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VIA Rail

How much is it worth it to you to restore the secondary connection through northern Ontario to be more ready for a once every decade or so freight use? Like seriously, could jack up the shed in Winnipeg for way less than that and it would be more beneficial.
 
We can argue the micro implications of ownership etc. but ultimately, though not a lawyer, I do not see any reason why, if 20+ countries of the European Union could come up with a framework to separate infrastructure management and operations, and progressively widen the scope of open access arrangements, that similar arrangements could not be mandated for Canada.
The contrast between railroad infrastructure investments in Europe vs. North America is that if you want infrastructure investment to reflect the needs of the public rather than private interests, then the industry will start to expect that these funds come predominantly from public rather than private investors...

We won't even put VIA on a statutory footing still less introduce a weaksauce arrangement like PRIIA. Our principal freight operators are American companies in all but name and the provinces have little interest - both QC and ON stood by and watched while both options to route Ottawa area freight direct to the west were dismantled rather than be purchased into public hands, and the Sault area railways seem to be perpetually stuck in a state of new collapse as the feds dribble in a little money to stave off complete closure in lieu of a revitalization strategy.

Neither of the two major parties in Ontario, which has the financial wherewithal, not to mention two provincially owned rail concerns, to seize the initiative as certain States in the US like Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Maine have done, believe enough in regional rail to invest in it and in ensuring fullest use of existing and dismantled rail alignments.
Despite all deregulations, the freight rail infrastructure is still regulated to the point where the freight railroads have to publicly announce their intend to discontinue parts of their network and to allow any interested railroad - private or public - to buy it. Indeed, the non-interest of the three governments concerned (Ottawa, Ontario, Quebec) to acquire and thus preserve any continuous rail alignment west of Ottawa speaks volume about how little of a political priority rail infrastructure is...


If we want better passenger rail, we need to bite the bullet and build a dedicated corridor for that, where it make sense. Taking corridors away from CN or CP for passenger rail is an exercise in robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Exactly, you can't expect freight railroads to take a substantial share of the financial burden of providing performant passenger rail infrastructure when they hardly benefit their own (freight) operations!


I would take substantial issue with the linked article and its needlessly clickbaity headline, not least now that the observations about Asia-Europe demand have shifted substantially due to coronavirus impacts on air freight capacity, or that Europe necessarily must adopt the hostile American practice of not merely double stacking trains, making grade separation above lines more challenging, but also the ultra long trains which sever localities in half for tens of minutes at a time..
Despite the slightly exaggerated headline, the article is absolutely spot-on in almost every word - and that's me saying this as a fiercely patriotic European ("my country is Europe") who uses the EU-flag as a profile picture on Facebook! - as freight rail in Europe is almost as neglected as intercity passenger rail is in North America. Granted, the modal share of passenger rail (if we combine "Railway" and "Tram + metro") in the EU is almost 13 times that of the US (8.5% vs. 0.7% by passenger-km), but Europeans still drive 8.5 times the distance they cover by rail (market share of the "Passenger car" is 72.2% vs. 81.4% in the US). Conversely, the market share for rail freight in the United States is almost three times higher than in the EU (31.8% vs. 11.3%, by ton-km) and might actually surpass the road as the dominant mode with the right sets of incentives (road freight market share 40.6% in the US vs. 50.2% in the EU):
1608175273184.png

Source: Transport in Figures - Statistical Pocketbook 2019


Nevertheless, two performant freight rail corridors have been built in Europe - one is the Kiruna-Narvik rail corridor mentioned in aforementioned article which has been upgraded to support axle loads similar to those in North America:
That said, Blaze pointed out to how commercial necessity has helped transform a Scandinavian railway line running within Norwegian and Swedish borders to carry around 30 metric tonnes on each axle load, unlike the regular 20 to 23 metric tonnes that is carried in the other parts of Europe.

[...]

“Increasing the axle loads meant an increase of loads per car by 20%. Though it had to increase the track maintenance budget by roughly 20%, the railway had lower crew costs, lower engine costs and lower equipment costs because it was getting much better utilization of the equipment. This led to a 28-30% net increase in savings for the movement of the iron ore,” said Blaze.

The more interestingly, however, is the Betuweroute, a dedicated freight railroad (linking Europe’s largest port in Rotterdam with the German border) built with double-tracks, completely grade-separated and with a vertical clearance to allow double-stacking of containers:
1608177337536.png


Unfortunately, the second example highlights the misery of freight rail in Europe, as the line's potential is all but lost at the German border, beyond which freight trains are subject to the same rail capacity shortages, limited vertical clearances, technological borders (legacy electricity and train control systems rather than unified standards) and low-priority treatment which suppresses freight railroading across the continent. The closing paragraphs of the article @roger1818 posted describe the same under-investment and political disinterest in providing a performant freight rail infrastructure in Europe, which plagues the passenger rail mode on this side of the Ocean:
Going by this instance, it can be gathered that what was done in Scandinavia can be replicated by the German Deutsche Bahn or Swiss Rail. Europe failing to take an interest in bolstering its freight railway system eventually boils down to the lack of incentive. Respective countries run their share of Europe’s railway network and have not allowed the rail sector to be privatized like in North America.

In essence, it is about time Europe addresses the elephant in the room. For the EU, the equation is simple – increase capital expenditures on its aging railway system and look to take volume from a maritime market that looks particularly vulnerable today.



The more pertinent issue for this thread is the notion that, as you assert passenger rail needs a dedicated corridor as a condition of improved service, with the obvious implication that passenger rail must pay all of the absurdly inflated cost of modern construction while rail freight merely gets to keep and maintain what it owns, having been previously been relieved of the requirement to provide said service and only having to tolerate a public agency doing so.
Open access assumes there is network capacity. There isn't. With a bunch of investment that will be needed over the next 30 years for freight capacity, a bunch of network capacity that isn't needed for freight will be created. And the rail roads won't be able to pay for it by themselves. That is the time to remake the arrangement - securing room for intercity rail in exchange for massive subsidy where the railways only pay for the extra capacity they use and in exchange must provide access to others on the same cost basis to their current network. It is the only way that will be compliant with our trade agreements, good for the country, and good for VIA. Now we just need to figure out how to get from today to there.
The issue is not capacity (at least not on double-tracked rail corridors like the Kingston Sub): You could easily double the number of freight and of passenger trains operating if they operated at a comparable average speed. Whereas some VIA services do run at average speeds comparable with freight trains (54.7 mph in the case of the morning commuter train #651), you do need to reach significantly higher average speeds if you want to be competitive against the car, bus and the plane and that's why intercity rail is the type of rail traffic which is the by far most likely to be constrained by the speed limits imposed by the horizontal alignment (curves) - and that's why a dedicated infrastructure is usually built for that rail traffic type, whereas regional rail and freight rail may co-exist quite well (thanks to their much more similar average speeds).
 
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How was that "unthinkable"? Running crews have to be qualified on routes even within their own company. The CN crews would have no clue about the ONR track geometry and likely couldn't communicate with anyone.

I wasn't aware that CP was impacted by the Desoronto blockade but could be mistaken. With civil disobedience like this, especially when solidarity is involved it can become a bit of a 'whack-a-mole'; they can pop up anywhere. Having alternate routes guarantees little.

Basically, the ONR crew were there because they know the track and their radios can talk with the rest of the ONR. Physically driving the train were CN crews.

AFAIK, they blocked both at the same area.

How much is it worth it to you to restore the secondary connection through northern Ontario to be more ready for a once every decade or so freight use? Like seriously, could jack up the shed in Winnipeg for way less than that and it would be more beneficial.

The ones I am suggesting are the ones through the Ottawa Valley. The fact that both CN and CP had lines through there and now, they can easily be crippled by one blockade. Who would think that's a good idea?
 
The ones I am suggesting are the ones through the Ottawa Valley. The fact that both CN and CP had lines through there and now, they can easily be crippled by one blockade. Who would think that's a good idea?
Ottawa didn’t have the freight demand to continue to justify a high level of service (decline of lumber, pulp and paper businesses) and western Canada —> Montreal demand is far less than when the lines were put in. CN and CP removed almost 60 million tonnes of grain from the prairies this year. In its heyday most of that grain would go to Montreal by train to be loaded in ships. Last year it was less than 1 million tonnes. The Seaway took a whole lot of that demand which is bound for the Atlantic basin - 7.9 million tonnes from Thunder Bay, with about 6.7 million tonnes on Sea going lakers.

And yeah, redundancies, resiliency, the cost is worth it for high probability events. A few days every decade isn’t a huge deal imo. A few days a month I think we’d think differently. But in that case I’d bet there’d be enough organization to block every possible route.
 
The ones I am suggesting are the ones through the Ottawa Valley. The fact that both CN and CP had lines through there and now, they can easily be crippled by one blockade. Who would think that's a good idea?

Actually, if you go back to the 70's, CN had two lines through the Ottawa Valley (the OAPS, inherited from the Grand Trunk Railway and the other, built by the Canadian Northern Railway). In 1983, CN abandoned the former OAPS line between Renfrew and Whitney. There is an excellent online publication of the history of the railways in Eastern Ontario with maps by Brian Gilhuly, called Tracing the Lines. My only wish is it extended a bit further east (the maps end around Barry's Bay). Interestingly, the peak seems to have been between 1923 and 1953.

I do have some sympathy for this sentiment though. Operating independently it didn't make financial sense for either CN or CP maintain both their corridors through the Ottawa Valley, and their corridors along the lakeshore. Given the choice to keep just one, the lakeshore wins hands down. However, if the railways were required to work more cooperatively and do even more track sharing than they currently do, sharing a corridor along the lakeshore and a corridor through the Ottawa Valley might be a financially viable option. Even if this had happened, there would still be issues between Ottawa/Smiths Falls and Montreal if your objective is to give VIA dedicated track on all sides of the TOM triangle while still maintaining freight capacity. No point crying over spilt milk though.
 
Ottawa didn’t have the freight demand to continue to justify a high level of service (decline of lumber, pulp and paper businesses) and western Canada —> Montreal demand is far less than when the lines were put in. CN and CP removed almost 60 million tonnes of grain from the prairies this year. In its heyday most of that grain would go to Montreal by train to be loaded in ships. Last year it was less than 1 million tonnes. The Seaway took a whole lot of that demand which is bound for the Atlantic basin - 7.9 million tonnes from Thunder Bay, with about 6.7 million tonnes on Sea going lakers.

Interesting! If CP and CN transport significantly less freight from western Canada to the coast, where does most of the freight along the lakeshore come from today? Is it mostly from Southern Ontario and midwestern US?
 
Ottawa didn’t have the freight demand to continue to justify a high level of service (decline of lumber, pulp and paper businesses) and western Canada —> Montreal demand is far less than when the lines were put in. CN and CP removed almost 60 million tonnes of grain from the prairies this year. In its heyday most of that grain would go to Montreal by train to be loaded in ships. Last year it was less than 1 million tonnes. The Seaway took a whole lot of that demand which is bound for the Atlantic basin - 7.9 million tonnes from Thunder Bay, with about 6.7 million tonnes on Sea going lakers.

And yeah, redundancies, resiliency, the cost is worth it for high probability events. A few days every decade isn’t a huge deal imo. A few days a month I think we’d think differently. But in that case I’d bet there’d be enough organization to block every possible route.

I am also thinking of everything that has to go to Toronto to then go on the Lakeshore to get to Montreal. If we were to split all the traffic at Sudbury/Capreol for destinations Toronto and Montreal, I'd bet there is plenty for both to run regular trains both ways.

Actually, if you go back to the 70's, CN had two lines through the Ottawa Valley (the OAPS, inherited from the Grand Trunk Railway and the other, built by the Canadian Northern Railway). In 1983, CN abandoned the former OAPS line between Renfrew and Whitney. There is an excellent online publication of the history of the railways in Eastern Ontario with maps by Brian Gilhuly, called Tracing the Lines. My only wish is it extended a bit further east (the maps end around Barry's Bay). Interestingly, the peak seems to have been between 1923 and 1953.

I do have some sympathy for this sentiment though. Operating independently it didn't make financial sense for either CN or CP maintain both their corridors through the Ottawa Valley, and their corridors along the lakeshore. Given the choice to keep just one, the lakeshore wins hands down. However, if the railways were required to work more cooperatively and do even more track sharing than they currently do, sharing a corridor along the lakeshore and a corridor through the Ottawa Valley might be a financially viable option. Even if this had happened, there would still be issues between Ottawa/Smiths Falls and Montreal if your objective is to give VIA dedicated track on all sides of the TOM triangle while still maintaining freight capacity. No point crying over spilt milk though.

This brings me back to the thinking that all lines should be owned by the government. Thi would mean that there most likely would still be at least 1 line through the Ottawa Valley. The issue is that both look at working together on each other lines as an only if needed. That is why some lines are directional, even when each is owned by a separate carrier.
 
Before Covid there was 9 trains each way Ottawa to Toronto for a total of 18 per day Toronto to Montreal was less i think it was around 14 total.
 
Before Covid there was 9 trains each way Ottawa to Toronto for a total of 18 per day Toronto to Montreal was less i think it was around 14 total.

It was actually 10 trains each way between Ottawa and Toronto for a total of 20 per day. Between Montreal and Toronto was 6 each way, (train 51 was via Ottawa and it arrived in Toronto after the later departing train 61 so it doesn't really count) for a total of 12 per day. There was also 1 train each way between Kingston and Toronto for a total of 2 per day.

On top of that, trains 60 and 62 to Montreal ran split service with trains 50 and 52 to Ottawa, so in reality there was a total of 32 trains per day along the Lakeshore (17 westbound and 15 eastbound).
 
Basically, the ONR crew were there because they know the track and their radios can talk with the rest of the ONR. Physically driving the train were CN crews.

AFAIK, they blocked both at the same area.



The ones I am suggesting are the ones through the Ottawa Valley. The fact that both CN and CP had lines through there and now, they can easily be crippled by one blockade. Who would think that's a good idea?

I think we are saying the same thing. Who has the actual hands on the controls in situations such as these is something I don't know.

I am also thinking of everything that has to go to Toronto to then go on the Lakeshore to get to Montreal. If we were to split all the traffic at Sudbury/Capreol for destinations Toronto and Montreal, I'd bet there is plenty for both to run regular trains both ways.

There any number of places where both lines, current and former, are within yelling distance of each other and which could have been easily blocked by a single event: Thunder Bay (current); North Bay, OVR/former CP and former CN from almost W. Nipissing to the south end of the city; several points along the CN Bala and CP Mactier/Sudbury subs.

The majority of traffic on the CP Ottawa Valley route (OVR) in later years was CP bridge traffic. They decided, based on their bottom line, which corporations get to do, that they had the capacity to run them via Toronto. I believe there were efforts to negotiating directional running in the Valley but they weren't successful.

Can anybody give me an example where a corporation, meaning non-public, for-profit entity, is forced by regulation and without compensation, to maintain service and infrastructure where it is otherwise not required? South of Wasago, CN had two lines that went from the same A to the same B, just by different routes. Should they have been ordered to maintain both?

This brings me back to the thinking that all lines should be owned by the government. This would mean that there most likely would still be at least 1 line through the Ottawa Valley. The issue is that both look at working together on each other lines as an only if needed. That is why some lines are directional, even when each is owned by a separate carrier.

If that is the basis of your argument, you could have saved a lot of posts by laying it out earlier. Perhaps you did and I missed it.

If the government did find a pile-o-dough to buy up all the trackage, I don't see how that guarantees the corporations that would pay to run on them would necessarily use all of them the way you envision. If I have to pay a fee to use a line, and determine I can do all my business on one, why would I pay to use two? Or would the government direct operations as well; i.e. nationalization?
 
The ones I am suggesting are the ones through the Ottawa Valley. The fact that both CN and CP had lines through there and now, they can easily be crippled by one blockade. Who would think that's a good idea?
There are other ways that the freight companies could (and probably more cheaply) make blockades of their lines less frequent, other than "have another route and hope nearby FNs don't block that in solidarity". The purely technical approach would be to grade separate the most frequently blocked corridors - a lot of money spent and likely more resentment purchased. Another might be to build financial and employment relationships in First Nations, in a way which also manages the historical realities of the impact railroads had on FNs, which make them partners such that it would not be in the economic interest of the FNs to impede traffic. Instead, at present, the railway companies choose not to take any of the available options, but rather take the occasional financial hit.

In respect of returning rail to the Ottawa Valley, my view on the restoration is that it would necessarily be linked to the establishment of commuter rail service between Pembroke and the greater Ottawa area, to close a significant part of the gap and then work on incremental expansion to Petawawa/Chalk River, by which time a restored freight flow or flows could help move the dial more than the thinner population further up river. At that point the question would become whether the remaining gap to Mattawa was bridgeable.

The government of Ontario could do that using either of its two mainline railway operations (there are various infrastructure / operations ways this could be done; I would lean to having ONR rather than Metrolinx handle infrastructure to increase their economies of scale and their greater familiarity with rural operations, and VIA to operate the rolling stock into their station. While commuter rail into Ottawa has had little traction over the years, not least in the decisions by the municipalities and province not to retain the CP route as an active line, it feels like the wind may be beginning to shift, especially given the opportunities for increased throughput that the current works to separate Ellwood Diamond can provide with incremental investment. It would also require the government of Ontario to agree a long term financial partnership agreement with VIA and the feds rather than go off on its own tangent like SWO HSR, one of the most stupid and counterproductive moves I have seen since moving to this country. I wish I could believe that Queens Park learned anything from that fiasco.
 
I am also thinking of everything that has to go to Toronto to then go on the Lakeshore to get to Montreal. If we were to split all the traffic at Sudbury/Capreol for destinations Toronto and Montreal, I'd bet there is plenty for both to run regular trains both ways.

It really depends what percentage of the freight along the lakeshore is via Sudbury/Capreol.

This brings me back to the thinking that all lines should be owned by the government. Thi would mean that there most likely would still be at least 1 line through the Ottawa Valley. The issue is that both look at working together on each other lines as an only if needed. That is why some lines are directional, even when each is owned by a separate carrier.

You do realize that CN was owned by the government when they abandoned the former OAPS line between Renfrew and Whitney don't you?
 
Have to temper the want for industrial spurs everywhere and lines serving them (the old way) with trucks for much regional in Canada freight movement with the adoption of time value of money approach and just in time delivery to inventory management by customers. Freight rail might be cheaper even from one industrial spur to the other, but if it takes 10x as long, the direct cost is not the only cost to the freight user. We’re bemoaning infrastructure loss here, but really we’re bemoaning the loss of another world which doesn’t exist anymore.

If I understand the argument correctly, and there is an even chance I do not so apologies in advance, do you propose to remove on-route freight revenue customers so servicing them doesn't interfere with passenger movement? Industries choose their mode of supply and distribution based on several factors and, in some cases, road is simply not practical.

Just-in-time delivery is a major cause of the commercial truck traffic that clogs the 401, started primarily by the auto industry and copied by many. They essentially foisted their warehousing onto the public highways. A train could provide a week's worth of engines, frames or left front fenders, but they would have to warehouse them until needed. Now, a fleet of trucks parades down the highway to deliver parts that end up in a finished product probably by the end of that day. If rail traffic gets really clogged up on the LSW, do we simply shut down Ford Oakville?

If passenger rail traffic is improved by driving industry out of Ontario, then it could be consider a win by some, but a very Pyrrhic one.
 
There are other ways that the freight companies could (and probably more cheaply) make blockades of their lines less frequent, other than "have another route and hope nearby FNs don't block that in solidarity". The purely technical approach would be to grade separate the most frequently blocked corridors - a lot of money spent and likely more resentment purchased. Another might be to build financial and employment relationships in First Nations, in a way which also manages the historical realities of the impact railroads had on FNs, which make them partners such that it would not be in the economic interest of the FNs to impede traffic. Instead, at present, the railway companies choose not to take any of the available options, but rather take the occasional financial hit.

In respect of returning rail to the Ottawa Valley, my view on the restoration is that it would necessarily be linked to the establishment of commuter rail service between Pembroke and the greater Ottawa area, to close a significant part of the gap and then work on incremental expansion to Petawawa/Chalk River, by which time a restored freight flow or flows could help move the dial more than the thinner population further up river. At that point the question would become whether the remaining gap to Mattawa was bridgeable.

The government of Ontario could do that using either of its two mainline railway operations (there are various infrastructure / operations ways this could be done; I would lean to having ONR rather than Metrolinx handle infrastructure to increase their economies of scale and their greater familiarity with rural operations, and VIA to operate the rolling stock into their station. While commuter rail into Ottawa has had little traction over the years, not least in the decisions by the municipalities and province not to retain the CP route as an active line, it feels like the wind may be beginning to shift, especially given the opportunities for increased throughput that the current works to separate Ellwood Diamond can provide with incremental investment. It would also require the government of Ontario to agree a long term financial partnership agreement with VIA and the feds rather than go off on its own tangent like SWO HSR, one of the most stupid and counterproductive moves I have seen since moving to this country. I wish I could believe that Queens Park learned anything from that fiasco.

Blockading of rail lines by FNs assumes their angst is against the railway; which it is not (or wasn't for the most recent event). It is (was) done to make a visible point. At Desoronto, they could have just as easily moved up the road and blocked the 401. There are (or were) fairly regular, relatively short-term 'informational' blockades of Hwy 17 in the Espanola area, plus the ongoing events in Caledonia (I don't know if the rail line there is currently in play - I don't follow).

As for the Ottawa Valley, I suppose I'd have to be convinced there is a market for commuter type rail as far as Pembroke. I quite frankly don't know the commute patterns out there. Folks are moving out to Carleton Place and Arnprior (literally on the border of Ottawa) and perhaps Renfrew, but Pembroke is 150km up the road. Our S-in-L is from there and I don't get the sense that a lot of folks do the commute. Could be wrong.
 
As for the Ottawa Valley, I suppose I'd have to be convinced there is a market for commuter type rail as far as Pembroke. I quite frankly don't know the commute patterns out there. Folks are moving out to Carleton Place and Arnprior (literally on the border of Ottawa) and perhaps Renfrew, but Pembroke is 150km up the road. Our S-in-L is from there and I don't get the sense that a lot of folks do the commute. Could be wrong.

I totally agree. Here are the population of the major towns on the way. Larger than I expected, but still hardly throbbing metropolises. I am also not sure how many people in those towns actually commute to Ottawa, or would building such a service be encouraging needless sprawl?

TownPopulation
(2016)
Driving Distance to Ottawa Station (km)
Petawawa17,187166
Pembroke13,882149
Renfrew8,22396.1
Arnprior8,79568.6

To build such a route, the Renfrew and Beachburg Subs would have to be upgraded (it is mostly Class 1&2 track) and extended to connect to CPR's abandoned valley line (the abandoned parts of the Renfrew sub have largely been built over). This wouldn't be all that hard to do, but the whole project wouldn't be cheap either.

The other big problem with commuter rail in Ottawa is that Ottawa no longer has a downtown train station. This means that almost everyone will have to transfer to the O-Train, with most of them traveling in the same direction as all the other commuters. With a downtown station, at least those who do have to transfer will be traveling contraflow. While it is theoretically possible to revive Ottawa's old Union Station, it would be expensive (and difficult) to do so, and without a huge demand from commuter rail, it wouldn't be worth the expense, especially considering VIA wouldn't likely want to use it, since it would be a detour from their existing route.

If Commuter rail were to come to Ottawa, it would probably start, after HFR is complete, with service from Perth to the two Ottawa stations via Smiths Falls and Richmond. Here is a similar chart for that route. The populations are lower, but the distances are shorter and high quality track would already there so a pilot project could be started rather inexpensively.

TownPopulation
(2016)
Driving Distance to Ottawa Station (km)
Perth5,93087.6
Smiths Falls8,78078.7 (only 66 km by train)
Richmond4,48237.1
 

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