VIA Rail

[crs1026]

If everyone else would refrain from replying to him, it would indeed help, but as long as there are people who keep jumping over every stick he’s holding for them, it doesn’t help at all (Skyscraper Page is a bit better at this, as its “Block” function makes your posts invisible to that person, thus reducing the number of posts that person can respond to).

My problem is not what he writes, but how he hijacks every single discussion we are having and makes it orbit around Sudbury. Unless you have a better idea, I only see placing Sudbury beyond the scope of this thread as a viable solution to the problem which people like @reaperexpress, @nfitz, @crs1026, @kEiThZ and myself have repeatedly deplored about this thread…

I'm having the same problem with this thread that I'm having right now with the leftover Christmas cookies.... I know I shouldn't, but somehow I keep reaching for the tin....

I don't mind the many hypothetical but mostly factual questions posed about what might have to happen to transition the service operationally - it may help readers to answer those questions....explaining what servicing can be done here or there, and how often, is informative for some and helps clarify our collective insight into what ViA may be considering or planning, and how the remote services are operated.

But I agree that this poster's premise that long distance passenger service can and will be resurrected across the country, and the rumour of reequipping the WR train is somehow the first step in that glorious path forward... is a completely fantasy discussion and not on topic for this thread.

I appreciate that this poster's contributions have become irritating, but their posts are not harrassing or vexatious... they are just misinformed and ignore facts and realities.

So rather than rejigging threads or looking for mods to help, I really would just press Ignore.

- Paul

 

[kEiThZ]

I think we need a Quebec-Windsor Corridor Services thread that would facilitate discussion of VIA's Corridor Services, HFR, GO and Exo regional and suburban rail services and maybe even bus services. This thread is becoming ridiculously unwieldy and substantially off-topic for a Toronto focused forum.

If others want, I'll create that thread.

 

[Northern Light]

I think we need a Quebec-Windsor Corridor Services thread that would facilitate discussion of VIA's Corridor Services, HFR, GO and Exo regional and suburban rail services and maybe even bus services. This thread is becoming ridiculously unwieldy and substantially off-topic for a Toronto focused forum.

If others want, I'll create that thread.

We've tried the new thread thing a few times now; @Urban Sky has led the charge by having a non-corridor Via thread; and a general rail discussions thread.

Unfortunately, mostly one poster, sometimes abetted by a second, drags most of these off topic with little regard for the thread's focus; generally with an eye to stuff best described as fantasy.

 

[kEiThZ]

We've tried the new thread thing a few times now; @Urban Sky has led the charge by having a non-corridor Via thread; a general rail discussions thread.

Unfortunately, mostly one poster, sometimes abetted by a second, drags most of these off topic with little regard for the thread's focus; generally with an eye to stuff best described as fantasy.

That poster can drag us off course here because this is the "VIA Rail" thread and all kinds of long haul fall into this topic. Much easier to constrain discussion in a QW Corridor thread and leave this thread to his long haul daydreams.

 

[Urban Sky]

I think we need a Quebec-Windsor Corridor Services thread that would facilitate discussion of VIA's Corridor Services, HFR, GO and Exo regional and suburban rail services and maybe even bus services. This thread is becoming ridiculously unwieldy and substantially off-topic for a Toronto focused forum.

If others want, I'll create that thread.

As you correctly point out, this forum is called “Urban Toronto” (and not “Rural Canada” or “Greater Greater Sudbury”) and VIA is 80% Corridor (with transcontinental and remote services only playing second or third fiddle).

If you look at the very first post of this thread, Corridor and HFR were exactly the topics for this thread and the most relevant conversations.

We've tried the new thread thing a few times now; @Urban Sky has led the charge by having a non-corridor Via thread; a general rail discussions thread.

Sadly, we don’t have a thread for non-Corridor VIa services: the existing troll threads are based on Ontario Northland and the “Lack of meaningful passenger rail service outside the Quebec-Windsor Corridor”. What if we just renamed the latter to “Intercity passenger rail services outside the Quebec-Windsor Corridor”?

Unfortunately, mostly one poster, sometimes abetted by a second, drags most of these off topic with little regard for the thread's focus; generally with an eye to stuff best described as fantasy.

I see three three main problems in this thread:
1) A certain troll from Sudbury, who tries to monopolize every single discussion we are having and drowns it in his Subdury-centric BS.
B) Everyone gullible enough to still engage him, as if the last 10 years hadn’t shown that the only way to keep us sane is to tell him to get lost every time he throws a bait.
C) All the concern trolls who defend him, rather than ackowledge that his spamming has a negative effect on the mental health on several members here.

 

[kEiThZ]

The thread is up. I ask contributors to keep this thread for non-Corridor VIA services and VIA corporate topics.

 

[Urban Sky]

The thread is up. I ask contributors to keep this thread for non-Corridor VIA services and VIA corporate topics.

Agreed (please provide link), but then the title of this thread should be adjusted to something like “VIA Rail (corporate and non-Corridor)”…

 

[kEiThZ]

Link:

Quebec-Windsor Corridor

The place to discuss all regional transport in the Quebec-Windsor Corridor. From VIA's Corridor Services, to future HFR/HSR, to GO and AMT suburban rail services, to bus services and even air services.

urbantoronto.ca

 

[Bordercollie]

A planning rule at VIA seems to be that all cycles have to visit a VIA maintenance center at least once per week. The three exceptions are of course Churchill (where a cycle takes 9 days), the Skeena and the route I don’t dare to mention again, of which neither connects with a VIA maintenance centre. Obviously, there is a difference between “servicing” and actual “maintenance”, but I struggle to imagine how these routes could be served with rolling stock under a “maintenance included” arrangement like on the Corridor.

I guess that VIA’s quest to standardize its fragmented fleet will face challenges for its non-corridor operations, which doesn’t bode well for its long-overdue non-corridor fleet renewal. Do you have an idea where Amtrak maintains its detached services, like its “Heartland Flyer” from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City?

So how does the train get serviced if it gets to Churchill and there is a problem? Does it have to wait until it gets back to Winnipeg to get fixed?

The Skeena trains are cycled through Vancouver on the Canadian? Can work be done in Jasper?

 

[Urban Sky]

So how does the train get serviced if it gets to Churchill and there is a problem? Does it have to wait until it gets back to Winnipeg to get fixed?

The Skeena trains are cycled through Vancouver on the Canadian? Can work be done in Jasper?

VIA has mechanical staff in The Pas (and probably also in Churchill), whereas its VMC has a little satellite workshop in Jasper. Servicing and light maintenance can be performed there, but visits to WMC and VMC are presumably too long to procure the fleet to be used there with the same maintenance-included procurement model as on the Corridor. It’s not tragic, but every additional constraint complicates the overdue fleet renewal…

 

[nfitz]

So how does the train get serviced if it gets to Churchill and there is a problem? Does it have to wait until it gets back to Winnipeg to get fixed?

If the train is completely stuck, they can put it on a barge to Quebec again.

 

[micheal_can]

If the train is completely stuck, they can put it on a barge to Quebec again.

View attachment 531703

They could just barge it to Moosonee.

 

[dowlingm]

I know they are the competition / enemy in some respects but would buying a batch of Stadler cars for Skeena, and having some sort of cooperative arrangement with Rocky Mountaineer in respect of servicing make any sense?

 

[Urban Sky]

I know they are the competition / enemy in some respects but would buying a batch of Stadler cars for Skeena, and having some sort of cooperative arrangement with Rocky Mountaineer in respect of servicing make any sense?

And what would you do the 7 months per year where RMR doesn’t operate?

 

[lenaitch]

They could just barge it to Moosonee.

See, this is where you get yourself in trouble on here. Rather than phrase it as a question or even a speculation, you make a definitive statement.

The answer to your definitive statement is 'no, they couldn't. The lower reaches of the Moose River is a shallow, sandbar riven tidal delta. At village waterfront, there are a few small docks and water depth of a handful of feet depending on the tide. There is no seawall like in Churchill. Even if they could, somehow, get a tug and barge that is large enough to carry about 130 ton to the sand waterfront, there are no shore facilities to offload it.