VIA Rail

[Allandale25]

^ was there any kind of timeline provided for the $71 million HFR CIB-funded study? I can't remember.

 

[crs1026]

^ was there any kind of timeline provided for the $71 million HFR CIB-funded study? I can't remember.

I’m still browsing backwards to find the original announcement, but it has been reported more recently that March 2021 is the deadline for a decision by cabinet. Anything that hasn’t been finished by then would fall more into the category of Design/Engineering or Early Works as opposed to analysis supporting a decision to proceed.

- Paul

 

[littlewill1166]

I think VIA is getting new emergency hammers.

 

[Urban Sky]

Quick response regarding my previous post:

#1 About the REM

I'm not talking about media reports. I'm more referring to my conversations with people living in the MTL area, my work colleagues, and others who are affected by the new REM system.

Overall, the sentiment I got was very positive and supportive, in that everyone agrees that it is the largest infrastructure project undertaken in Montreal for decades and most people want to see it come to fruition, despite the massive interruptions on the existing commuter train lines.

For sure, if you just rely on google news and search for media reports of the REM, you are going to get the typical laundry list of complaints and problems. That's what the media does on a day to day basis and how they generate viewership. Don't think that needs further explaining on a forum like this.

You don't seem to understand the role which the media plays in a democratic society, just like all the promoters and supporters of the REM I've met didn't show much regard for the institutions and evaluation/consultation processes which have been established in Quebec like in any democratic society to ensure the accountability of a large-scale infrastructure project and to minimise its human and environmental impact. And trust me, I have been following this project very closely - professionally, but also privately - and I invite everyone (who isn't as entrenched in his support for this project as you are) to have a look at the following submissions to the (unusually rushed) consultation process, which have been submitted by two close friends of mine, and to form your own opinion:

DM5 - Stefan BRACHER. Mémoire, 19 septembre 2016, 3 pages. [French]
DM5.1 - Stefan BRACHER. Présentation du mémoire à la séance du 27 septembre 2016 en soirée, 5 pages. [French]
DM45 - Anton DUBRAU. Mémoire, 22 septembre 2016, 78 pages. [English]
DM45.1 - Anton DUBRAU. Mémoire, version finale, 23 septembre 2016, 100 pages. [English]
DM45.2 - Anton DUBRAU. Présentation du mémoire à la séance du 28 septembre 2016 en soirée, 25 pages. [English]
DM45.3 - Anton DUBRAU. REM – Alternative Proposal Syntheses, 1 page. [English]

Source: BAPE website


#3 About serving rural populations

I'd argue that a more sensible investment is GO/Ontario Northland providing regular bus service to Barrie to connect to the GO network, or bus service to North Bay to connect with a reinvigorated Ontario Northland Train.

This is exactly the point I wanted to make: providing public transportation links between remote communities (unless they are not linked to the road network) is the domain of the bus, not the train...


***


Now some new points:


#5 About premium seating accommodations

This where trains can really sell. Brightline offers 39" of seat pitch in Economy and Business Class. VIA's existing seating must be somewhat close. Compare this to 30-31" in Y and 36-39" in J on Air Canada and WestJet. This is the real advantage of a train.

I wish train cabin designers would leverage some of their knowledge from aviation to build better train cabins. It's always been bizarre to me that economy is comparatively luxurious on a train compared to a bus or airplane, and yet business class is such a marginal upgrade over economy, and barely on par with air. I would think trains would be able to offer fantastic business class seating. I am not a trainco economist, but I've always wondered why trains can't offer podded seats/suites like you would see on airline long haul. Airlines now see enough value to do this on routes as short as 5 hrs (YYZ-YVR, YYZ-SFO, etc.). So surely, there would be a case for something close on a 4 hr Union-Gare Centrale HFR ride. Not even necessarily a lie-flat seat. Just a podded cabin with good recline and infotainment/IFE (or I guess it's En Route Entertainment for a train?). If I'm going to pay as much as air fare for Via 1, I don't see why I can't get a private space to do work for a few hours en route.

I am sure @Urban Sky will crush my dreams shortly. LOL. But this should be way easier to pull off on a train than an airplane:

ANA unveils meter-wide business-class seats to squeeze out rivals

Self-contained spaces to feature industry-first 4K screens

asia.nikkei.com

And I can imagine could command a relatively healthy premium, if not schedule constrained (ie hourly service....).

Okay, you asked for it, even though your point is obviously well-reasoned: According to this CNBC report, only half of the passengers who travel First Class on Delta have paid for their tickets (rather than received upgrades as loyal customers) and this is supposedly already a industry-leading proportion. As the primary motivation to offer First Class seems to be keeping your best customers loyal rather than actually making money, such accommodation types are much easier to justify for a publicly listed carrier than a government-subsidized railroad (note that you can only redeem Preference points for travel on Prestige Class outside the peak season, i.e. when there is no opportunity cost in offering the upgrade). Therefore, it doesn't seem as a coincidence that Italo is among the only railroads I'm aware of which offer premium (i.e. above Business) accommodations (even though Amtrak does the trick of simply branding the Economy Class on its Acela Express as "Business Class", so that they can offer a "First Class" with only two accommodation classes). Other than Italo, I only know of Railjet and JR East with their superb Gran Class...


#6 About VIA's mandate

The former CEO of VIA said something along the lines of VIA being a crown corporation and having a mandate to maximize the utilization of its assets for the benefit of the public. VIA Rail has a Public Service Obligation to operate trains on the routes under Schedule 1 of SOR/89-488 (Order Varying Certain National Transportation Agency Orders Respecting Railway Companies).

Right. They are obligated to operate specific routes in the public interest and allocated resources to do that. Many of the stops on these routes are far less connected than Sudbury is. Sudbury is about as connected as most cities of similar size.

As outlined in its Corporate Plan, VIA's mandate is to operate "Canada’s national passenger rail service, providing intercity and long-haul services as well as regional and essential remote rail transportation" (p.14). Whereas the regional ("remote services" or "Adventure Routes") and long-haul ("trans-continental") services are mandated by the federal government to fulfil its obligations towards rural communities without year-round road access and the provinces (resulting from the 1867 Confederation agreement), there is at least an implicit expectation that its Corridor services should be somewhat commercially viable and I would place the bar at at least 50% cost-recovery (i.e. so that the financial burden to the taxpayer is not higher than the ticket revenues paid by the actual users). As you can see below, all Corridor routes (except the Toronto-Niagara route, but including the Canadian) have passed this test for at least 4 consecutive years in a row:

Compiled from: VIA Rail's Annual Reports 2014-2018

(to be continued in a separate post, due to 10,000 character limit and the extended length of the next point)

 

[Urban Sky]

(continued from my previous post)

#7 About finding viable intercity corridors outside the Quebec-Windsor Corridor

If we're going to argue federal investment is required in communities of a similar context, there's several corridors that should be ahead: Calgary-Edmonton, Regina-Saskatoon, Vancouver-Kelowna, Halifax-Moncton, etc.

I also have to wonder if anyone is quietly looking at HFR West. A Lethbridge-Calgary-Edmonton rail service might soften some blows right now. The economic case may actually be tolerable to supportive.

Calgary-Edmonton beyond a doubt has a business case. It's probably as strong as Toronto-Ottawa. Lethbridge would be a good bonus.

I sincerely wish that VIA launches a study on HFR for Edmonton-Calgary-Lethbridge. I may not agree with most of the complaints of Albertans. But I sympathize with the view that they feel a bit hard done by with having to contribute so much to the federation and get a lot less in return federally. Toronto and the GTA have a similar imbalance with Ontario and Canada. A massive VIA project that connects their province better would vastly improve the image of the federal government there. It's supportable on political grounds alone. Probably supportable on fiscal grounds too. Worth doing a similar in-depth study as what is being done for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec.

Quantifying and comparing the ridership potential of several intercity corridors is notoriously difficult; nevertheless, I believe that we can all agree that the relative size of the population centers served plays a huge role. At the same time, the spacing and distribution of these population centers matters too, as we would all expect much larger ridership between two cities of the same size than between one city ten times the other (even if their combined population was the same). Therefore, I would like to propose to compare routes by starting at the opposite ("secondary node") end of the largest node (expressed in CMA/CA population data from the 2016 Census) and cumulating the population figures until reaching the end of the route. Viewing VIA's corridor routes leads to an interesting observation:

• For those routes where the secondary node has a population has a population higher than 1 million, the frequencies offered per day vary from 6 (Ottawa-Montreal and Montreal-Toronto) to 10 (Ottawa-Toronto).
• For those routes where the secondary node has between 500,000 and 1 million inhabitants, the frequency is 5 (Quebec-Montreal)
• For those routes where the secondary node has less than 500,000 inhabitants, the frequency is between 1 (Sarnia-Toronto and Niagara-Toronto) and 4 (Windsor-Toronto)

The problem with all the potential intercity routes outside the Quebec-Windsor corridor mentioned, is that only Edmonton-Calgary fall into the first category, whereas all other corridors fall into the last category and for none of these routes, the combined population of all non-primary nodes (i.e. of all but the largest nodes of any given route) exceeds 500,000:

Furthermore, Windsor-Toronto could be treated as an outlier, since the population served by the station in Windsor should include at least part of Detroit with its city population of over 600,000 and metropolitan area of more than 4 million, which would leave only the two Corridor routes with one single frequency per day in the category of routes with a secondary node size of less than 500,000 inhabitants.

To go from nothing to what exists between Toronto and Montreal would be fantastic!

Indeed, it would be fantastic to have 6 frequencies operating at an average speed of just over 100 km/h, but I invite you to check the discussion I linked in the post below to get a more realistic idea of the scope of infrastructure investments which would be necessary to enable such a service:

Just a quick nod at a similar discussion on the Edmonton section of the Skyrise Cities forum (highly read-worthy and only 15 posts in total, of which I present a selection below):

Calgary is the 4th largest metro area and has no intercity rail.

Regina is 18th, same thing.

List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Neither has Victoria (15th), Sherbrooke (19th), St. John's (20th), Barrie (21st) or Kelowna (22nd) - and except for Barrie, none of them has any passenger rail service, while Victoria, St. John's and Kelowna haven't even seen any railroading activities for years...

Run trains on existing infrastructure. If they are comparable to driving, and costs no worse than flying, it will be a success.

Exactly, intercity trains may be successful where their travel times are competitive with driving. And since the population figures only justify one train per day, the existing infrastructure has to support such travel times without costly upgrades. But where can we find such corridors? I've looked at 8 corridors within the Quebec-Windsor Corridor and 8 corridors beyond it and the only corridors which have at some point allowed better travel times than driving (at least without traffic) are the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle and Toronto-London, while for all other corridors, the best travel time of rail I could find in any timetable are between 11 and 37 percent worse than driving. And if this wasn't bad enough: the most recent travel times are even between 16 and 46 percent worse:

Therefore, by your own criteria, which rail corridors outside of the Quebec-Windsor Corridor would be viable as intercity services?


#8 About who tells VIA where to expand its services

Ministers always have huge influence on political decisions regardless of their portfolio so the 600,000 of Halton will do very well and the 1.5 million people of SWO not so much. London in particular has always been a bastion of Liberal support both federally and provincially and yet are ignored when the chips are down. This will now be made even more extreme now as Ford's government got into power thanks to the GTA as neither London nor Windsor gave him any seats but rather went NDP and Liberal as normal.

Any expansion of VIA service is 100% a political decision and without any cabinet posts, their voices will not be heard. Trudeau's {and hence VIA's} decision making will be completely dominated by Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa to the detriment of everywhere else.

I have joined VIA in July 2015 and even though I worked in the "Office of the CEO" throughout a four-year period which saw the largest increase in VIA's train mileage (+10.8% system-wide, when comparing the Annual Reports of 2018 and 2014, and +16.9% on the Corridor) since at least the mid-1980s, I never heard about any political attempts to pressure us into increasing service on certain routes. What I do recall, however, are bureaucrats demanding extensive justifications for every single expansion. You can blame political conspiracies as much as you want, but the main culprits for the near-extinction of passenger rail outside the Quebec-Windsor Corridor are the geographic dispersion of the population and the deplorable state (and density) of the rail network...

(I've reached once again the 10,000 character limit; looks like the continuation of this post will have to wait until another day)

 

[Northern Light]

(continued from my previous post)

I want to be clear that I greatly appreciate the thoughtful detail in your posts.

Further, that I do not question its accuracy in the least.

I would in fact agree w/the vast majority of what you have to say...................

Except.

I am willing to consider the speed rail should be capable of (non HSR, just conventional rolling stock); understanding that peak-speed is certainly not average speed.

I think its important to assert a real value, to the time saved, in shorter trips; and to the value a consumer might place on that; as well as the ability to cycle equipment and possibly crew more frequently, where optimum speeds can be obtained.

When I see a 700km trip showing a time worse than car travel, I'm persuaded something is wrong.

One doesn't require complete grade separation to hit peak-speeds of 177km/ph or even, subject to equipment and regulatory approvals, 200km/ph.

Why should a trip of that length average 100km/ph or less?

There are obvious answers, delays/conflicts; too many stops, other speed restrictions (turning radii, track switch speeds etc.). or the limitations of current equipment.

Whatever the case, it is addressable.

That does not mean everyone's railway-geek train list should come to fruition.

But it does mean routes shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, when their running conditions are seemingly, needlessly sub-optimal.

Certain routes (Say Edmonton-Calgary) as an example, deserve a fresh-look, with an open mind. Separate the one-time costs from the on-going costs and ask how much would it cost to raise average train speed by 40km/ph?

I'm being entirely arbitrary in that suggestion; and not pre-supposing a positive outcome.

But I don't see it as useful to compare rail running in sub-obtimal conditions with cars whose highways have been subsidized to ensure optimal speed operation.

 

[dowlingm]

What sort of speed does VIA do between Woodstock and London? Have been wondering what sort of time saving could be achieved if VIA was able to do 110-125 over a track parallel to the very straight CPR alignment, with access to the current station via a curve to CN Thorndale (the VIA route to Stratford/Kitchener) and a similar track leaving Woodstock to join the CP ROW

(assuming CP agreeable of course)

 

[smallspy]

When I see a 700km trip showing a time worse than car travel, I'm persuaded something is wrong.

One doesn't require complete grade separation to hit peak-speeds of 177km/ph or even, subject to equipment and regulatory approvals, 200km/ph.

Why should a trip of that length average 100km/ph or less?

There are obvious answers, delays/conflicts; too many stops, other speed restrictions (turning radii, track switch speeds etc.). or the limitations of current equipment.

Whatever the case, it is addressable.

The equipment is perfectly capable of achieving an average speed in excess of 60mph on just about any run you or I can imagine. And the corridors that VIA runs on are generally capable, as well (excepting certain, limited locations, of course).

No, the issue is, and will continue to be, other traffic on the lines that they run on, and a lack of capacity on those lines. So long as VIA is beholden to the freight railroads - either from an ownership standpoint or from an operational standpoint - they will always be hamstrung in their operating practices and will not be able to operate the service of which they are capable of.

There are a couple of different ways of achieving this - the HFR project is merely one, but another is to enact law/regulation giving them better access to the track that already exists, and with penalties to the hosts to ensure that this happens. But in the current regulatory and legislative environment, it seems that VIA thinks the HFR project is the more viable option.

What sort of speed does VIA do between Woodstock and London? Have been wondering what sort of time saving could be achieved if VIA was able to do 110-125 over a track parallel to the very straight CPR alignment, with access to the current station via a curve to CN Thorndale (the VIA route to Stratford/Kitchener) and a similar track leaving Woodstock to join the CP ROW

(assuming CP agreeable of course)

CN's Dundas Sub is generally signed for 80mph operation in that stretch, with PSOs at 50.8 (50mph) and 58.9 (70mph) and a lowering of the speed limit to 70mph in the final 2.5 miles into London. With the exception of those areas, there's no reason why the track couldn't be improved for higher-speed operation.

Dan

 

[Northern Light]

The equipment is perfectly capable of achieving an average speed in excess of 60mph on just about any run you or I can imagine. And the corridors that VIA runs on are generally capable, as well (excepting certain, limited locations, of course).

No, the issue is, and will continue to be, other traffic on the lines that they run on, and a lack of capacity on those lines. So long as VIA is beholden to the freight railroads - either from an ownership standpoint or from an operational standpoint - they will always be hamstrung in their operating practices and will not be able to operate the service of which they are capable of.

There are a couple of different ways of achieving this - the HFR project is merely one, but another is to enact law/regulation giving them better access to the track that already exists, and with penalties to the hosts to ensure that this happens. But in the current regulatory and legislative environment, it seems that VIA thinks the HFR project is the more viable option.

Dan

TY Dan, for this post, and the one in the TTC thread; very informative!

 

[Northern Light]

@smallspy

Question, Dan, would a regulation tying freight train length to siding length be likely to produce a useful outcome?

ie. If CN/CP were told, you can run a train only as long as the length that sidings along its route can fully accommodate, thus allowing either the freight or a passenger train the ability to pass/be passed.

 

[micheal_can]

@smallspy

Question, Dan, would a regulation tying freight train length to siding length be likely to produce a useful outcome?

ie. If CN/CP were told, you can run a train only as long as the length that sidings along its route can fully accommodate, thus allowing either the freight or a passenger train the ability to pass/be passed.

I can answer that... yes. The main reason VIA goes into the siding is the trains they meet do not fit.

________

What surprised me was that the Canadian is not in the red. So, maybe adding more trains per week is in order.

 

[DSC]

I can answer that... yes. The main reason VIA goes into the siding is the trains they meet do not fit.

Though that may be true, I think a better reason is that the trains they meet are CN or CP ones and THEY own the tracks!

 

[lenaitch]

@smallspy

Question, Dan, would a regulation tying freight train length to siding length be likely to produce a useful outcome?

ie. If CN/CP were told, you can run a train only as long as the length that sidings along its route can fully accommodate, thus allowing either the freight or a passenger train the ability to pass/be passed.

Interesting question (realizing it was directed at someone who is more knowledgeable). Railways are private corporations operating on their own property which they maintain largely out of their revenue. Shorter trains mean higher operating costs; alternatively, constructing/lengthening sidings comes at a not-insignificant cost The government's regulatory role is primarily safety and it would be interesting if the enabling legislation gives them the authority to direct operations to such an extent. I would think if the government wants to improve passenger rail performance then it can pay for it.

 

[Northern Light]

Interesting question (realizing it was directed at someone who is more knowledgeable). Railways are private corporations operating on their own property which they maintain largely out of their revenue. Shorter trains mean higher operating costs; alternatively, constructing/lengthening sidings comes at a not-insignificant cost The government's regulatory role is primarily safety and it would be interesting if the enabling legislation gives them the authority to direct operations to such an extent. I would think if the government wants to improve passenger rail performance then it can pay for it.

Without getting into the merits of particular policy; government has any number of tools at its disposal; many countries legislate priority for passenger rail services over freight including on private tracks.

The government can provide 'subtle' or not so subtle encouragement of desirable investments.

For instance, the government already allowed accelerated capital cost depreciation; which is a significant tax advantage to certain businesses. This was not always the case, and can be withdrawn.....

Or maybe not, if business is cooperative.

The railways exist due to government subsidy and monopolies. Its entirely reasonable to ask for something back.

 

[crs1026]

^Oversize trains certainly create obstacles in single track territory, but the sheer number of freight trains and other factors matter also

eg - Both railways have pulled out service tracks at customer sidings to reduce their capitalisation. Instead of clearing the main line by pulling into a secondary track to switch an industry or grain elevator, a train now sits on the main line while doing its work. That plugs the line for however long the train needs to work. With longer trains, those service tracks had become too short anyways - one would not only have to replace them, but extend them, before passenger trains could pass.

It’s interesting to model how even a single passenger train changes operations. For an HFR style service pattern, when long freight trains converge, there just isn’t enough places to put them. Imagine what the presence of even one long freight train would cause on VIA’s Ottawa- Brockville or Ottawa- Coteau lines !

As a further ferinstance, try imagining the Calgary - Edmonton line with HFR running every second hour each way. In any one location, that’s a train every hour. Now imagine one three-mile siding for freights every thirty miles....that’s six sidings over the length of the line, versus two today. Now imagine there is even one long freight coming in each direction. They meet at a long siding, but they then have to travel up to 30 miles to the next siding to clear for passenger trains. That’s a sixty mile stretch of track that isn’t available to pax for 90-120 minutes. It just doesn’t fit. One can add further sidings, of course, but costs go up. And there is the issue of finding a stretch of land that is free of level crossings...either crossings must be closed, or they will be blocked whenever a freight waits in the siding. That’s unacceptable even in remote rural areas. Grade separations aren’t cheap.

Now try increasing the headways to hourly....two pax every hour.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m just pointing out what a significant investment is needed. Arguably, both railways pared their assets too far in recent years. CN in particular is reversing that, but only after reaching a crisis point. It would be great to dream about getting the passenger capacity back - just bring money.

- Paul