VIA Rail

[Bordercollie]

There isn't a date set for an election, but I would legitimately be surprised if one doesn't happen this year.

I personally don't see any way HFR slides through before the next election. Even if it does, the political instability caused by the election will more than likely see it cancelled. If the conservatives form the next government, which is a likely possibility, it is 120% dead.

I'm no expert but I don't think anyone has an appetite for an election this year. The concervatives need time to build their platform and everyone is concerned about the vaccine.

So far the government was able to pass bills with the help of the NDP. That's likely to continue for now unless something really blows up.

With the new administration in the US we should slowly see a return to having a relationship with the Americans which is one less hot topic.

 

[roger1818]

You are assuming that all passengers travel “end-to-end”, which would only be a valid assumption for services without any intermediary stations. Therefore, you unfortunately can’t calculate the “passenger-per-km” figure for any VIA service with the 1988 data I provided, as useful as that metric would be for any comparisons with present-day VIA...

That is a good point. I would expect a significant majority of passengers on the Montreal-Quebec train are going end to end, where as I would expect the exact opposite for Toronto-Havelock (a small minority would be traveling end to end). As a result, if we had the true passenger distance travelled, it would likely bring the passenger-km figures even closer together.

 

[SFO-YYZ]

Any updates on the new fleet?

 

[Urban Sky]

My point was that in the United States, when individual States call for new Amtrak services, it’s because they are prepared to pay for better transportation options for their citizens, whereas in Canada, individual provinces call for new VIA services to rid themselves from the financial obligation to run bus services along the corridor in question. I struggle to imagine any politician on Vancouver Island would demand restoration of the Malahat service if the province would have to contribute more to its operating deficit than what saving the failing bus service would cost. The reflex (as with the demise with Greyhound all across Western Canada) is: “Ottawa, help us, our regional bus services are failing! Please pay millions to restore VIA service, so that we can avoid paying hundred-thousands to preserve our bus services!”...

Following a private Email exchange in response to above post, I would like to precise that “individual provinces” should rather have referred to certain local (and vocal!) activists and politicians across the country than the actual provincial governments (which tend to be quite as unsupportive of publicly funded intercity bus service as they are for publicly funded intercity rail service).

I did search for some news articles which highlight the reflex of calling for restored VIA service when a Greyhound was abandoning most of this country, but I only managed to find these two cases (Thunder Bay and Lillooet) where it was actual politicians (rather than just some “social media users”) who linked their demand for a return of VIa service - and they were all from the local rather than the provincial level of government...:

Pressure grows for Via Rail return to Thunder Bay, Ont.
”Former MP says "All fingers point to Ottawa" on Via Rail's return

Cuts to Greyhound services across Western Canada and northwestern Ontario have garnered attention and outcry online from those who rely on the service.

Social media users are also now calling for the return of Via Rail through Thunder Bay and through parts of Northwestern Ontario.

[...]

Bruce Hyer, a former MP for Thunder Bay- Superior North, has been a long time advocate for via rail to resume service in all of Northwestern Ontario . He said the return of via rail to the north shore needs to be a federal issue.

"All fingers point to Ottawa on this," said Hyer. "It's a big deal environmentally as well as the convenience and the need of the people in the community."

Hyer said there is a "desperate" need to restore via rail, especially between Toronto and Winnipeg.”

With Greyhound about to quit B.C., Lillooet calls for return of passenger train service
“The District of Lillooet has put forward a resolution calling on the province to work with Via Rail to carry out a feasibility study for passenger rail service between North Vancouver and Prince George that will be debated at next month's Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) Convention.”

Note: I’ve updated the original post to better nuance my argument...

 

[roger1818]

Following a private Email exchange in response to above post, I would like to precise that “individual provinces” should rather have referred to certain local (and vocal!) activists and politicians across the country than the actual provincial governments (which tend to be quite as unsupportive of publicly funded intercity bus service as they are for publicly funded intercity rail service).

I did search for some news articles which highlight the reflex of calling for restored VIA service when a Greyhound was abandoning most of this country, but I only managed to find these two cases (Thunder Bay and Lillooet) where it was actual politicians (rather some “social media users”) who linked their demand for a return of VIa service - and they were all from the local rather than the provincial level of government...:

Pressure grows for Via Rail return to Thunder Bay, Ont.
”Former MP says "All fingers point to Ottawa" on Via Rail's return

Cuts to Greyhound services across Western Canada and northwestern Ontario have garnered attention and outcry online from those who rely on the service.

Social media users are also now calling for the return of Via Rail through Thunder Bay and through parts of Northwestern Ontario.”

With Greyhound about to quit B.C., Lillooet calls for return of passenger train service
“The District of Lillooet has put forward a resolution calling on the province to work with Via Rail to carry out a feasibility study for passenger rail service between North Vancouver and Prince George that will be debated at next month's Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) Convention.”

Note: I’ve updated the original post to better nuance my argument...

And @micheal_can says you won't admit when you are wrong.

Regarding Thunder Bay, Ontario Northland has filled in the gap and now provides bus service from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay and from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg.

 

[ManyQuestions]

HFR would bring back service to Peterborough. Having said that, it really depends on which numbers you consider important. While the Subsidy per Passenger for Montreal-Quebec is significantly higher (a bad thing), the Ridership, Cost Recovery and Occupancy Rate are also higher (good things).

	Ridership​	Subsidy per passenger​	Cost recovery​	Occupancy Rate​
Montreal-Quebec	287,111​	$73.80​	28.4%​	39%​
Toronto-Havelock	59,067​	$32.10​	24.5%​	32%​

What the table doesn't tell you is that it is 272 km between Montreal-Quebec and 162km between Toronto and Havelock, so the Subsidies per Passenger km are $0.27 and $0.20 respectively. Still higher for Montreal-Quebec, but more reasonable and it does have better Ridership, Cost recovery and Occupancy Rate figures.

One other thing to consider is that the issue with the Montreal-Quebec service was, and still is, that it is extremely slow and unreliable. Travel by bus was a better experience with faster travel times and, in my experience, dramatically better reliability. Furthermore, the busses on this route are both much cheaper and more modern than the trains used by VIA.

I can't compare this with the former levels of service on the Havelock line, but I do think that it is worth noting that the most frequent pre-covid VIA travel time for Montreal-Quebec was 3:45, about 15% longer than the 3:15 travel time offered by the hourly service offered by Orléans Express before covid. I believe that one of the three daily VIA trips was scheduled to be about as fast as the bus, but left at 6:30, but I think It took about four hours given that I got to the office at 11:00 when I rode it two years ago. I'll check the old schedules and write something more about this soon, but it is my understanding that the low performance of the Montreal-Quebec route was one of the reasons for it being prioritized in the HFR project along with the former Ontario high speed rail plans. The train is normally my preferred mode of travel, but I have begun to avoid it on the Montreal-Quebec route.

 

[kEiThZ]

I'm growing old here waiting for an HFR announcement. I wish they'd pull the trigger either way at this point.

 

[nfitz]

I'm growing old here waiting for an HFR announcement. I wish they'd pull the trigger either way at this point.

I'm growing old waiting for the Liberals HST announcement for VIA. I was barely 13 when I first heard about it. Even if they start today, I'd be retired by the time it opens.

 

[roger1818]

One other thing to consider is that the issue with the Montreal-Quebec service was, and still is, that it is extremely slow and unreliable. Travel by bus was a better experience with faster travel times and, in my experience, dramatically better reliability. Furthermore, the busses on this route are both much cheaper and more modern than the trains used by VIA.

I can't compare this with the former levels of service on the Havelock line, but I do think that it is worth noting that the most frequent pre-covid VIA travel time for Montreal-Quebec was 3:45, about 15% longer than the 3:15 travel time offered by the hourly service offered by Orléans Express before covid. I believe that one of the three daily VIA trips was scheduled to be about as fast as the bus, but left at 6:30, but I think It took about four hours given that I got to the office at 11:00 when I rode it two years ago. I'll check the old schedules and write something more about this soon, but it is my understanding that the low performance of the Montreal-Quebec route was one of the reasons for it being prioritized in the HFR project along with the former Ontario high speed rail plans. The train is normally my preferred mode of travel, but I have begun to avoid it on the Montreal-Quebec route.

That is a very good point. I am not sure about 1988 (I was still living in BC) but I know from personal experience that in 1991 Voyageur used beautiful, articulated buses with hourly service on the Montreal-Quebec route, which would have been very competitive with VIA's offering. I don't remember how long the bus took, but looking at a 1988 VIA schedule, the train was about 3:20 (give or take) with only 4 trains a day (plus the Ocean to Levis).

 

[2transpo]

I'm growing old here waiting for an HFR announcement. I wish they'd pull the trigger either way at this point.

They have been silent on this for so long, that is the worst sign. I'm afraid that the only trigger pull we will see will be the one that puts to metaphorical bullet in this proposal.

 

[kEiThZ]

They have been silent on this for so long, that is the worst sign. I'm afraid that the only trigger pull we will see will be the one that puts to metaphorical bullet in this proposal.

That's too pessimistic. Usually for something like this, if they find a showstopper, the Minister and/or Cabinet is briefed and they pull the plug earlier. At minimum, they'd get proponents to at least start walking back expectations. Instead, the Finance Committee had it in their list of budget recommendations last week.

Realistically, this project has maybe one seat at risk for them (Peterborough). And even that's debatable, because you can all but bet the Conservatives would never pull the trigger. So cancellation is really not that much of a risk.

So either the Memorandum to Cabinet (MC) explaining the procurement hasn't been staffed yet. Or they are waiting to announce this at budget time.

 

[kEiThZ]

I'm growing old waiting for the Liberals HST announcement for VIA. I was barely 13 when I first heard about it. Even if they start today, I'd be retired by the time it opens.

This is exactly why I detest the criticism of HSR advocates like Paul Langan or even Reece Martin.

Imagine where we'd be if they had just built something like HFR instead of constantly pushing for HSR as minimum. If we built HFR instead of holding out for ViaFast two decades ago, we'd probably be talking about HSR upgrades today.

 

[robmausser]

This is exactly why I detest the criticism of HSR advocates like Paul Langan or even Reece Martin.

Imagine where we'd be if they had just built something like instead of constantly pushing for HSR as minimum. If we built HFR instead of holding out ViaFast two decades ago, we'd probably be talking about HSR upgrades today.

Incremental upgrades are less sexy but they are typically a better methodology.

Its why HSR exists at all, versus the other crazy but cool ideas in the 60's like jet powered hover trains. The best solution is to incrementally improve things.

 

[Allandale25]

This is exactly why I detest the criticism of HSR advocates like Paul Langan or even Reece Martin.

Imagine where we'd be if they had just built something like instead of constantly pushing for HSR as minimum. If we built HFR instead of holding out ViaFast two decades ago, we'd probably be talking about HSR upgrades today.

I've watched several of Reece's videos and follow him on social media. I hadn't realize he was critical of HFR. That's disappointing to hear. (And if you or Reeve are reading this and also disagree with HFR that's fine. Happy to agree to disagree while reading all commentary on it).

 

[kEiThZ]

I've watched several of Reece's videos and follow him on social media. I hadn't realize he was critical of HFR. That's disappointing to hear.

Any discussion on HFR from him always characterizes the project as unambitious. His last video compared the project to a rail line being built in Ethiopia. This kind of talk only provides fodder to those who oppose the project. "Hey look. Even railfans think this is useless."

He'll caveat this by saying something is better than nothing. And I agree with that. But he seems to have no idea of the history of HSR developed elsewhere, or that lines can be improved progressively. Instead, he simply suggests anything less than the government committing to tens of billions in HSR is unambitious. This is ignorance. And when it comes from someone with a large platform, it should be called out.