reaperexpress
Senior Member
And yet somehow we keep managing to build 400-series expressways...
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VIA Rail
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Allandale25
Senior Member
DSCToronto
Superstar
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That's why the overnight trains between Montreal and Toronto departed at 11pm (if I remember right); stopped for several hours en route and arrived ca 7.am. I often took it and the 'couchette" berths were very comfortable. I tended to take the overnight train TO Toronto so I could attend a full day meeting (often after a good breakfast at the Royal York) and catch the 5pm express home. Cheaper and less time wasting than taking a train the day before, staying in a hotel the night before the meeting too.
p_xavier
Active Member
Can someone repost the chargers configurations? I'm trying to put my head around it.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
My impression is that an overnight service would still be valuable, but that in the modern environment everyone involved would be far better served by airline style lie-flat seats in an enhanced business class like product than traditional sleeper arrangements.
cplchanb
Senior Member
I wonder if something along the lines of the Sunrise Izumo type of train would work as a sleeper. Cheap cublicles for most and more premium berths.for the luckier few.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
That sounds an awful lot like a Sleeper car configuration which is very different from what could be used on a more leisurely service like the Ocean and especially the Canadian. And would business folks really prefer it over a 7am flight for their 9:30 am meeting?
crs1026
Superstar
^I say this despite a lifelong enjoyment of sleeping cars..... business travel and overnight trains don't necessarily mesh well.
It takes a couple of trips, at least, before one can just hop on a sleeper train and get a restful sleep. With 7:30 arrival, one is awake on the train by 6 just to get washed, dressed, and caffeinated. Hard to get a full 8 hours' sleep that way.
As much as I hated the 4:45 alarm clock call for the 5:30 limo for the 7:00 flight, at least I could go to bed early, catnap on the plane and grab a coffee when I got to my destination.
Sleeper trains do well in other places, and are reported to be on the upswing in Europe.... and I'm not a morning person even at home....but I'm not sure they are a priority for the Corridor. Certainly not until VIA has its smooth, banked dedicated tracks.
- Paul
It takes a couple of trips, at least, before one can just hop on a sleeper train and get a restful sleep. With 7:30 arrival, one is awake on the train by 6 just to get washed, dressed, and caffeinated. Hard to get a full 8 hours' sleep that way.
As much as I hated the 4:45 alarm clock call for the 5:30 limo for the 7:00 flight, at least I could go to bed early, catnap on the plane and grab a coffee when I got to my destination.
Sleeper trains do well in other places, and are reported to be on the upswing in Europe.... and I'm not a morning person even at home....but I'm not sure they are a priority for the Corridor. Certainly not until VIA has its smooth, banked dedicated tracks.
- Paul
roger1818
Senior Member
Do you mean the Charger or Venture configurations?
Wikipedia has a decent description of the different configurations of the Siemens Charger locomotive. It says VIA is getting the SC-44. CoasterFan2105 did an interesting 3 part series on the construction of the ALC-42 (Amtrak Long distance Charger 4,200 hp) where he was invited to tour the factory. Much of what is shown is applicable to the SC-44 though.
As for the Venture, not many details are known and the details that have been published by VIA are later changed in future publications.
crs1026
Superstar
The diagrams that we saw earlier were in this presentation, but it's from Feb 2020 - things may have changed since then.
Strongly suggest a little browsing/googling upwards in this thread for more.
- Paul
Urban Sky
Senior Member
While I agree that it would be better to have more targetted threads, discussions about HFR quickly overlap with more general VIA discussions, such as what service would remain on the Kingston Subdivision...
roger1818
Senior Member
Yes, that is one of the three publications that I was referring to. To consolidate links, here they all are:
There are inconsistencies between years though (for example in 2019 they say the Long (base 5 car) train will have 285 seats (pg.14) but in 2020 they say the Base has 87 Business & 194 Economy seats, which totals 281), so either there is a mistake or things are evolving.
Transport Action Canada also has an interesting article, but I don't consider them a reliable source of information, so I wouldn't consider anything they say to be cannon (it might be a nit-pick, but they call the long distance variant of the Charger the ALD-42 instead of the ALC-42).
Overall, until we see the final product, everything is subject to change, regardless of the source.
robmausser
Senior Member
I hope for the HFR plan VIA uses something closer to the Alstom Avelia trainsets used on the Amtrak Acela NE corridor route in the USA.
Those train cars were specifically designed with extreme tilting for the curvy nature of that route; a very similar issue that will be faced by the VIA HFR route.
Avelia Liberty - Wikipedia
Urban Sky
Senior Member
The trains (or at least the cars) which would be used for HFR are already ordered and currently in production...I hope for the HFR plan VIA uses something closer to the Alstom Avelia trainsets used on the Amtrak Acela NE corridor route in the USA.
Those train cars were specifically designed with extreme tilting for the curvy nature of that route; a very similar issue that will be faced by the VIA HFR route.
Avelia Liberty - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
kEiThZ
Superstar
Can't see it. Not when the airlines run shuttle service and will let you check you in 30-45 mins before with no luggage.
Also, the new world of work-life balance and Zoom meetings says that there's going to be far less same day out and backs. If you're traveling, it's probably for a few days. In which case, there's no need to sleep on a train and 1-2 hrs in each direction really isn't all that relevant. I suspect 4 hrs from Toronto to Montreal would be enough to win a lot of business travellers if service is reliable, onboard amenities are decent, and fares in business class are cheaper than economy air.