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VIA Rail

robmausser said:
Honestly I dont expect anything but the current routing the Mascouche Line takes out of Gare Central becoming permanent and HFR simply following the same route.

From the EXO website:

View attachment 329659
Click to expand...

I don't think it's an either/or situation. They could launch with this. And then build a tunnel if the business case for one somehow arises. This only adds 15-20 mins to the Mtl-QC trip. They can make up some of it outside the city.
 
kEiThZ said:
I don't think it's an either/or situation. They could launch with this. And then build a tunnel if the business case for one somehow arises. This only adds 15-20 mins to the Mtl-QC trip. They can make up some of it outside the city.
Click to expand...
Of course anything is possible but I dont think a tunnel is within the original RER budget, or even EXO. Maybe someday.
reaperexpress said:
The entire purpose of the Côte-de-Liesse REM station is to provide a transfer to the Mascouche line. The station is located on a spur relative to the CN line, so in practice trains serving it will need to terminate there. I don't think we know yet whether VIA will terminate its Jonquière and Senneterre services at Côte-de-Liesse or bypass it using the current huge detour route to Gare Centrale.

Cote-de-Liesse-rendu-de-la-station-REM.jpg
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That was also the plan with Parc and the St.Jerome line (which on weekends and non-peak does terminate at Parc) but people complained and the route to Lucien Station was retained.

And I think will happen the same with Mascouche. People don't like transfers and the majority of Mascouchians want to go downtown.
 
robmausser said:
Of course anything is possible but I dont think a tunnel is within the original RER budget, or even EXO. Maybe someday.

That was also the plan with Parc and the St.Jerome line (which on weekends and non-peak does terminate at Parc) but people complained and the route to Lucien Station was retained.

And I think will happen the same with Mascouche. People don't like transfers and the majority of Mascouchians want to go downtown.
Click to expand...
Yes, and also the Large (6 car double decker?) Mascouche trains will disgorge many passengers at Côte-de-Liesse mostlikely overwhelming the tiny 4-car REM trains... Taking them directly downtown makes most sense.
 
^I sure hope that VIA/Exo work with CN/CP to upgrade the route from CdeL to Ballantyne so that trains don’t plod along as they do now. The through trip around the mountain , while not optimal, could be a lot faster. Not a big expense - likely only a few millions for better signalling and maybe some track improvement.

- Paul
 
robmausser said:
That was also the plan with Parc and the St.Jerome line (which on weekends and non-peak does terminate at Parc) but people complained and the route to Lucien Station was retained.

And I think will happen the same with Mascouche. People don't like transfers and the majority of Mascouchians want to go downtown.
Click to expand...

The difference between this situation and the St-Jérôme line is that Parc is actually a through station, which allows trains to continue to downtown without much hassle. Côte-de-Liesse is a terminal station, so to continue to Gare Centrale, trains would first need to back up to Ahuntsic to switch tracks there. There is absolutely no way the RTM would choose to do that.

Prior to the tunnel's closure, peak-period trains took 16 minutes to get from Ahuntsic to Gare Centrale, with one intermediate stop. Now with the big detour they take 54 minutes, non-stop. In comparison, the future route via Côte-de-Liesse and the REM will take about 16 to 18 minutes:
- 5 minutes in the train between Ahuntsic and Côte-de-Liesse,
- 0.5 minutes to change platforms (only applies southbound, given that northbound is cross-platform from REM to Exo),
- 0 to 2.5 minutes waiting for the REM train
- 10 minutes in the train to Gare Centrale

Currently with the big detour, the end-to-end travel time is 1h45. If there are 4 trains on the line, that translates to service every 60 minutes in both directions* (assuming a 15-minute turnaround time).
With trains turning back at Côte-de-Liesse, the end-to-end travel time would be 55 minutes, which translates to service every 35 minutes in both directions with those same 4 trainsets.

*Yes, I realize that in practice the peak-period service is often uni-directional, but this comparison is just an illustration of the relative productivities of the trainsets in the two scenarios.

Do you honestly believe that people are so put-off by a transfer (which is cross-platform in one direction) that they would prefer a trip which takes 36 minutes longer, and is barely half the frequency?


References:

Extract of Exo5 schedule, 21 May 2019:
Capture5.JPG


Extract of Exo5 schedule, 22 June 2020:
Capture4.JPG


Service summary for Côte-de-Liesse station, from REM website:
Capture1.JPG
 
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roger1818 said:
^^^The question is (as @andrewmaps said), how many REM trains will it to take to absorb all the people on a Mascouche Line train? I could see it easily taking 5 or more REM trains. Don't forget the REM trains won't be empty when they arrive at Côte-de-Liesse.
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Yeah, that's definitely an interesting question. For northbound/eastbound Exo departures, I figure that passengers will be fairly spread-out among different REM trains as people won't all aim to arrive at the station exactly the same number of minutes before scheduled departure. The big question, like @andrewmaps said, is the westbound/southbound transfer.

The good news is that since that transfer is not cross-platform, passengers will be somewhat spread-out by the train doors and station stairways, since people will take different amounts of time to exit the train, and different amounts of time to reach a stairwell. With REM service every 2.5 minutes, the passengers probably wouldn't all arrive at the REM platform in advance of the same REM train. But I doubt the spread would be more than 3 trains.

I expect that the Exo trains will be smaller than they used to be, given that the transfer will indeed dissuade some ridership compared to the old fast and direct route (though it's still better than a 36-minute detour around the mountain). The old train sizes also included space for people from Canora and Mont-Royal stations, who no longer need to ride Exo at all.
 
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