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VIA Rail

roger1818 said:
If it is a money pit like you claim, who would buy it?
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I think it would be very politically unpopular to discontinue a service that has been mandated as essential for God knows how long.

And with a focus on a greener economy, it would be good PR for the government to invest in railways. Plus it can be presented as a make work project after covid to help the economy.

Not sure what Erin O'Toole mandate would look like but I don't think there is a chance that he's going to get elected with a majority mandate anytime soon.

And in a minority, the NDP, Greens and Liberals would not let VIA dissaperar.

With Amtrak Biden in the white house and a Multi billion dollar hole in the capital budget for Amtrak there is a possibility that VIA has an opportunity to tack on to an Amtrak order. It happened with the P42's and the new corridor fleet, what's to say it won't happen again.
 
roger1818 said:
If it is a money pit like you claim, who would buy it?
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Thankfully, it isn’t a money pit and with direct revenues representing 101.2% of direct costs in 2017 and 90.2% in 2018, Canadian taxpayers would be worse off without the Canadian, at least after accounting for the direct (sales tax paid on the ticket price) and indirect (sales and other consumption taxes on any other goods and services consumed by international tourists, which would otherwise probably have benefitted the taxpayers of a different country) tax revenues it generates:
1585527242974-png.238779

Source: re-post from post #6,707 and #7,870

However, given that no railroad can capture these direct and indirect tax revenues it generates, the Canadian in its current (pre-CoVid) state is economically viable only for a public railroad, but not a private one. You just have to compare its offerings with that of RMR or the Indian Pacific or Ghan in Australia to estimate what privatizing it would do to keeping transcontinental rail service accessible to most Canadians...
 
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Plus to mandate a private company to provide an essential service will require a subsidy. Is that cheaper than doing it yourself? Since now they can take the earnings from the corridor and put it towards the Canadian and Ocean. But without that, it's going to be less economically viable.
 
I think that's a good point - - I've heard people claim The Canadian is effectively the government subsidising wealthy tourists, but in reality it would cost Transport Canada a lot more to subsidise a mandated essential service if there wasn't a bunch of tourists paying top dollar to ride in prestige class. In a way those tourists are helping to subsidise an essential service instead of having taxpayers doing it. Privatising the service would obviously still require a subsidy if essential service was to be offered in areas that aren't profitable for a private operator (e.g. in Northern Ontario in the winter). If Australia is any indication (the Indian Pacific as Urban Sky mentioned), the subsidy to a private company would eventually prove unpopular and be dropped, leaving only a trans-continental Rocky Mountaineer type train. Once, about 10 years ago on the Canadian a staff member told me they'd heard of a possibility of VIA somehow partnering with RMR in some way, but this was back in the Steven Harper days and I haven't heard a thing about it since (if it was even true in the first place).
 
roger1818 said:
Given that the seating in business class is 2+1 but in economy it is 2+2, there is a good chance that the seats are wider in business class.
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I stumbled across some evidence to back this up. According to Wikipedia, Brightline's "Select" coaches (their name for business class) have "21-inch (530 mm)-wide seats" while their "Smart" fare coaches (economy) have "narrower 19-inch (480 mm)-wide seats." Now there is no guarantee that VIA will use the same seats as Brightline, but there is a good chance they will since they are going for the same 2x1 seating arrangement in business class.
 
trebello said:
I think that's a good point - - I've heard people claim The Canadian is effectively the government subsidising wealthy tourists, but in reality it would cost Transport Canada a lot more to subsidise a mandated essential service if there wasn't a bunch of tourists paying top dollar to ride in prestige class. In a way those tourists are helping to subsidise an essential service instead of having taxpayers doing it. Privatising the service would obviously still require a subsidy if essential service was to be offered in areas that aren't profitable for a private operator (e.g. in Northern Ontario in the winter). If Australia is any indication (the Indian Pacific as Urban Sky mentioned), the subsidy to a private company would eventually prove unpopular and be dropped, leaving only a trans-continental Rocky Mountaineer type train. Once, about 10 years ago on the Canadian a staff member told me they'd heard of a possibility of VIA somehow partnering with RMR in some way, but this was back in the Steven Harper days and I haven't heard a thing about it since (if it was even true in the first place).
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The media likes to divide any subsidy that can even remotely be attributed to the Canadian equally among the passengers, regardless of whether they are paying several thousands dollars or a few hundred dollars per person. That isn't really fair as the person paying more is likely paying more than their share of the costs of operating the train (even if you consider the extra costs of providing premium service). It makes for good headlines though, regardless of how misleading it is.
 
roger1818 said:
I stumbled across some evidence to back this up. According to Wikipedia, Brightline's "Select" coaches (their name for business class) have "21-inch (530 mm)-wide seats" while their "Smart" fare coaches (economy) have "narrower 19-inch (480 mm)-wide seats." Now there is no guarantee that VIA will use the same seats as Brightline, but there is a good chance they will since they are going for the same 2x1 seating arrangement in business class.
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Will add that this is way more comfortable than bus or plane. A 20 -21" wide seat is what you get on domestic business class. And a 17-18" wide seat is what you get in economy. The CSeries/A220 has 18" wide seats with one 19" wide seat or airlines can opt for 18.6" wide seats across the whole row. That's the closest you'll come in the air to what VIA is probably likely to offer with the new fleet. Never have to worry about armrest wars on the train.
 
roger1818 said:
The media likes to divide any subsidy that can even remotely be attributed to the Canadian equally among the passengers, regardless of whether they are paying several thousands dollars or a few hundred dollars per person. That isn't really fair as the person paying more is likely paying more than their share of the costs of operating the train (even if you consider the extra costs of providing premium service). It makes for good headlines though, regardless of how misleading it is.
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It's not just the media. It's the lobbyists, and by extension the people they are lobbying, and anyone making speeches. It's so important for VIA to be able to counter all of this with independent transparent actual facts.

- Paul
 
I have what might be a silly question, but I can't find the answer: how does VIA set train numbers? I ask because there seems to generally be a pattern where corridor services are two digit numbers above 20 and most remote services are three digit numbers that usually start with a six (e.g. Winnipeg Churchull, northern Quebec) ... but then there are strange exceptions like train 643 (Ottawa - Kingston - Toronto) listed in with trains 53 and 59 between the same cities. Why are a few corridor trains three digits numbers starting with a six?
 
trebello said:
I have what might be a silly question, but I can't find the answer: how does VIA set train numbers? I ask because there seems to generally be a pattern where corridor services are two digit numbers above 20 and most remote services are three digit numbers that usually start with a six (e.g. Winnipeg Churchull, northern Quebec) ... but then there are strange exceptions like train 643 (Ottawa - Kingston - Toronto) listed in with trains 53 and 59 between the same cities. Why are a few corridor trains three digits numbers starting with a six?
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They seem to have drifted from this standard, but from my observations, it used to be that in the corridor 2 digit trains were for weekday (and weekend if it used the same schedule) trains and were numbered as follows, with even train numbers for eastbound and odd numbers for westbound:
2x - Quebec-Montreal​
3x - Montreal-Ottawa​
4x - Ottawa-Toronto​
5x&6x - Montreal-Toronto​
7x - Toronto-Windsor​
8x - Toronto-London/Sarnia​
9x - Toronto-Niagara Falls​
If a train only ran on weekends, it would be 3 digits with the same format but prefixed by a 6 (Saturday is day 6 on VIA schedules).

The problem was, that meant there was a limit of 5 trains a day each way for all routes (except Montreal-Toronto which could have 10), so lately they have been also using the 6 prefix to allow more than 5 trains a day. They also seem to have moved the 5x numbers to Ottawa-Toronto. There also seem to be other exceptions.

It will be interesting to see what VIA does with train numbers after HFR.

EDIT: Added 9x Niagara Falls trains to make list more complete, thanks @smallspy
 
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New Schedules in effect for the Corridor as of February 2

VIA has released new schedules effective tomorrow, according to which trains 24, 37, 48, 59, 62 and 69 will no longer operate. After the suspension of the third frequency between Quebec, Montreal and Ottawa (as of October 27) and of the weekend-only fourth frequency which served Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto (as of January 12) this is the third round of service reductions during the ongoing second wave, with the withdrawal of one round-trip each on Quebec-Montreal-Ottawa, Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto, while service in Southwestern Ontario remains unchanged. Effective tomorrow, the service offerings in the Corridor will be as follows:

  • Quebec-Montreal (and v.v.)
    • leaving QBEC at 08:00 (#35) and 13:00 (#37)
    • leaving MTRL at 12:45 (#24) and 18:25 (#28)
  • Montreal-Ottawa (and v.v.)
    • leaving MTRL at 12:04 (#35) and 16:50 (#37)
    • leaving OTTW at 10:15 (#24) and 16:10 (#28)
  • Montreal-Toronto (and v.v.)
    • leaving MTRL at 08:55 (#63), 13:28 (#67) and 17:10 (#69)
    • leaving TRTO at 08:32 (#62), 11:32 (#64) and 17:02 (#68)
  • Ottawa-Toronto (and v.v.)
    • leaving OTTW at 08:40 (#643), 11:50 (#53) and 18:25 (#59)
    • leaving TRTO at 08:32 (#52), 12:17 (#42), and 18:47 (#48)
  • Toronto-Windsor (and v.v.)
    • leaving TRTO at 08:40 (#71) and 17:30 (#75)
    • leaving WDON at 09:00 (#72) and 17:45 (#78)
  • Toronto-Sarnia (and v.v.)
    • leaving TRTO at 17:40 (#84)
    • leaving SARN at 06:10 (#87)
Note: all trains operate daily.

I’ve compiled the following condensed schedule:
1612225574474.png

Note: only major stops are shown.

At the same time, the Ocean and the Canadian will remain suspended (except for the once-weekly round-trip between Winnipeg and Vancouver) until at least May 15.

The new PDF schedules can be found here:

 
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p_xavier said:
As someone who relies on VIA service to get to work, it pisses me off that it's not regarded as an essential service.
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VIA is of course considered an essential service, as it otherwise wouldn’t have been able to continue providing service throughout the second quarter of last year, when its revenues were down 97.6% and its operating funding need went up 60.8%, despite a 78.7% reduction in service offered:
84D73B76-4E10-4981-9EE2-63491E75B94C.jpeg

Source: VIA Rail Quarterly Report Q2 2020

That said, I can imagine that especially the new schedule fails to accommodate certain types of passenger trip purposes, as every service reduction involves painful trade-offs for me and my colleagues in the scheduling department and which will inevitably affect certain trip types much more than others. Just out of interest, on which trains would you depend for your pre-pandemic commuting? (Feel free to respond by PM if you don’t want to discuss this here)

Have a great day and stay safe, while we weather the (pandemic) storm and eventually ramp up services once again to provide a more useful service...
 
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I used train 22 and 37 or 39 from/to Alexandria station to DT Montréal. I managed to live with 24 as I had an arrangement with my boss. Now I can't even do a daily commute with these hours! I can't go to Ottawa for blood work nor get surgeries, I need to stay overnight.

I have a medical condition where I can't drive. I will need to pay a cab to Vaudreuil exo station to get to work. This is really unstainable for many residents here as the population depends on this service as the population is much older.

I can't even go to Toronto through Ottawa, I would need to sleep in Ottawa! I can manage teleworking as its now an obligation, but I'm considered an essential worker so I may need to come to the workplace any day.
 
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