VIA Rail

[roger1818]

He's a populist pushing austerity. I know you want to believe the best of your MP, but his track record on supporting public spending doesn't inspire confidence.

LOL. Except I don’t think much of him (or even want to).

I realize that his words on my doorstep are about as solid as the paper they were written on, but I mentioned it as an indication of how his brain works (or doesn’t work). People’s perception of politicians are usually distorted by the media’s reporting of them, unless they have an opportunity to listen to them first hand. Overall my first hand impressions of him haven’t been that great (there is a running joke in my family about my debates with him), but with him as leader of the party, I’m unlikely to ever see him again.

 

[APTA-2048]

The thing that I don't get is that these people who are Anti Immigration, their ancestors at some point came from somewhere other than here. That's how this country has been built. So being against the fundamental principles of our nation is so odd. Without immigrants who would be their kids nanny's and clean their houses?

Easy. It’s selfishness, lack of empathy, and just plain cruelty. They got everything they needed and don’t care about anyone else. If other people suffer, “who cares? I don’t know any of them.”

 

[rbt]

Elections are won in the suburbs.

That's what I was including, what Europe would call the larger urban zone. Federal conservatives need more of those 905 and 450 seats.

HFR is a very popular concept in Quebec, even in the areas well outside downtown Montreal and Quebec City.

 

[nfitz]

They had one: Erin O'Toole. Did you vote for him? Hoping that people vote for Liberal lite, didn't work out. So now they are going hard.

He may have been moderate - but he didn't campaign that way to win the Conservative leadership. So how would he get trust during election if he contradicted himself.

Also, he didn't campaign on being moderate. He hid from the media and wouldn't take non-pre-screened questions for most of the campaign - instead of doing the stand there taking questions until the media give up approach. So how would any who might vote Conservative be swayed? And then there were local candidates who were much further right, or in many ridings not actually campaigning or appearing at local debates.

Personally, I was swayed by my local candidate last time - rather than the party I wanted to do better .

Elections are won in the suburbs. NDP and Liberal voting urban Canada are irrelevant to the balance of power.

As are those voting Conservative in western (and parts of Ontario) rural areas.

Still, was there any evidence that even O'Toole was going to improve VIA? It's not like Harper did much, and Mulroney massacred it. At least Chretien and Trudeau are heading in the right direction (all too slowly). The less said about Martin the better.

 

[Allandale25]

 

[Bordercollie]

View attachment 458630

I hope that they can return to service.

 

[roger1818]

I hope that they can return to service.

Zooming in on the original photograph on Twitter, one is a Baggage car (#4620? the last digit is obscured by a snow flake) and the other is a Château Sleeper (Château Laval). The sleeper could be useful (though one more sleeper won't make a huge difference, as each one can only accommodate 23 passengers, at most), but VIA has more baggage cars than they need, and this one is apparently an ex-Union Pacific Budd slab-side baggage car (for what it is worth).

 

[crs1026]

^Those cars are likely not payload… they are along simply to meet braking and signals requirements. Something else was likely delivered or picked up by this consist.

- Paul

 

[Bordercollie]

^Those cars are likely not payload… they are along simply to meet braking and signals requirements. Something else was likely delivered or picked up by this consist.

- Paul

Will baggage cars return to the corridor?

 

[kEiThZ]

HFR is a very popular concept in Quebec, even in the areas well outside downtown Montreal and Quebec City.

The Quebec media covers the topic more. I haven't seen evidence that it's actually popular though. Sure, rail nerds who know about it are vocal. Not sure this translates into the average voter making it a priority. In Quebec or Ontario.

Paradoxically, the places that HFR might be most popular are those without rail service that would benefit substantially: Peterborough and Trois Rivieres. HFR would be transformative to them.

 

[crs1026]

The Quebec media covers the topic more. I haven't seen evidence that it's actually popular though. Sure, rail nerds who know about it are vocal. Not sure this translates into the average voter making it a priority. In Quebec or Ontario.

Paradoxically, the places that HFR might be most popular are those without rail service that would benefit substantially: Peterborough and Trois Rivieres. HFR would be transformative to them.

There may be a little more sense of trickle-down where the non-urban folks (who are the voters in Ontario who see no personal benefit in better rail passenger service and thus question the spend) at least see the value of spending money on infrastructure in their province.

It will be interesting (some day) when we can compare modal share. I see no evidence of Quebeckers being more amenable to ditching their autos, and distances for competing auto trips within the HFR catchment zone in Quebec are among the shortest in the HFR area... so the auto may still be attractive even with HFR alongside.

I'm also not sure that we see all Quebec mayors cheering for HFR..... the media beats a path to Trois Rivieres when they need a quote, but that's only one constituency.

- Paul

 

[roger1818]

^Those cars are likely not payload… they are along simply to meet braking and signals requirements. Something else was likely delivered or picked up by this consist.

- Paul

You are correct. Reading the comments it says that it was a Park car that was dropped.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1629954114346991616

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Is the Pickering Airport really necessary when we have Billy Bishop, Waterloo, Hamilton and London?

Can't we just make better utilization of what we already have? Those airports can't attract enough carriers today how will opening Pickering help that?

A secondary (or tertiary if you want to count Billy Bishop as the secondary) airport has long been discussed on this forum. Both in the context of the Pickering airport proposal specifically and in the context of general Southern Ontario aviation. I think I, like the majority here do believe that there needs to be better service to the Western GTA airports (Hamilton, Waterloo, London) the question is how do we do that and does that solution include potentially closing an airport or two in favour of consolidating traffic to one airport. Which airport is chosen and should this airport integrate with the passenger rail network somehow. For a hypothetical scenario, lets say Waterloo airport is closed for a larger Hamilton and/or London airport. Having high speed rail from Kitchener with mitigate the airport closure as people would be an approx 1hr train ride from YYZ.

But like I said that's really outside the scope of this thread.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

But I was surprised that he didn't approve of his MP's attending a meeting with this right wing German nationalist party. But all he said is that they should do their research before meeting with someone. As if they didn't know who they were meeting with.

Pierre Poilievre denounces Conservative MPs' meeting with far-right German politician

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is denouncing a far-right German politician after three of his MPs met with her during her Canadian tour in support of the 'Freedom Convoy' movement.

www.ctvnews.ca

The thing that I don't get is that these people who are Anti Immigration, their ancestors at some point came from somewhere other than here. That's how this country has been built. So being against the fundamental principles of our nation is so odd. Without immigrants who would be their kids nanny's and clean their houses?

Eh, It's a couple of things. First is that most immigrants now come from Middle eastern and Asian countries and there's the whole racism/anti-muslim thing against those groups. Most anti immigration politicians are very euro centric, but they forget that there was as much anti-immigration rascism during the european wave of immigration into North America (Italians, Irish, etc all face racist backlash). Second is the attitude of "well it's different now" which encompasses anything from "the country is over populated now" to "current immigrants don't have the same work ethic as past immigrants" to the racism noted above "they don't share our culture/values"

Conservatives love preying on the fear of the "others"

 

[goreckm]

Easy. It’s selfishness, lack of empathy, and just plain cruelty. They got everything they needed and don’t care about anyone else. If other people suffer, “who cares? I don’t know any of them.”

Yup. Pretty much.

Had a chat with an old friend a while back, who was himself an immigrant when he was a kid, and is also a visible minority. He is opposed to immigration, which shocked me. His views were basically: we made it onto the lifeboat, and if we let anymore people on it will sink. In order for us to survive with our way of life, we can't let anyone else on.