VIA Rail

[sacred]

Also, the whole purpose of frequency is to reduce the penalty that comes from starting a trip between departure times. This is why HFR is supposed to at or close to hourly.

Sorry, what do you mean by this? Do you mean that it'll reduce the penalty from starting a trip late?

 

[Urban Sky]

Commercial failure versus projected to perhaps make money? Like seriously. It doesn’t fit what you conceptualizer to be attributes of a successful project. If people want a 11 am frequency then it will be provided. Nothing stopping them.

Even before the pandemic flights between Calgary and Edmonton weren’t hourly (they were up to every 30 mins for commuting hour flights). Mostly since dash 8s got larger. And they can use those planes to fly captive and low frequency routes at suboptimal times times.

And yeah, a 8-12 car train set provides a lot more capacity than a Q400 or 736.

Why doesn't Air Canada just replace its 15 round-trips between YTZ and YUL with Bomardier Q400 (daily seat capacity: 74 * 15 = 1,110) with 4 round-trips of a Boeing 787-9 (daily seat capacity: 298 * 4 = 1,192)? Yes, I know that the runway at Toronto Island is way too short for such big planes, but the point is that they would still operate frequent small planes rather than infrequent large ones, because passengers are not willing to wait multiple hours until the next departure for such short trips.

If you refer back to my Post #6,951, you will see that the headway between two departures increases the travel time (in the perception of the traveler) by an amount of minutes which can be approximated as (15 + 0.4 X, with X being the average headway in minutes). If we assume an operating period of 16 hours per day (e.g. first departure at 6am, last departure at 10pm), we achieve the following penalties:

Trains per day	Average headway (in minutes)	Travel time penalty (in minutes)
2	960	399
3	480	207
4	320	143
5	240	111
6	192	92
7	160	79
8	137	70
9	120	63
10	107	58
11	96	53
12	87	50
13	80	47
14	74	45
15	69	42
16	64	41
17	60	39

Note: given that the last departure is assumed to be at the end of the operating period (e.g. 10pm), the headway is obtained by dividing the 16 hours by one less than the number of frequencies operated.

As you can see above, the 3 additional frequencies during the summer months halve the average headway and thus reduce perceived travel time by 64 minutes. Given a minimum travel time of 80 minutes (AVE 9726), the perceived travel time in winter (i.e. 80 + 143 = 223 minutes) can be estimated to be 39% higher than in summer (80 + 79 = 159 minutes), which multiplied with an elasticity of -1.58 (for intercity rail in respect to travel time) suggests a decrease in demand by 64%.

Therefore, we can safely assume that if revenues are so low that the operator rather forgoes a saving in perceived travel time of a full hour than adding three lousy trains per day, this must mean that the line barely recovers its operating costs and virtually none of its capital costs. And that would make this HSR line a commercial failure (so far - one would hope that things improve once the gap between Montpellier and Perpignan is filled with HSR lines), but the near-complete lack of any financial or economic justification has become the trademark of the Spanish HSR network:

Source: re-post from Comment #636

I wouldn't argue for a minimum frequency of 60 minutes throughout the entire day, but if you can't operate at least every 2 hours and halve at least some of these gaps during rush hour, I don't see how the construction for that HSR line could possibly be justified to the taxpayers which paid for it...

Given that the last eastbound train of the day out of Toronto (train 650) terminated in Kingston and the first westbound train into Toronto (either train 651 or 655) originated in Kingston, I would guess it would layover in a siding somewhere near Kingston, since there would be no point having it deadhead back to Toronto (or on to Ottawa or Montreal) only to have it deadhead back to Kingston the next morning. Further evidence is that the evening train didn't run on Saturdays and the morning trains didn't run on Sundays.

Not living in Kingston, I am not sure which option they chose. Given that equivalent sized LRC trains are shorter than the new fleet (which I previously showed could easily use the wye), I would say using the wye in Kingston would be an option. They may have even had the train layover in the wye overnight.

You are of course right (I remember seeing it on the western leg of the wye east of Kingston station while passing through on board train 669 when 650 was still operating at 17:40 rather than 19:35) and it's really not that difficult to figure out, provided that you have the pre-Covid schedule in front of you...

I think you are missing the point @Darwinkgo was trying to make. Sure the airlines offer hourly or better departures, but could you show up to the airport early for your booked flight and have any reasonable expectation of catching an earlier one without having some type of super elite status that lets you bump someone else off of the flight or otherwise change the rules? Sure it might happen occasionally, but odds are either the flight is full or the gate agent won't let you take the earlier flight.

Frequency sells by giving the traveller more options, but one can't assume load factor or a service plan that encourages people to just turn up and hope there is a seat available. I wonder what proportion of travellers shop for cheap fares ahead of time and are locked into a specific itinerary.

Amtrak Acela for example can be heavily demand priced, so the frequency may not be the whole story.

Last time I changed a YTZ-YOW air reservation at the last moment, the charge was around $100. No doubt depending on the original fare category. My employer was happy to pay - it got me a half day back in the office that would have been spent in the Departures lounge had I been unable to move my itinerary forward. As a liesure traveller, I might have a different price point tradeoff.

- Paul

If you go on the link @kEiThZ had posted, it appears that any ticket holders can expect to be allowed onto an earlier flight, provided that there are still seats available:

 

[kEiThZ]

I wouldn't argue for a minimum frequency of 60 minutes throughout the entire day,

For city pairs that are 300 km or less, I absolutely would. With semi-hourly at peak as minimum. The only time bi-hourly might be tolerable is in the night. For example a departure at 2000h and then at 2200h.

 

[kEiThZ]

Sorry, what do you mean by this? Do you mean that it'll reduce the penalty from starting a trip late?

See @Urban Sky 's post. It's what he explains about how travel time is perceived by travelers in regards to headways.

Let's take a scenario where service is hourly on the hour. I finish my meeting at 430pm. I can catch the 5pm train out. My wait time is only 30 min. In reality most of that might be spent getting to the station and pre-boarding. Now, let's say the service is bi-hourly and I missed the 4pm train. I will perceive a whole hour as wasted, while waiting for the 6pm train. This is particularly relevant if we're talking about a distance that can be driven in 3 hrs or flown in 45 mins.

 

[Bordercollie]

Given that the last eastbound train of the day out of Toronto (train 650) terminated in Kingston and the first westbound train into Toronto (either train 651 or 655) originated in Kingston, I would guess it would layover in a siding somewhere near Kingston, since there would be no point having it deadhead back to Toronto (or on to Ottawa or Montreal) only to have it deadhead back to Kingston the next morning. Further evidence is that the evening train didn't run on Saturdays and the morning trains didn't run on Sundays.



Not living in Kingston, I am not sure which option they chose. Given that equivalent sized LRC trains are shorter than the new fleet (which I previously showed could easily use the wye), I would say using the wye in Kingston would be an option. They may have even had the train layover in the wye overnight.

But there is no wayside power so they just left the train tied down idling all night? And the station is on the main line. Where did they WYE the train?

 

[Darwinkgo]

In Japan for example you buy a base fare which gets you in the unreserved cars (no seat guarantee, no specific departure guarantee), and if you want to reserve a specific seat in a specific departure you can book the specific seat. If you miss that specific seat you can still use the unreserved car.

I think people are envisioning even spacing of less 1 departure per hour of service because that is what current via is mostly like due to the need to integrate with freight. Instead it is envisioning as low demand trips not being run. While running at hourly or better at high demand times.

and of course waiting time is important! But some pointfor shorter trips you gotta be realistic. Hourly trips to Montreal make sense since those mid day low demand trips are useful to return crews without split shifts, remove the need to store trains, and other operational concerns. For Calgary and Edmonton with a shorter run you can make different choices. Like remove one underused departure to add maybe a 3 departures in 60 minutes at the peak.

 

[Allandale25]

Good perspective here of the possible HFR route into/out of Toronto.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1344033317549711361

 

[micheal_can]

Yes, with a full rebuild, and lots of high speed crossovers, and some triple sections. CPR figures they can do mixed operations with passenger service up to 200 kph. Costs are around 65% of greenfield.
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Various studies have had different model frequencies - usually with service plans starting at 10 or 11 trains in each direction over 16 hours.

So, no?
I did not mean upgrade it to HFR/HSR. I mean putting a second or 3rd track down the whole way. What you are talking is upgrading the line.

The infrastructure or equipment won't be the constraint - just operational costs. The lost frequencies just aren't projected to have demand. Unless they really discounted 11 am-1 pm frequencies for example.

This is why demanding hourly is silly. Hourly or half hourly during the morning and evening makes sense, but the rest of the time, if the trains cannot be filled, then they should not run so often. The bigger thing is to ensure 95% or better on time.

This feels like one of "technically correct...." answers. All those examples are branches or stops. That's very different from discussing frequency on the main line itself (which is what I would think Calgary-Edmonton would be).

It's a bit strange to plan a Calgary-Edmonton HSR line at anything less than hourly. How would they expect to compete with WestJet and AC?

Probably why nothing has come from the HSR study. Regular rail, and maybe an HFR would make sense, but maybe the study came to the conclusion that HSR at hourly or better would not be feasible.

Commercial failure versus projected to perhaps make money? Like seriously. It doesn’t fit what you conceptualizer to be attributes of a successful project. If people want a 11 am frequency then it will be provided. Nothing stopping them.

Even before the pandemic flights between Calgary and Edmonton weren’t hourly (they were up to every 30 mins for commuting hour flights). Mostly since dash 8s got larger. And they can use those planes to fly captive and low frequency routes at suboptimal times times.

And yeah, a 8-12 car train set provides a lot more capacity than a Q400 or 736.

Is there the demand for that big of a train that often?

On shorter routes though your customer base changes substantially. At ~200 km, HSR can enable regular intercity commuting. Not just competition with air.

If it only took about an hour to get from Ottawa or Quebec City to Montreal, you start seeing substantial levels of commuting from those cities to Montreal. You'd see the areas around stations in Montreal and Quebec City develop with satellite offices. Etc.

The lift for Kitchener would be as large or huge. HSR would put them less than 30 mins from Pearson. Remedying a huge pain for one of the few tech clusters in the world without access to an international airport. Would also put them within 1 hr of downtown Toronto, making that trip comparable to the GO commutes many GTA residents have from closer burbs today.

For city pairs under 250, 200 kph can still be enough to enable commuting. The problem for something like Calgary-Edmonton is that they'd need 300 kph service to enable commuting and 200 kph service would function mostly as an alternative to air travel. That said, if they announced a 200 kph service, I'd be investing in real estate in Red Deer.

The problem with this plan is that it would cause skyrocketing housing to happen. In general, Via should not be used for commuting. Each major city metro should have a commuter rail system in place that can be upscaled to HSR for other cities that could commute on it. 2 cities have something, one needs it..

 

[kEiThZ]

The problem with this plan is that it would cause skyrocketing housing to happen. In general, Via should not be used for commuting. Each major city metro should have a commuter rail system in place that can be upscaled to HSR for other cities that could commute on it. 2 cities have something, one needs it..

You must not have used HSR much elsewhere. Commuters and regular business travelers make up a substantial portion of the customer base on most lines in Europe and Asia.

And if actually helps take some pressure off the major metros by making it possible to commute from further away. To be sure, this isn't your average commuter doing this. They are usually six figure white collar workers who don't have to be in the city everyday. You'll find plenty of folks who do this with VIA today from Kingston, Belleville, London, etc. They pursue arbitrage enabled by good rail service. Like the lawyers I've met who work in Toronto and get off at Belleville. They get the salary of a Toronto lawyer with the cost of living in Belleville. And at least free up a house in Toronto and have one less well paid person to bid against.

In Alberta's case, it's Red Deer that would boom as white collar professionals with generous WFH policies flock to it. If you save $100-200k on a house, you can afford lots of very expensive HSR tickets.

I predicted HFR will have a similar effect on Peterborough and (to a lesser extent) Smiths Falls.

 

[micheal_can]

You must not have used HSR much elsewhere. Commuters and regular business travelers make up a substantial portion of the customer base on most lines in Europe and Asia.

And if actually helps take some pressure off the major metros by making it possible to commute from further away. To be sure, this isn't your average commuter doing this. They are usually six figure white collar workers who don't have to be in the city everyday. You'll find plenty of folks who do this with VIA today from Kingston, Belleville, London, etc. They pursue arbitrage enabled by good rail service. Like the lawyers I've met who work in Toronto and get off at Belleville. They get the salary of a Toronto lawyer with the cost of living in Belleville. And at least free up a house in Toronto and have one less well paid person to bid against.

In Alberta's case, it's Red Deer that would boom as white collar professionals with generous WFH policies flock to it. If you save $100-200k on a house, you can afford lots of very expensive HSR tickets.

I predicted HFR will have a similar effect on Peterborough and (to a lesser extent) Smiths Falls.

With GO going to Kitchener, London has seen skyrocketing housing costs in the last 10 years. HSR that gets commuting to Toronto in an hour will only exacerbate that. So, yes, you save money moving from Toronto to London, but if you live in London and want to buy your first home, you are only seeing the price of a house rise.

 

[kEiThZ]

With GO going to Kitchener, London has seen skyrocketing housing costs in the last 10 years. HSR that gets commuting to Toronto in an hour will only exacerbate that. So, yes, you save money moving from Toronto to London, but if you live in London and want to buy your first home, you are only seeing the price of a house rise.

And? That is how city's like London, Red Deer and Peterborough will benefit. They'll get wealthier residents who will also pump in money into the local economy. They don't just buy houses. They live in that community. The shop at local stores. Eat at local restaurants. Donate to local charities. And in due course open up satellite offices in these towns. This is how we lift up a lot of these towns that got deindustrialized in the 90s.

Also, since land commands less of a premium in smaller cities, the price increases don't work out as substantially as people think. This is already happening in London, Kingston, Belleville, Cobourg, etc. VIA even sells commuter passes (however inelegant) to cater to these travelers. You don't the locals voting in politicians opposed to any of this. Indeed, the Kingston hub would amp this up substantially. But you won't find any of the mayors in these communities opposed to the growth and new residents. Their primary concern is losing service.

Of course, we could always avoid building intercity rail, let these cities stagnate or even die while cramming more people into the large metros. How many people would vote for that?

 

[afransen]

With GO going to Kitchener, London has seen skyrocketing housing costs in the last 10 years. HSR that gets commuting to Toronto in an hour will only exacerbate that. So, yes, you save money moving from Toronto to London, but if you live in London and want to buy your first home, you are only seeing the price of a house rise.

I'm sure homeowners in those cities won't complain.

 

[Darwinkgo]

So, no?
I did not mean upgrade it to HFR/HSR. I mean putting a second or 3rd track down the whole way. What you are talking is upgrading the line.

It just wouldn’t be speed competitive with even the bus. For the amount of ridership you’d generate it just doesn’t make sense. With how far the cities are apart there is a speed sweet spot to minimize net cost and it is way above twinning the existing freight standard line. (The province looked at this in the 70s and VIA came to the same conclusion in the early 80s)

The prairie is just such good land for railway building the cost of doing major rebuilds isn’t much more than twinning.

This is why demanding hourly is silly. Hourly or half hourly during the morning and evening makes sense, but the rest of the time, if the trains cannot be filled, then they should not run so often. The bigger thing is to ensure 95% or better on time.

Probably why nothing has come from the HSR study. Regular rail, and maybe an HFR would make sense, but maybe the study came to the conclusion that HSR at hourly or better would not be feasible.

The studies show that regular rail, hfr rail don’t make sense in the context. It just isn’t fast enough. Once you start raising the speed the project gets more appealing as you can sell more of the capacity at the same cost (buying a 6 car set instead of a 8 or 10 car set doesn’t save much money in the context of a big project) and once you’re doing a brand new row going to 350 kph doesn’t cost much more than 200 kph.

Is there the demand for that big of a train that often?

If it is fast enough. Going fast enough opens up the second profit maximization point on the curve, where you both maximize demand and profit by keeping prices low. Around 60% induced demand if I remember reading the demand study from around a decade ago. As others have said a lot of demand gets induced in Red Deer - around 1/4 of the positive economic externality ends up in Red Deer.

The problem with this plan is that it would cause skyrocketing housing to happen. In general, Via should not be used for commuting. Each major city metro should have a commuter rail system in place that can be upscaled to HSR for other cities that could commute on it. 2 cities have something, one needs it..

Especially in a work from come 2, 3 days a week context, HSR will most certainly be used for a lot of commuting.

It is also useful for initial service into the stations so the trains don’t need to deadhead or be stored in the centre of urban areas.

 

[kEiThZ]

and once you’re doing a brand new row going to 350 kph doesn’t cost much more than 200 kph.

Yes and no. If I'm not mistaken, passenger ops is allowed up to 125 mph (or is it 110 mph?) without grade separation as long as there's strong protections at crossings. Saves the cost of grade separation.

In theory this provides a sort of upgrade path. Build the line without grade separation or electrification, but design the corridor and its geometry for higher speed. Run at 110 mph till traffic is enough to justify the upgrade to 250+ kph fully electrified and grade separated HSR.

I don't actually think 300 kph is needed for anything but enabling commuting. And building something that expensive would drive up ticket prices.

Rough math:.

Distance 300 km from centre to centre.
Driving time: 3 hrs. (No traffic).
Flight time: 45 mins. 2 hrs from centre to centre with 45 mins pre-boarding. Probably closer to 2.5 hrs in reality, but let's be conservative.

Required average train speed: 300 km / 2 hrs = 150 kph.
Percentage of max speed: 70%
Required max speed: 150 kph / 70% = 214.28 kph

A train with a max speed of 110 mph, averaging 70% would do the trip in under 2.5 hrs. Plenty competitive with air and car. They should field the Greenfield corridor, lauch with regular diesel trains, and then either invest progressively or launch a large upgrade program in 20 years at fleet renewal time. Aiming for the best or even the most sensible solution doesn't get anything built in Canada. Build the solution with the most amount of capital you can get, even if profit or operating costs aren't optimized.

 

[Darwinkgo]

Yes and no. If I'm not mistaken, passenger ops is allowed up to 125 mph (or is it 110 mph?) without grade separation as long as there's strong protections at crossings. Saves the cost of grade separation.

In theory this provides a sort of upgrade path. Build the line without grade separation or electrification, but design the corridor and its geometry for higher speed. Run at 110 mph till traffic is enough to justify the upgrade to 250+ kph fully electrified and grade separated HSR.

I don't actually think 300 kph is needed for anything but enabling commuting. And building something that expensive would drive up ticket prices.

Rough math:.

Distance 300 km from centre to centre.
Driving time: 3 hrs. (No traffic).
Flight time: 45 mins. 2 hrs from centre to centre with 45 mins pre-boarding. Probably closer to 2.5 hrs in reality, but let's be conservative.

Required average train speed: 300 km / 2 hrs = 150 kph.
Percentage of max speed: 70%
Required max speed: 150 kph / 70% = 214.28 kph

A train with a max speed of 110 mph, averaging 70% would do the trip in under 2.5 hrs. Plenty competitive with air and car. They should field the Greenfield corridor, lauch with regular diesel trains, and then either invest progressively or launch a large upgrade program in 20 years at fleet renewal time. Aiming for the best or even the most sensible solution doesn't get anything built in Canada. Build the solution with the most amount of capital you can get, even if profit or operating costs aren't optimized.

In Alberta the government will just let you close minor roads if it doesn’t create major inconvenience or if you offer to buy out people that are mad about the minor inconvenience. The more major roads they would never allow a level crossing on anyways. I’m sure it make sense in some places to go incrementally but the economic modelling for Alberta has doing more investment up front to get more speed generating a positive return, so it doesn’t make sense to just do the incremental project. Flat soil that is mostly large farms that are used to competing land users on slivers of their land (oil and gas) and all that.

Building something fast doesn’t necessarily drive up ticket prices unless you want it to, because you reach a different point on your revenue curve which maximizes revenue through ridership maximization instead of fare maximization. And since whenis it a bad thing to commute? Going from onecity to another before and after a concert I’d bet would become common under a high speed scenario.

As for your 2.5 hour greenfield diesel scenario: why? They’d save barely any capital cost compared to a 2 hour scenario where they convinced someone to implement jet train.