve by building their own corridor....right?
cplchanb
Senior Member
Honestly most people won't see past the combined security and additional travel time of air but rather more on the base travel time. The fact is that toronto and Montreal is 1hr. 4.5hrs is still a huge difference. Last time I went to Montreal pre pandemic it took me 20 min to get to yyz, 1hr before flight and 30min to get from yul to city centre. So that's still under 3hrs total. Throw in 15% buffer and it's still under 4hours.
Id say they need to aim for under 4hrs or even 3.5h avg if they ever want to make deep inroads into the air pie
Bordercollie
Senior Member
That might be during non rush hour times. 1 hour to get to Pearson, 20min to Park the car and walk to the terminal. You should at be there two hours before your flight with the line ups of today.
1 hour flight. 20 min to de-plane and 30 minute cab ride to downtown. That's more realistic.
Thats about 4 hours.