VIA Rail

[MisterF]

Even if, for the sake of the argument, the travel times between Toronto and Montreal are the exact same as today, HFR will still be worth it. Because people will know that they'll actually get there on time instead of sitting on a siding waiting for freight trains to go by. Via Rail's on time performance has dropped to an abysmal 68%, which means that the 5:10 that it says in the schedule is starting to look pretty meaningless. Some of you guys are putting too much emphasis on trip times to Montreal while ignoring reliability, frequency, schedule convenience, and much improved travel times between every other city pair.

Your explanation is quite compelling.

I would come at it from another angle: Suppose we can find whatever amount of capital the incremental Ottawa bypass would rquire, using the CP line as the straw man. Now remember that VIA is planning to also retain the Lakeshore service, with reportedly 12 trains per day west of Brockville and 6 east of there. Now remember that the whole issue with the Lakeshore line is the conflict with CN freight. 12 trains is still a lot of conflict.
I would expect that the business case for spending that available capital on the CN line to assure the performance of that Lakeshore service would exceed the business case for spending the same amount to extract a small gain in travel time on through Montreal-Toronto business.

Relaying the Winchester, at minimum, would be roughly 60 miles of new rail and ties. If the vision is to lay a new line end to end, not encroaching on CP's freight infrastructure, that's an even bigger bit of capital....25 miles of new grading plus the track itself to sidestep the remaining double track sections. All, with a huge presumption that CP will be amenable.

Spend that money on the Kingston line, and, even with a "hub" at Kingston, the performance and marketability of that service would likely deliver equal or better return. Who knows - one might even find that a couple of those 6 local trains would run right through, on a total Montreal-Toronto time as good or better than through Ottawa.

I'm not saying that will ever happen, just making the point about the return on the simplest bypass versus other uses of the money. And there are other things I can think of that would also be better uses.

- Paul

What happened during the Kingston subdivision project from barely a decade ago shows how futile capital spending on the CN line is. Costs ballooned, the project was scaled back, and CN kept its priority over Via trains. It was a failure, basically a gift to CN to use as they wish. Any amount of investment into a freight mainline is going to fail because the government simply isn't going to take priority from the freight companies. Simply put, passenger trains need their own route.

 

[Allandale25]

Scenario 3) HFR isn't ready, and the government indicates again it views the project favourably.
Scenario 4) HFR doesn't need funding in the budget and proceeds on its own timeline.

Like I get that this forum is all hot and bothered about the project being in the budget, but for reasons discussed here before, there is no reason it has to be.

Totally agree with possibilities 3) and 4). I think I mentioned ones like them in a post a few weeks back but I was rushing so only wrote 1) and 2). Totally agree with you.

 

[nfitz]

Did ML ever say that? All I ever saw was a statement that ML was continuing to discuss VIA's needs. The consultation material for the Don Valley yard clearly shows trains parked right where VIA wants to be, and no diversion trackage.

Standing in the room at the poster boards. Yes, that's what they said.

 

[Allandale25]

Interesting. I presumed VIA would duck down the Stouffville line (interchange at West Highland Creek) to avoid as much of CPs 2-track central corridor as possible. A single stop at Kennedy (replacing Danforth) where both express and local Stouffville GO trains will stop, then express to Union on LakeShore which has a bit more flexibility.

Indeed. It may also allow HFR (heading eastbound out of Toronto) to get to the north side of the CP Belleville Sub since the Havelock Sub starts on the north side. That could also help reduce conflicts. This is similar to what may need to happen to the Kitchener Line near the Credit River and the Milton Line near the Humber River where GO trains need to get from the south side to the north side via a rail-over or under-rail grade separation to reduce CN and CP conflicts.

 

[nfitz]

What happened during the Kingston subdivision project from barely a decade ago shows how futile capital spending on the CN line is. Costs ballooned, the project was scaled back, and CN kept its priority over Via trains. It was a failure, basically a gift to CN to use as they wish. Any amount of investment into a freight mainline is going to fail because the government simply isn't going to take priority from the freight companies. Simply put, passenger trains need their own route.

Or the government needs to take priority from freight companies.

 

[Allandale25]

Posting this here because I believe VIA is getting a similar model? Interesting to see the 3rd rail contact shoe. I wonder if that could be added to the Mount Royal tunnel for HFR if a 3rd rail in the tunnel was added?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1367279659344347140

 

[kEiThZ]

Posting this here because I believe VIA is getting a similar model? Interesting to see the 3rd rail contact shoe. I wonder if that could be added to the Mount Royal tunnel for HFR if a 3rd rail in the tunnel was added?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1367279659344347140

The problem with the Mount Royal Tunnel isn't necessarily infrastructure. Batteries on the train could handle the short distance. It's the high frequency operations of REM.

 

[crs1026]

Why? The current infrastructure can handle 12 trains a day with no real issue. And presumably with lower levels of demand, VIA has lots of room to add capacity by growing the length of the trains rather than growing the schedule.

I don't believe that CN will easily handle those 12 trains with no real issue. Maybe for a while, but not for that long. The same issues - catching up to slower freights, being unable to overtake due to opposing traffic, having to cross over frequently through slower speed crossovers, will happen at 12 trains a day. That's pretty close to a train an hour during daylight hours.

You (and a few others) keep assuming full cooperation from freight operators when the time comes. Half a century of non-cooperation wasn't enough? How much more do you folks need? It's exasperating sometimes that people who know that history and still think it's all going to work out.

No, I'm saying the reverse. The lack of cooperation will remain. That's the non-sequitur in the Lakeshore plan.... that service will stay on the same line that VIA is well served to move away from. I'm not arguing that it will work out....I'm arguing that the plan will fail. Either VIA is insincere about wanting to build this business, and figures it will fade away as other services always have.... or the 12-train figure is aspirational but may never happened. If pursued sincerely, something will eventually be needed to correct the very deficiencies that make HFR a good move. That likely will look like VIA Fast, yes, because more triple track and changes to signalling are what would likely be seen as the solution.

You are also fixating on Toronto-Montreal travel times. That's the only scenario where investment on the lakeshore corridor for trip time improvement might be considered. But all those passengers will now be taking HFR trains so there's no justification at all for pursuing trip time improvements for Toronto-Montreal with the lakeshore corridor.

This requires a mental shift. Post-HFR people need to start thinking of all lakeshore services not from the perspective of Toronto and Montreal travelers but from the perspective of a Kingston originating passenger. And think of HFR as the line specifically connecting the larger metros. The investments should be targeted accordingly.

I don't dispute that going after Ottawa traffic as a first step makes sense. However, the direct Montreal-Toronto segment is too big to serve less aggressively, and it is the growth segment that would logically be added once HFR proves itself.

What I am challenging is the premise that one day, the cheapest way to add that next segment will be to upgrade the initial HFR line to make Toronto-Montreal faster. The cost of the upgrade, or the cost of a whole new alignment, may be in the same ballpark. The business case for fixing those slow sections Toronto-Ottawa might be less attractive than leaving Toronto-Ottawa as first built, and putting the money into new track somewhere else. That could lead to the third side of the triangle.... not on CN or on CP, but somewhere along the Lakeshore.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

I don't get the parking part in that one sentence. Can you expand on what you me?

Absent HFR, the layover yard that GO proposes to build will let GO park three trainsets. Should VIA want that route for HFR, then GO will have to move the layover for those three trains somewhere else, possibly incurring new land acquisition costs.
I would expect ML to ask VIA for compensation for that added expense, especially if Ml can’t wait for the federal decision and begins to build the layover yard.

- Paul

 

[kEiThZ]

What I am challenging is the premise that one day, the cheapest way to add that next segment will be to upgrade the initial HFR line to make Toronto-Montreal faster.

Except that, as @Urban Sky pointed out this is both hard to justify and not done in most places with high speed rail. What makes Toronto-Montreal special?

Everyone loves to compare Toronto-Montreal to Madrid-Barcelona. A lot of the folks citing that example forget this line isn't direct either. There's the city of Zaragoza en route. And Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal has a smaller catchment population than Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona. There will never be a case for a direct Toronto-Montreal service that bypasses Ottawa. The math just doesn't work without it. It's not just that Toronto-Ottawa has a ton of ridership. It's also because Ottawa-Montreal has tremendous ridership density, making it the most obvious choice for any investment to get improvements.

 

[kEiThZ]

I don't believe that CN will easily handle those 12 trains with no real issue. Maybe for a while, but not for that long. The same issues - catching up to slower freights, being unable to overtake due to opposing traffic, having to cross over frequently through slower speed crossovers, will happen at 12 trains a day. That's pretty close to a train an hour during daylight hours.

Sure investment might be needed. But to be honest since the trip ends at Kingston the tolerance for delays is higher. And the investment is going to be enough passing tracks to make the level of service tolerable. No more. No less.

These trains might even run a little slower to be more accommodating.

 

[gweed123]

With respect to HFR route vs Lakeshore route for the Montreal service: Given that some Via service would be retained on the Lakeshore corridor even after HFR is implemented, could Via not just continue to run a few express trains per day between Toronto and Montreal along the Lakeshore corridor?

Continue to run Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal for the vast majority of the runs of the day, but pick the arrival and departure time slots where speed is the most important factor, and run those trains express via Lakeshore instead of the HFR corridor.

 

[kEiThZ]

Given that some Via service would be retained on the Lakeshore corridor even after HFR is implemented, could Via not just continue to run a few express trains per day between Toronto and Montreal along the Lakeshore corridor?

Ugggh. People really don't get the point of HFR.

It's specifically to avoid this. Any thru train faces compounding delays because there's no schedule flex with the Kingston break. There probably won't be enough demand to run a Montreal express train if travel time isn't faster than HFR. And if it succeeds it damages the business case of HFR because we're back to splitting Ottawa and Montreal ridership. Not to mention we're also taking a valuable lakeshore train slot away from lakeshore communities who are supposed to benefit from increased frequencies with more all stop trains.

 

[EnviroTO]

Ugggh. People really don't get the point of HFR.

Exactly. There are all these solutions being pitched to high express trains on the Toronto-Kingston-Montreal on the CN freight corridor, and other express Ottawa by-pass trains on the main CP freight corridor, missing the point that there are can be no express on the freight corridor because it is owned by freight companies which prioritize freight. The scheduled times for VIA are set to the lame timings they are, not because the trains aren't capable of doing the trip faster, but because they will not be going full speed the whole way because they will be slowed down in between freight trains, on sidings waiting for trains to pass, slowed because the track geometry doesn't support it in that location, etc and there is nothing they can do about it because it isn't their tracks and the improvements that would be made on those tracks would be made to benefit freight.

 

[Xav]

In 2016, the population of the lakeshore urban areas (Coteau to Oshawa) served by Via was 850,612 people, with almost half of it in Oshawa alone.
By comparison, Ottawa and Peterborough together had a population of more than 1.4 million.

Those communities obviously deserve to be served by Via, but there's no point in investing that much capital into the lakeshore route when HFR provides a more reliable ride to large areas with much more transit connectivity. That's why Via's best bet will be to keep some corridor trains on the lakeshore doing the milk run and investing in improving speed, reliability and frequency on the HFR