Hardly. It's still a high capital cost to buy a whole new fleet. A cost that a lot of poorer jurisdictions might not be able to afford or justify at the traffic levels they have on some lines. There's a reason a lot of older rolling stock does end up in the developing world. And yes, if you're in the developing world, you probably aren't likely to care prioritize emissions as much as providing service.
Which is why I said it was "a long winded answer to say VIA would sell them to a developing country that doesn't have any carbon emission standards."
I mean depot level reconfiguration. Unless there's specific fittings for business class coaches, the only difference is the the floor plan of the seating area. The attachment points for seating, tables, window covers, etc will all be fairly standard and reconfigurable. If these aren't reconfigurable within a few days at depot, VIA is doing something wrong.
I am not so sure. I took the "Long" Trainset layout from VIA's presentation at the 2020 NGEC Meeting (referenced previously), and reorganized it so that the cars are stacked vertically to make it easier to compare them. Granted there is no legend to say what is what, and the design could still change, but I assume it is reasonably representative and you can get a good idea of the layout of each coach type. From this, there seem to be significant differences to the ends of the car, where the washrooms, luggage racks and galley are located. What those differences are, it is hard to say.
Also, don't forget that the seats in business class will be different than the ones used in economy, so they would need to buy approximately 66 new seats. I don't know how much they cost, but if you consider a good quality office chair can run you $1000, these will probably be at least that, and probably significantly more, so you are probably looking at a price tag of well over $100,000 to reconfigure one coach. If they end up needing to redo the plumbing for the washrooms and galley, the reconfiguration won't be so trivial.
Hardly. Like I said the markets for business travel and economy travel tend to be independent. The only reason we perceive them as linked is because we put both sets of passengers on one train. There's no reason VIA couldn't run business only service. The only question is one of market for such a service. They have to enough customers to justify that.
So you think there are times of the day that there won't be any demand for economy passengers and if there is, they won't mind waiting a few hours for the next train? Even with the hourly service of HFR, having some of the trains business class only would mean a significant wait for those economy passengers who wanted to catch it. I just don't see the benefit for VIA. If the business class passengers don't want to risk having the peasants in economy class enter their coach, just lock the doors connecting the two.
Acela is a totally different situation. First of all you have an extremely high frequency of service on the North East Corridor (more than double what HFR will have). Secondly the HSR trains are charging a premium price in the first place, because of the speed, so making them start at business class makes sense.
In any event, going back to my original point, it's good that VIA is growing business class starting offering. Their current setup of one business class car is probably a little too low. When HFR comes, they will need even more business class seating. Especially if HFR is competitive with air.
Growing business class is one thing. Shrinking economy class is another.
