News   Mar 31, 2026
City Council March, 2026: Plenty of Rental, Mutli-Phase Redevelopments Approved
 1.1K     2 
News   Mar 31, 2026
Building Toronto’s Skyline Podcast Event to Feature Brad Bradford in Concord
 199     2 
News   Mar 31, 2026
Glittering Forma Rises Higher in the Entertainment District
 1.1K     0 

VIA Rail

nfitz said:
If CN only needs a single track, why can't VIA simply operate on 3 tracks - perhaps with some sidings for freights to pass each other?
Click to expand...
Because CN seems to refuse to forgo dispatching control of any tracks built onto its ROW - regardless of who paid for their construction. And to be honest: unless you pay lease payments, you can’t really expect exclusive use of fixed assets which are built onto someone’s else’s land…

So CN, instead of maintaining (or expanding) their sidings, took advantage of the free infrastructure for VIA to be able to run longer trains and decommission their sidings.
Click to expand...
robmausser said:
You dont even need a likely at the beginning of your sentence; exactly this happened.

In the late 2000's, VIA rail paid CN to build sidings and double/triple tracking throughout the Kingston Sub from Toronto to Montreal. At great expense mind you: an auditor generals investigation claimed that CN overcharged VIA up to 300% more than standard prices for this work.

VIA's ontime performance didnt budge and actually eventually worsened. CN just lengthened their trains to not fit the sidings, and used the extra trackage to improve their own operations.
Click to expand...
Before we are starting unjust rumors: all the decommissioned sidings @crs1026 mentioned were along the York Sub and thus far away from any third track CN built on behalf of VIA and the federal taxpayer, just like CN didn't deliberately lengthen their trains to no longer be able to fit them into sidings (they just must have figured out on a spreadsheet that lengthening trains beyond X% of its sidings was more profitable than extending these sidings). Also, the only AOG report examining the partial triple-tracking of the Kingston Sub of which I am aware simply stated that the per-mile cost almost tripled (from $1.6 to $4.5 million) as the project progressed, but (IIRC) did not directly accuse CN of anything worse than poor cost control...

nfitz said:
Seems more practical than starting a whole new route to Ottawa, and then having to duplicate a lot of service through Kingston.
Click to expand...
nfitz said:
There's ways about that - both physically and operationally. You don't see GO traffic between Pickering and Oshawa disrupted by freight (because they made sure it was physically impossible).
Click to expand...
Indeed, if you build an entirely new ROW outside of CN's own ROW, you can control your speeds, frequencies and dispatching priority at will. However, are you seriously suggesting that duplicating the Kingston Subdivision for 500 km is going to be cheaper and easier (EA anyone?) than upgrading/restoring the Havelock Sub?

And for whatever reason full-day GO service on CN/CP lines from Burlington(?) to whatever Hamilton James Street is called these days has no major delays.
Click to expand...
That station is called West Harbour GO Station these days and the only conflict between GO's hourly service to that station and CN's mainline operations is crossing once over their main track at either Bayview or Hamilton Junction, which is a minor nuisance compared to chasing the tail of freight trains over a length of 500 km...
 
Last edited:
Urban Sky said:
Because CN seems to refuse to forgo dispatching control of any tracks built onto its ROW - regardless of who paid for their construction. And to be honest: unless you pay lease payments, you can’t really expect exclusive use of fixed assets which are built onto someone’s else’s land…
Click to expand...
I'm sure that there's a myriad of ways the federal government can convince them otherwise, if they really wanted to.

Or if they wanted to play dirty, blocking CN's access to the trackage near Belleville where they have no title to the land. Though that would screw VIA too ...
 
nfitz said:
I'm sure that there's a myriad of ways the federal government can convince them otherwise, if they really wanted to.

Or if they wanted to play dirty, blocking CN's access to the trackage near Belleville where they have no title to the land. Though that would screw VIA too ...
Click to expand...

I get why rail fans have fantasies of the feds putting the screws to the freight rail cos. But I think people need to remember those two companies are Canadian champions, far outsized for the country they are coming from. The feds aren't going to go out of their way, to make it painful for them.

We need to accept this reality, get over it, and get on to building proper passenger rail infrastructure.
 
Urban Sky said:
Before we are starting unjust rumors: all the decommissioned sidings @crs1026 mentioned were along the York Sub and thus far away from any third track CN built on behalf of VIA and the federal taxpayer, just like CN didn't deliberately lengthen their trains to no longer be able to fit them into sidings (they just must have figured out on a spreadsheet that lengthening trains beyond X% of its sidings was more profitable than extending these sidings).
Click to expand...

Just to be precise, there were also sidings along the Kingston Sub, and for that matter throughout the country, built to a fairly consistent standard of 6000-7000 feet, which was as long as trains were traditionally. After the elimination of the caboose, and consistent with technological advances in distributed power (remote control of midtrain and rear of train locomotives) the entire industry found ways to make trains longer, reaping huge productivity and cost savings gains in the process. Besides not fitting in sidings, today’s longer trains handle differently, so cannot be quite as nimble as shorter trains.

One is tempted to bring up E Hunter Harrison as being a driving force in these changes. It would be fairer to say that he simply applied pressure to both CN and CP managers, who were a bit change resistant and were not in a hurry to adopt what was already proven and going on elsewhere. EHH’s particular imprint was to find ways to manage oversize trains without spending much if any capital to lengthen sidings. He may have gone too far in the short term, but both CN and CP have recalibrated and are doing what makes good economic and operational sense to restore passing capacity for longer freight trains.

The change in operating practices doomed passenger trains both on the long haul routes and in the corridor, because it removed much of the the potential for faster trains (pax) to overtake slower ones (freight).

The point being - this was not some nefarious conspiracy to harm VIA. It was an orderly evolution of the industry and was unavoidable. Certainly, government could have taken up the slack to protect passenger train capacity by pumping more money into extended sidings etc…. but there is no political appetite to do that..

Urban Sky said:
Also, the only AOG report examining the partial triple-tracking of the Kingston Sub of which I am aware simply stated that the per-mile cost almost tripled (from $1.6 to $4.5 million) as the project progressed, but (IIRC) did not directly accuse CN of anything worse than poor cost control...
Click to expand...

Somewhere (youtube?) there was footage of interviews with a former transport official (Pickersgill) who spoke very clearly about the passenger train having no future. The reality is, rightly or wrongly, Ottawa consciously put in place the policies that gave the railways the right to treat VIA with indifference and predation. Nearsighted, certainly, but cast in a certain amount of stone. I would like to see VIA extricated from that, but it’s not as simple as just wielding a pen.

- Paul
 
Last edited:
Got this by mail. They are really going all in.
DA2DAB87-524D-4873-BF99-FA128A302B7D.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Noticed that they field mounted an extension to the plow at the front end. Is that a temporary attachment?
 
hw621 said:
New trains cannot be operated at top speed due to track quality...sad!
Click to expand...
If I may comment. I am no expert in these matters, but I believe that 'while VIA won't be operating these at those speeds on current services largely due to track quality' from Reece Martin's article may be a bit facile.

The CN corridor between Quebec City and Toronto is engineered to accommodate freight trains much heavier and slower moving than the Via passenger trains. The issue is not track quality, but track configuration. In particular, track bed curves and banking camber (superelevation) are designed and engineered for optimal performance for freight traffic operating at freight train speeds. The result is a track bed that is not ideal for lighter, faster passenger trains. The issue is not one of track quality but of primary purpose and engineering design. Obviously, dedicated passenger train tracks would be optimized for passenger train performance, and not be subject to the issues of a joint passenger / freight set of tracks.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top