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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Speaking about things "coming back":
As Demand Continues to Progress VIA Rail Announces the Final Phase of Its Gradual Service Resumption Plan
trebello
New Member
Great to see they're commited to a full return to service!
I wonder if the full service on The Canadian includes those additional Edmonton-Vancouver trips (were those train 3 and 4?). I was trying to figure out what days service would be between Vancouver and Jasper for next summer and the additional Canadian departues don't seem to show up (and the new website doesn't have the PDF schedules that indicated what days the additional service ran).
trebello
New Member
Thanks! Hope to see those departues (and PDF schedules) come back. Mostly just happy to see things getting fully back on track coast to coast for next summerThis is the last pre-Covid schedule (Train 4 left VCVR on Tuesdays, Train 3 Edmonton at 00:01 on Fridays):
Dropbox
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lrt's friend
Active Member
How will we ever address travel requirements in the future for people with tickets and have viral symptoms? This may sound like a stupid question with Covid, but at some point we have to reach the post-covid world and some ( hopefully most soon) viruses are not serious and people do need to get to their destinations in a timely fashion. Nobody with the common cold should be delayed for days that could impact their employment or simply not being able to get home. Will people denied boarding be able to re-book at no extra cost? I think of the implications of travel and coming down with a virus leaving you stuck high and dry somewhere. I believe that most people have picked up a virus while traveling at some point in their lives.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
I thought the primary purpose of VIA's London-Kitchener-Toronto service was to provide a connection to Kitchener for passengers from Sarnia and Windsor, but the eastbound train 84 to Kitchener actually departs about two minutes before the eastbound train 70 arrives from Windsor. Strange.
ack
New Member
The connection did work until recently, both from 70 to 84 and the other way.
70 was cancelled for the initial lockdown in March 2020 and wasn't restored until this September. Meanwhile, speeds on the Guelph sub dropped further. If I'm not mistaken, 84's last on-time arrival in Toronto was sometime that May, and by this August, it was regularly around 30' late.
When 70 was restored, they broke the connection by moving 84's departure earlier and 70's arrival later. I'm guessing this was to make 84 less likely to delay GO's new midday train, which even with this change sometimes has to wait for 84. Last Thursday for example:
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Bordercollie
Senior Member
How is this different from today's schedule?
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Leaving later will attract more riders?
Urban Sky
Senior Member
If #87 is too delayed, it will simply be stuck behind the 17:49 GO train (3977), without causing much trouble. And in the extreme case where it falls behind even the 18:19 GO train (3879), it might have to wait until that train returns as the 20:39 GO train (3836) and reaches Georgetown as 21:30:
Source: posted by Krypto98 in the GO Transit thread
Note: ignore the 9:04/10:04/11:04/12:04/13:04/14:04/15:04 departures from Union and the 10:22/11:22/12:22/13:22/14:22/15:22/16:22 departures from Bramalea, which should have never found their way into Metrolinx' planner.
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reaperexpress
Senior Member
Great to see that they're updating the times for 84 to be more realistic. It's a bit disappointing to see them drop the option for commuting from Sarnia/Strathroy to London but I guess not many people were doing that anyway.
I'm surprised the Kitchener-Toronto travel time didn't drop more. The new timetable schedules 1:34, which is only a 1-minute reduction. Via did seem to be able to achieve the current scheduled travel times through that segment, and by November the travel time from Kitchener to Guelph will be about 3 minutes shorter than today.
I'm also surprised that the new departure from London doesn't really line up with any Windsor-London-Brantford-Toronto trains. Transferring from Windsor toward Kitchener is now a 144-minute transfer (arrive 7:30 on #70, depart 9:54 on #84), and transferring from Sarnia toward Brantford is now a 50-minute transfer (arrive 9:54 on #84, depart 10:44 on #72). Though even with nearly an hour sitting in London, the latter transfer gets you to Toronto 33 minutes sooner than staying on #84 (13:05 vs 13:38). I would have thought that more passengers to Sarnia would be heading to Toronto than to Kitchener, in which case rerouting 84 via Brantford and having a separate London-Kitchener (GO?) trip would vastly reduce the number of transfers as well as getting people to their destinations much faster on average. It would also fill the awkwardly-large gap in the current London-Toronto schedule, with no arrivals at Union between 10:10 and 13:05.
I'm surprised the Kitchener-Toronto travel time didn't drop more. The new timetable schedules 1:34, which is only a 1-minute reduction. Via did seem to be able to achieve the current scheduled travel times through that segment, and by November the travel time from Kitchener to Guelph will be about 3 minutes shorter than today.
I'm also surprised that the new departure from London doesn't really line up with any Windsor-London-Brantford-Toronto trains. Transferring from Windsor toward Kitchener is now a 144-minute transfer (arrive 7:30 on #70, depart 9:54 on #84), and transferring from Sarnia toward Brantford is now a 50-minute transfer (arrive 9:54 on #84, depart 10:44 on #72). Though even with nearly an hour sitting in London, the latter transfer gets you to Toronto 33 minutes sooner than staying on #84 (13:05 vs 13:38). I would have thought that more passengers to Sarnia would be heading to Toronto than to Kitchener, in which case rerouting 84 via Brantford and having a separate London-Kitchener (GO?) trip would vastly reduce the number of transfers as well as getting people to their destinations much faster on average. It would also fill the awkwardly-large gap in the current London-Toronto schedule, with no arrivals at Union between 10:10 and 13:05.
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crs1026
Superstar
I am mobile and can’t look it up, but it would be interesting to see how connections from 84 to trains to the east have changed. One new through haul passenger from Sarnia to Kingston is more revenue than three Sarnia London commuters, and a better load factor improvement. The departure time from Sarnia was a little early for travellers (as opposed to commuters).
Traditionally (warning:seniors’ moment) the through connections from Kitchener were carefully dovetailed to departures to the east, and vv.
- Paul