VIA Rail

[Urban Sky]

The big unanswered question in resolving the problems discussed in the last few posts is this: Will Montreal- and Ottawa-bound trains be completely separate services, partly separate, or combined, and if separate, will Montreal trains go right through Smith's Falls and use the Winchester subdivision? VIA appears not to have answered this in the RFP, just written in the time requirements and left the proponents to come up with proposals to meet them. Whether a second platform is needed or more double tracking is required depends to a large extent on this.

Nothing has been decided, but building an Ottawa bypass would present very poor value-for-money compared to investing its price tag in improved travel times for MTRL-OTTW and OTTW-TRTO instead. (Recall that the alignment via the Winchester/Alexandria/Beachburg/Smiths Falls/Belleville/Havelock Subdivisions is still just 580 km long and thus a tiny 15% deviation from the 504 km long straight line between MTRL and TRTO…)

 

[lrt's friend]

Maybe local trains could stop in Smith's Falls going to Kingston and express trains stop in Perth

 

[TerryJohnson]

Considering the high variability in actual (vs. planned) travel times and that the number of TKM and TKO is pretty much capped at their current number for any foreseeable future (due to bottlenecks in Coteau and Smiths Falls), what exactly is the pressing issue which jaying westbound corridor trains would fix?

Mainly operating costs, implementing part of the Kingston Hub concept including having enough trains crewed from there to operate a head end crew base. Also, increasing the service level to the intermediate cities and reducing the total number of paths required from both CN and Metrolinx to provide the service.

The combined QMO and TKM paths from Coteau into Montreal are clearly a constraint (hopefully to be eased somewhat by MMM) but I'm having a hard time seeing what currently makes Coteau junction dysfunctional, unless it is the absence of a siding on the Alexandria Sub for QMO trains to clear the Kingston Sub? With HFR "2.0" apparently now intending to use the Winchester Sub any additional investment at Coteau might be harder to justify. [The current VIA-HFR field studies go as far as De Beaujeu although I expect the co-development partner would want to cut across sooner to avoid curves.]

 

[TerryJohnson]

The big unanswered question in resolving the problems discussed in the last few posts is this: Will Montreal- and Ottawa-bound trains be completely separate services, partly separate, or combined, and if separate, will Montreal trains go right through Smith's Falls and use the Winchester subdivision? VIA appears not to have answered this in the RFP, just written in the time requirements and left the proponents to come up with proposals to meet them. Whether a second platform is needed or more double tracking is required depends to a large extent on this.

It isn't VIA being opaque about the Winchester Sub cutoff. It was Transport Canada that unveiled that back-of-a-napkin line on the map, and has never really explained it.

 

[roger1818]

The big unanswered question in resolving the problems discussed in the last few posts is this: Will Montreal- and Ottawa-bound trains be completely separate services, partly separate, or combined, and if separate, will Montreal trains go right through Smith's Falls and use the Winchester subdivision? VIA appears not to have answered this in the RFP, just written in the time requirements and left the proponents to come up with proposals to meet them. Whether a second platform is needed or more double tracking is required depends to a large extent on this.

I don't have any inside information, but would guess that most trains between Toronto and Montreal will travel through Ottawa, but there may be a few "express" trains that bypass Ottawa during peak periods, when demand is sufficient to support a dedicated Toronto-Montreal train. At other times, those traveling between Toronto and Montreal will fill the empty seats on the Toronto-Ottawa train (worded that way as more people take the train between Toronto and Ottawa than Toronto and Montreal).

 

[MisterF]

I never understood why some people want trains to bypass Ottawa. Ottawa is either the 2nd or 3rd busiest station on the system, maybe even busier than Montreal Central (Wikipedia is inconsistent on that). Any train not stopping there is giving up a huge number of passengers for no reason. Ottawa is a cornerstone of the network and vital to the HFR business case. I think when HFR is finally built and every train stops in Ottawa all this talk of a bypass will be quickly forgotten.

 

[lrt's friend]

I never understood why some people want trains to bypass Ottawa. Ottawa is either the 2nd or 3rd busiest station on the system, maybe even busier than Montreal Central (Wikipedia is inconsistent on that). Any train not stopping there is giving up a huge number of passengers for no reason. Ottawa is a cornerstone of the network and vital to the HFR business case. I think when HFR is finally built and every train stops in Ottawa all this talk of a bypass will be quickly forgotten.

Or when HFR becomes so successful, that the increase in traffic justifies a bypass as a way to increase passenger traffic even more. In other words, the Montreal express trains become a further add-on to frequency. I don't see this happening any time soon. The initial focus is make HFR as successful as possible, by having a trains at least every hour.

 

[roger1818]

I never understood why some people want trains to bypass Ottawa. Ottawa is either the 2nd or 3rd busiest station on the system, maybe even busier than Montreal Central (Wikipedia is inconsistent on that). Any train not stopping there is giving up a huge number of passengers for no reason. Ottawa is a cornerstone of the network and vital to the HFR business case. I think when HFR is finally built and every train stops in Ottawa all this talk of a bypass will be quickly forgotten.

According to VIA's Total passengers at stations (boarding and deboarding) in 2018, Ottawa ranked a close third behind Montreal, though Montreal serves more destinations (in addition to Ottawa and Montreal, it has Quebec City, Northern Quebec and the Ocean). Interestingly Fallowfield beats out both Oshawa and Dorval.

Top 10 sorted by Total Passengers:

Rank	Station	Total passengers
1	TORONTO	2,839,320
2	MONTREAL	1,538,556
3	OTTAWA	1,195,495
4	LONDON	508,955
5	KINGSTON	456,586
6	QUEBEC	324,037
7	WINDSOR	268,543
8	FALLOWFIELD	233,893
9	OSHAWA	207,037
10	DORVAL	200,158

 

[nfitz]

According to VIA's Total passengers at stations (boarding and deboarding) in 2018, Ottawa ranked a close third behind Montreal, though Montreal serves more destinations (in addition to Ottawa and Montreal, it has Quebec City, Northern Quebec and the Ocean). Interestingly Fallowfield beats out both Oshawa and Dorval.

Interesting! I'm surprised that Guildwood is down at 32nd, with about 22,000 passengers. Though a lot of people do get on/off at Guildwood after booking through to Union. Mind you Dorval is quite high. Perhaps Guildwood is the one you make a last minute decision at, depending on where the next GO train is. Still odd though.

Meanwhile Cobourg is at 13th, with over 136,000 passengers! I wonder how many of those are students Lakefield College - who seem to get off there in surprising numbers sometimes when I've travelled.

St-Foy is ranked 11. Here's the next 31 (those over 10,000). That covers most of the interesting ones.

Rank	Station	Total passengers
11	STE-FOY	182,113​
12	BELLEVILLE	146,395​
13	COBOURG	136,541​
14	BRANTFORD	90,150​
15	KITCHENER	80,980​
16	CHATHAM	70,472​
17	OAKVILLE	69,881​
18	BROCKVILLE	61,305​
19	ALDERSHOT	57,212​
20	CORNWALL	55,890​
21	GUELPH	47,951​
22	WOODSTOCK	47,242​
23	NIAGARA FALLS	46,937​
24	DRUMMONDVILLE	45,235​
25	VANCOUVER	42,838​
26	STRATFORD	40,196​
27	JASPER	39,449​
28	ST-LAMBERT	34,455​
29	SMITHS FALLS	29,870​
30	HALIFAX	29,865​
31	PORT HOPE	26,124​
32	GUILDWOOD	22,209​
33	SARNIA	19,490​
34	MONCTON	18,823​
35	ALEXANDRIA	18,608​
36	ST-HYACINTHE	16,604​
37	WINNIPEG	15,089​
38	BRAMPTON	15,008​
39	EDMONTON	14,858​
40	BATHURST	10,737​
41	TRENTON JCT	10,401​

 

[crs1026]

The combined QMO and TKM paths from Coteau into Montreal are clearly a constraint (hopefully to be eased somewhat by MMM) but I'm having a hard time seeing what currently makes Coteau junction dysfunctional, unless it is the absence of a siding on the Alexandria Sub for QMO trains to clear the Kingston Sub? With HFR "2.0" apparently now intending to use the Winchester Sub any additional investment at Coteau might be harder to justify. [The current VIA-HFR field studies go as far as De Beaujeu although I expect the co-development partner would want to cut across sooner to avoid curves.]

The issue at Coteau as I understand it is CN's use of the Kingston Sub mainline to park freights that are performing block swapping there. When VIA proposed its upgrades back in 2008ish, CN wanted to extend the yard trackage - and looked to VIA to pay part of the cost. I have no idea whether any of that work got completed on CN's tab, or whether traffic even requires it these days.

- Paul

 

[MisterF]

Or when HFR becomes so successful, that the increase in traffic justifies a bypass as a way to increase passenger traffic even more. In other words, the Montreal express trains become a further add-on to frequency. I don't see this happening any time soon. The initial focus is make HFR as successful as possible, by having a trains at least every hour.

Even if HFR is highly successful I still can't see it. As the numbers roger1818 posted show, Ottawa has almost as many passengers as Montreal. If the Alstom proposal is anything to go by, we can get the trip to Montreal down to 3 hours or less while still stopping in Ottawa. Future capital would be better off increasing speeds in other areas than bypassing the third busiest station on the system.

I think this idea comes from the public perception of Ottawa being small and out of the way. The way that existing highways and railways are set up contributes to that. But the Havelock sub route shows that Ottawa isn't nearly as out of the way as people tend to think.

According to VIA's Total passengers at stations (boarding and deboarding) in 2018, Ottawa ranked a close third behind Montreal, though Montreal serves more destinations (in addition to Ottawa and Montreal, it has Quebec City, Northern Quebec and the Ocean). Interestingly Fallowfield beats out both Oshawa and Dorval.

Top 10 sorted by Total Passengers:

Rank	Station	Total passengers
1	TORONTO	2,839,320
2	MONTREAL	1,538,556
3	OTTAWA	1,195,495
4	LONDON	508,955
5	KINGSTON	456,586
6	QUEBEC	324,037
7	WINDSOR	268,543
8	FALLOWFIELD	233,893
9	OSHAWA	207,037
10	DORVAL	200,158

Interesting numbers, thanks!

 

[nfitz]

If the Alstom proposal is anything to go by, we can get the trip to Montreal down to 3 hours or less while still stopping in Ottawa.

Not on an HFR budget.

The last time I saw official VIA data on station usage, it came with data on all the pairs as well. Hopefully the next FOIA request will ask for the pairs.

I'd suspect there'd be a lot of those Ottawa trips that are to Montreal. And I'd think the modal split for rail would be higher for Montreal-Ottawa than Toronto-Montreal. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more Montreal-Ottawa trips than Toronto-Montreal trips.

 

[Urban Sky]

I think this idea comes from the public perception of Ottawa being small and out of the way. The way that existing highways and railways are set up contributes to that. But the Havelock sub route shows that Ottawa isn't nearly as out of the way as people tend to think.

Euclidean distances have some obvious limitations (especially when they pass through Lake Ontario), but I’ve drawn and measured them below between the respective station locations of MTRL, OTTW, KGON, Peterborough and TRTO:

Viewed from Montreal to Toronto, going via Kingston adds 6 km (or 1.2%) and going via Ottawa adds 14 km (2.8%). Viewed from Ottawa to Toronto, however, going via Kingston adds 30 km (8.5%), but going via Peterborough only adds a single km (0.3%)…

 

[MisterF]

Not on an HFR budget.

The point is that the extra money you'd have to spend to build a bypass around Ottawa (which would create more problems than it solves) would be better spent making other parts of the line faster. Like the Havelock to Perth section as Alstom proposed.

 

[roger1818]

Viewed from Montreal to Toronto, going via Kingston adds 6 km (or 1.2%) and going via Ottawa adds 14 km (2.8%). Viewed from Ottawa to Toronto, however, going via Kingston adds 30 km (8.5%), but going via Peterborough only adds a single km (0.3%)…

Even with an average speed of only 120 km/h, the extra 8 km (14 km - 6 km) to have trains to travel via Ottawa instead of Kingston, would only add 4 minutes to the trip, everything else being equal.