VIA Rail

[OntarioOnTheMove]

Ocean train from Halifax to Montreal to resume August 11th

VIA Rail's 'Ocean' service will restart with the first departure from Halifax on Wednesday August 11th. Service will be once per week, with the first departure from Montreal on Sunday August 15th.

www.transportaction.ca

 

[gibsonm]

I still don’t see any substantial speed increases through these small incremental upgrades that will take forever to add up to much. Toronto-Ottawa will be somewhat faster. Without a dedicated passenger line and high speed train sets, Toronto-Montreal won’t be substantively improved. The Parliament Budget Officer said that the feds could spend another $18 billion on infrastructure without putting the country’s balance sheet at risk. The only way that short-run flights can be eliminated to help the country meet climate change goals is if there’s a viable high speed rail option. France has done this. We can’t increase our productivity in the movement of people and goods without major rail investments. China is leaps and bounds ahead on high speed rail. The current VIA plan doesn’t go far enough.

 

[DirectionNorth]

I still don’t see any substantial speed increases through these small incremental upgrades that will take forever to add up to much.

The point is, to reduce delays from freight trackage, which currently delays 1/3 of trains.

Toronto-Ottawa will be somewhat faster. Without a dedicated passenger line and high speed train sets, Toronto-Montreal won’t be substantively improved. The Parliament Budget Officer said that the feds could spend another $18 billion on infrastructure without putting the country’s balance sheet at risk.

Your HSR will take all of that for TOM. There are better investments, like shutting down coal and improving EV infrastructure.

The only way that short-run flights can be eliminated to help the country meet climate change goals is if there’s a viable high speed rail option.

No, it's not. Drivers don't drive right now because of its speed, they drive because train service is unreliable. Only the rich might take a plane on this corridor, without transfers elsewhere. It's too cumbersome. If we can get drivers off the road, we're good.

France has done this. We can’t increase our productivity in the movement of people and goods without major rail investments. China is leaps and bounds ahead on high speed rail.

This again? "DoH cHiNa" seems to be a rallying cry at this stage. We. Don't. Have. The. Population. Size. Or. Density. Of. China. And their system is running into trouble as they build HSR for the sake of HSR, now. Which is what some people are asking for.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/China-looks-to-slow-growth-of-struggling-high-speed-rail
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...need-another-125-000-miles-of-high-speed-rail
https://factsanddetails.com/china/cat13/sub86/item1848.html
https://www.taiwangazette.org/news/...inas-high-speed-rail-and-high-speed-evictions
https://www.ft.com/content/ca28f58a-955d-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e

And tickets in China aren't cheap. Per person, the cost is approximately $100 CAD without taxes. I'm not paying $400 for my family to go to Toronto, which is $20 per person per hour. I'll drive.

The current VIA plan doesn’t go far enough.

It doesn't. The point is to create a constituency for VIA Rail, something it doesn't have.

 

[Allandale25]

Havelock holds on to hope for a return to railway glory days

HAVELOCK — With the federal government announcement Thursday that a new inter-city, high-frequency rail service will be coming to Peterborough via a Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City corridor, Havelock-Belmont-Methuen Township Mayor Jim Martin

www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com

 

[EnviroTO]

Can someone explain to me why this should be routed through Peterborough instead of building a dedicated line along the lakeshore?

The population differences between the two are massive.

The availability of an old unused (for most of the route) existing right of way. Areas with large population make bad neighbours for new railway lines. Complaints about clearing out the new rights of way, issues with evictions, noise complaints, greater need to accept the risk of level crossings or to build grade separations, cost, etc.

 

[gibsonm]

Running more EV’s, using more polluting lithium batteries, is now the answer to fixing rail in the busiest corridor of the country? This incremental approach doesn’t add up to much if train trips are still going to take well over 4 hours between Toronto and Montreal. It’s a weak plan. I’ll continue to drive.

 

[Nouvellecosse]

Running more EV’s, using more polluting lithium batteries, is now the answer to fixing rail in the busiest corridor of the country? This incremental approach doesn’t add up to much if train trips are still going to take well over 4 hours between Toronto and Montreal. It’s a weak plan. I’ll continue to drive.

Climate change is something that we all bear responsibility for and play a role in addressing. Government decisions are a big part, but we can't just sit back and expect the government to do everything for us. If you're refusing to make any changes to your behaviour even when alternatives are available just because the alternatives aren't sufficiently flawless, it isn't just the government with a weak plan.

 

[gibsonm]

Climate change is something that we all bear responsibility for and play a role in addressing. Government decisions are a big part, but we can't just sit back and expect the government to do everything for us. If you're refusing to make any changes to your behaviour even when alternatives are available just because the alternatives aren't sufficiently flawless, it isn't just the government with a weak plan.

I don’t accept your assumptions or the government’s about climate change. I’m simply stating that the government will have a harder time reaching its climate goals without a viable rail system. Yes HFR is helpful, but our trains are woefully slow and dated. Bypasses and straightening should help. Getting off the freight corridors should help, but even though going through Peterborough and accessing disused stretches of line will help, you’re still using slow trains that will continue to slow down too often to reach top speeds for very long. If the most we can hope to reduce travel time between Toronto and Montreal in 10 years is 30 minutes, then no, this is not a great plan. Put in the billions and do it right. Make people actually consider trains instead of planes or autos. This plan doesn’t go far enough fast enough.

 

[White Pine]

50% to 66.7% ...

Does that graphic imply that VIA has purchased the line from Kitchener to London? Did I miss that?

I don't think so, it's a slightly different colour.

 

[Urban Sky]

I understand why it was added - the one weak point of the original HFR plan was always Toronto-Montreal travel times, which would be barely better than today if routed through Ottawa.

I don’t accept your assumptions or the government’s about climate change. I’m simply stating that the government will have a harder time reaching its climate goals without a viable rail system. Yes HFR is helpful, but our trains are woefully slow and dated. Bypasses and straightening should help. Getting off the freight corridors should help, but even though going through Peterborough and accessing disused stretches of line will help, you’re still using slow trains that will continue to slow down too often to reach top speeds for very long. If the most we can hope to reduce travel time between Toronto and Montreal in 10 years is 30 minutes, then no, this is not a great plan. Put in the billions and do it right. Make people actually consider trains instead of planes or autos. This plan doesn’t go far enough fast enough.

Just to put things into perspective:

Toronto is the largest metropolitan center in Canada (5.9 million in 2016) and Montreal the second-largest (4.1 million), whereas Berlin is the largest city in (and capital of) Germany (3.5 million in 2015) and Munich is its third-largest city (1.5 million).

When measuring a straight line (euclidean distance - or "as the crow flies"), Toronto's Union Station and Montreal's Gare Centrale are 504.5 km apart, whereas the respective main stations (Hauptbahnhof in German) of Berlin and Munich are 504.2 km apart.

In 1977, when VIA took over the passenger rail services of CN and CP, the fastest scheduled train between Toronto and Montreal was 4:30h, whereas between Berlin and Munich it was ... *drumroll* ... 8:45h (yes, almost twice as much!).

In 1989, when the Berlin wall fell, it was still 4:30h between Toronto and Montreal, but even 9:43h (i.e. more than twice as much!) between Berlin and Munich.

In 1992, when the collapsed GDR had been absorbed by the Federal Republic of Germany, the fastest travel time between Toronto and Montreal had fallen to 3:59h and (thanks to some urgent repairs on the dramatically under-maintained rail network in the former GDR) to 8:47h between Berlin and Munich.

In 2006, the fastest travel time between Toronto and Montreal increased to 4:15h, whereas it decreased to 5:49h between Berlin and Munich (thanks to the opening of the North-South mainline with its tunnel underneath Berlin - thus avoiding the detour via Berlin-Schönefeld Airport - and of various High Speed Lines just in time for the FIFA World Cup 2006, which upgraded speeds on 77.4 km to 300 km/h and on another 194.4 km to 200 km/h).

Finally, in December 2017, the fastest travel time between Toronto and Montreal increased further to 4:49h and was overtaken (for the first time!) by Berlin-Munich, which decreased to 3:58h, thanks to the opening of the final (but most crucial) piece of the Berlin-Nuremberg HSR axis: the 107 km long HSL Erfurt-Ebensfeld.

This means that Germany had to first invest a total of $22.7 billion in 2021 dollars (€3.6 billion by 2006 for Nuremberg-Munich and €10 billion by 2017 for Berlin-Nuremberg) to upgrade 73% of the route to at least 200 km/h and 40% even to 300 km/h, until they finally beat (by only a heartbeat!) what Toronto-Montreal had achieved for a few days during the ill-fated first passenger service trials of the Turbo Train in 1968/69 and then in regular revenue service with the LRC trains between October 1992 and May 1999 and again between May 2000 and May 2005.

So, why did Germany have to invest so much money to match the travel time which Canada achieved (over virtually the same - euclidean - distance!) almost exactly 50 years before? It's because the Kingston Subdivision is so incredibly direct: 539 km length between two points 504.5 km apart equals a detour of just 7% compared to the straight line, whereas the fastest route between Berlin and Munich (via Halle-Erfurt-Nuremberg-Ingolstadt) is still 622.0 km long, which equals a detour of 23% (compared to the straight line of 504.2 km) and is in fact only 11 km shorter than the 633 km which #51 covers between Montreal and Toronto as the only remaining M-O-T train:

Compiled from: timetable data obtained from official VIA schedules and the Fernbahn.de timetable database, as well as infrastructure data obtained from DB Netze.
Notes: above break down of speed limits refers to the design speed of the respective segments (a bit like Canada's track classes impose certain speed limits), while ignoring any more local speed limits (e.g. for tight curves). Also, the 80.8 km of 200 km/h infrastructure shown for the years 1977-2005 opened between Donauwörth, Augsburg and Munich between 1965 and 1977; however, equipment capable of reaching at least 200 km/h rather than just 140-160 km/h only seems to have been used from 1994 onwards. Finally, the fastest travel time has been found between München Hauptbahnhof and either Berlin Zoologischer Garten (for years 1977-1991 and 1993), Berlin Ostbahnhof (for years 1992 and 1994-2005, confusingly called "Hauptbahnhof" between 1987 and 1998) and the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof (for all years since its opening in 2006).

***

Why do I write all of this? Because the tragic of Canada's passenger rail sector is that whereas Germany continuously improved the travel time between Berlin and Munich (less than 9 hours by 1992, less than 8 by 1994, 7 by 2000, 6 by 2006 and less than 4 by 2018), we are paralyzed in this country, because at some point, the track was cleared from all other passenger and freight trains, so that one measly train per day (and direction) could achieve the travel time of 3:59h (or at least on paper, as more than the absolute minimum in track switches would make this travel time infeasible).

Therefore, no, the biggest liability of HFR (or any attempt to fix the Corridor at a price tag which doesn't instantly kill the project) is not the targeted travel time between Toronto and Montreal (even today's 4:49h is almost an hour faster than what was ever achieved between Berlin and Munich before the 108 km long and 300 km/h fast HSL Erfurt-Ebensfeld opened in December 2017), it's the historical coincidence that that distance has at some point been covered at just under 4 hours.

In other words: we can't have faster train service now because we once had even faster train service (even if it was just one train per day). If HFR fails and we'll still have just a pathetic 6 trains per day between this country's two largest cities in 10 and 15 years' time, then it will be mostly because of that 3:59h. I'm afraid that we will never achieve a service standard which is remotely comparable with what similar corridors in Europe receive, unless we stop compulsively talking about that stupid figure. It doesn't have the slightest effect on the benefits which any improvement to the current passenger rail services would bring...

 

[Allandale25]

Local leaders hint Southwestern Ontario not left out of VIA Rail improvements

Higher frequency passenger rail may not be limited to the Toronto-Quebec corridor.

london.ctvnews.ca

 

[Northern Light]

Local leaders hint Southwestern Ontario not left out of VIA Rail improvements

Higher frequency passenger rail may not be limited to the Toronto-Quebec corridor.

london.ctvnews.ca

From the above:

 

[crs1026]

In other words: we can't have faster train service now because we once had even faster train service (even if it was just one train per day). If HFR fails and we'll still have just a pathetic 6 trains per day between this country's two largest cities in 10 and 15 years' time, then it will be mostly because of that 3:59h. I'm afraid that we will never achieve a service standard which is remotely comparable with what similar corridors in Europe receive, unless we stop compulsively talking about that stupid figure. It doesn't have the slightest effect on the benefits which any improvement to the current passenger rail services would bring...

You make an interesting comparison, and I take your point about retaining perspective… but I think you are sweeping a bunch of Canadian business history under the carpet.

That 3:59 was not happenstance or a temporary windfall. It was a designed standard that was meant to be maintained, and reflected planned investment by a Crown corporation not only in trainsets but also in track and stations and signalling.. It was also part of a service plan that included 4:59 Rapidos and local trains. It waas awfully popular…VIA’s almost hourly 3-car-train service has not really improved modal share over those less frequent 15-car Rapidos of past years. The value of speed (real or perceived) as a strategic lever is clear.

What has changed is that we no longer manage infrastructure by empowering Crown corporations to spend such sums practically invisibly. The CN of the 1960’’s was typical of many national institutions (Bell, Air Canada, Quebec and Ontario Hydro, and even ONTC come to mind) which were entrusted with a loose mandate to pursue social goals but often ran huge deficits in the process. The 3:59 was such an investment - not driven by formal public policy, but the product of a loose self imposed social contract, and recognised by citizens of the day as something bought and paid for.

More recently, CN was shifted to a private sector model (resolving the inequity of a private business bound by the rules of profit loss competing with a fatter crown corporation that could pass its deficits back to Ottawa). One could argue that in the process of absolving CN of its social obligations , the 3:59 standard was redacted.

Certainly, no one has directed CN to make the investment required to retain 3:59. As freight trains have changed, the capability to fit 3:59 into the mix has been lost. And in asking CN to add as many VIA trains as now run, CN is quite justified in seeking a tradeoff between frequency and speed. Had the standard been enforced, much more taxpayer money would have been spent… and perhaps it would have become obvious much sooner that freight and passenger each needed their own tracks.

So yeah, in my senior’s view, I do feel cheated . And I find it disappointing that no one either in Ottawa or at VIA remember or cares. ( Meaning no disrespect, I sense you reflect VIA’s general indifference towards travel time....which I get in the sense that VIA can do little to change the status quo....but still....).

”Shrink to greatness” is always a suspect business strategy.

- Paul

 

[Frank_Lee]

You make an interesting comparison, and I take your point about retaining perspective… but I think you are sweeping a bunch of Canadian business history under the carpet.

That 3:59 was not happenstance or a temporary windfall. It was a designed standard that was meant to be maintained, and reflected planned investment by a Crown corporation not only in trainsets but also in track and stations and signalling.. It was also part of a service plan that included 4:59 Rapidos and local trains. It waas awfully popular…VIA’s almost hourly 3-car-train service has not really improved modal share over those less frequent 15-car Rapidos of past years. The value of speed (real or perceived) as a strategic lever is clear.

What has changed is that we no longer manage infrastructure by empowering Crown corporations to spend such sums practically invisibly. The CN of the 1960’’s was typical of many national institutions (Bell, Air Canada, Quebec and Ontario Hydro, and even ONTC come to mind) which were entrusted with a loose mandate to pursue social goals but often ran huge deficits in the process. The 3:59 was such an investment - not driven by formal public policy, but the product of a loose self imposed social contract, and recognised by citizens of the day as something bought and paid for.

More recently, CN was shifted to a private sector model (resolving the inequity of a private business bound by the rules of profit loss competing with a fatter crown corporation that could pass its deficits back to Ottawa). One could argue that in the process of absolving CN of its social obligations , the 3:59 standard was redacted.

Certainly, no one has directed CN to make the investment required to retain 3:59. As freight trains have changed, the capability to fit 3:59 into the mix has been lost. And in asking CN to add as many VIA trains as now run, CN is quite justified in seeking a tradeoff between frequency and speed. Had the standard been enforced, much more taxpayer money would have been spent… and perhaps it would have become obvious much sooner that freight and passenger each needed their own tracks.

So yeah, in my senior’s view, I do feel cheated . And I find it disappointing that no one either in Ottawa or at VIA remember or cares. ( Meaning no disrespect, I sense you reflect VIA’s general indifference towards travel time....which I get in the sense that VIA can do little to change the status quo....but still....).

”Shrink to greatness” is always a suspect business strategy.

- Paul

You folks very much seem to be talking at cross purposes here. Nothing of what you say seems to be inconsistent. The travelling public and the railfans read about trips taking under 4 hours and lament current standards or even even any proposed upgrades as being totally inadequate and likely to be failures. At the same time, there is a failure to recall the tremendous costs incurred in pursuit of the high engineering standards required of those original goals, as well as the very different economic context of Canada in the 1960s. It seems these can both be true.

The reliability and frequency, from what I can tell, will be the clinchers for HFR being a success, not the speed. I know plenty of non-driving people my age who stopped taking Via after one or another trip with disastrous delays, and I think that anecdotal experience probably extends to a very large number of people. The number of people getting driver's licenses is gradually decreasing. Covid and working from home will slow and maybe temporarily reverse that, but many in my generation are not particularly interested in (or able to) to pursue the car centric mobility that everyone aspired to in the 1960s. I'm also from the city in BC that at one time had the highest rate of per capita car ownership in the country, by the way, so I'm not speaking as born and bred urbanite.

 

[Frank_Lee]

Moreover, neither electric nor driverless cars are going to change the basic advantages of rail relative to cars on longer distance travel: lower rolling resistance and far higher numbers of passengers per hour per unit cost.