micheal_can
Senior Member
The thing is, the problem is not the Via stations, it is the LRT stations.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
cplchanb
Senior Member
we dont care about discussing the importance for photo ops... we care about concrete action steps to get this thing going.
Garuda
Active Member
The way I see it is once a city is a certain size and with more than one intercity train station then have a slightly longer name to differentiate. Especially when the intercity train (VIA) doesn't actually go downtown and the historic train station (Ottawa Union) no longer serves trains and is now the senate building.Similar to how it should be "Ottawa Fallowfield", although that would then turn my attention to an implied "Toronto Guildwood"
Take Quebec. Is there one station called Quebec Station? No. It's Quebec Palace Station or (Gare du Palais) and there's the suburban Saint-Foy. The suburban stations should remain how they are: Saint Foy, Dorval, Guildwood, Weston (VIA needs to stop here), etc.
It's all about thinking how the average intercity travel enters a large city with it's rapid transit system. Having similar names with the stations/ platofrm are right next to each other avoids confusion.
Writing this makes me nostolgic think about reverting the Senate building back to Ottawa Union Station. It'll never happen but would be such a beautfiul way to arrive and depart Ottawa by train. Riding along the river with Parliament coming into view. Still upset at the NCC for that one.
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micheal_can
Senior Member
With HxR, would the tunneling required be worth it?
Urban Sky
Senior Member
What determines the need for an additional name is the presence of multiple train stations carrying the same geographic name, not the size of the geographic location. It should be noted here that whereas in the Germanic tradition, the presence of multiple train stations within the same city usually (but not necessarily) triggers the need to designate the most important station as "Hauptbahnhof" [main station], in British tradition, giving the station an additional name is only required if there are multiple downtown stations (usually built by different railroads, often with one called "Victoria", as in London, Manchester and Sheffield). Have a look at the map below, all these 9 rail stations (and a few more I couldn't fit into the map) are located within the city limits of Leeds, but only one station (the main one) is called "Leeds" (i.e., without any additional name):
And even if there are multiple stations which carry the name of the same city, it is a frequent occurrence in Europe to have the main station without any additional name. I spotted almost 30 such instances (e.g., Eschborn and Eschborn-Süd, Liederbach and Liederbach-Nord or Eppstein and Eppstein-Bremtal) on this regional rail map of the Frankfurt/Germany region alone:
Though certainly not ideally located, VIA's Ottawa Station is undoubtedly located within Ottawa.
Actually, VIA calls the station "Quebec City train station", whereas "Gare du Palais" is only used as a geographic reference to the station building:
Agreed, since there is only one VIA station each which are named after Quebec City, Montreal or Toronto, there is no need to add the city name to these stations.
Agreed, and it's clearly OC Transpo which didn't get the memo and just ignorantly pretends that "Tremblay" is a universally known reference to VIA's Ottawa station. A bit like when Metrolinx initially believed that first-time visitors to the city would intuitively equate the "UP" logo with "trains to downtown" - and we all know how well that worked out...
It really is a shame, though I struggle to imagine HFR or HSR serving Ottawa Union Station (had that station never been closed) due to its awkward location...
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nfitz
Superstar
The same tool also doesn't use Union Station in Toronto, nor Central Station in Montreal.
Other VIA tools call them Quebec (Gare du Palais) and Quebec (St. Foy). And of course Quebec (Charny).
Does it? It already stops at Malton, which is a great place to change to the frequent GO service. If another stop were added, then Mount Dennis GO or Bloor GO would make more sense, to interchange to Line 2 or Line 5
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dowlingm
Senior Member
Given that Moncton station isn't in the middle of nowhere, would it be an option to simply have someone drive over from CN's yard to clear and throw the switch manually as needed? I get what you say about economies but VIA is already hurting with the speed restrictions elsewhere on this route.
roger1818
Senior Member
As is Fallowfield (it isn't even close to the edge of the city limits). Hear is a fun map showing how the City of Ottawa is larger than the Cities of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, combined (thanks Mike Harris).
Maybe not used in Toronto or Montreal, but in Ottawa's west end especially, Ottawa's Main station is often referred to as the Tremblay VIA Rail Station (even before the O-Train station was bilt), to differentiate it from the Ottawa Fallowfield VIA RaIl Station.
It isn't just OC Transpo. Tremblay has been commonly used within Ottawa for decades, ever since Fallowfield Station was built. I know you think the unelected VIA Rail executives (like the NCC) know what is best for the City of Ottawa and its residents shouldn't be allowed to have a voice.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Leeds (which happens to be the third-most populated city in the UK) has a dozen train stations within its city limits, yet only one is called “Leeds” and no other has “Leeds” in its name. All heavy rail passenger operators in this country use that same naming convention, which is why there is no need to assign supplementary names to the main stations, as no other train stations hold the city’s name.
By locals, I assume, who don’t need any indications to find their beloved Tremblay Road. I’m talking about visitors who depend on proper signage and clear, logical and intuitive wayfinding to navigate the city and couldn’t care less how locals colloquially call the train station.
If you want to be finally treated like a city which deserves and attracts international tourists and business visitors like the capitals of other major Western countries, you will have to start acknowledging and at least trying to accommodate their needs. Conversely, if you want your city to continue being treated as the provincial, stuffy backwater and joke of a capital city (think: Canberra, Brasilia, Pretoria or pre-1999 Bonn) as which many people still treat it, then by all means double down on that attitude, while watching how international visitors turn to cities which don’t treat their needs as an after-thought…
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crs1026
Superstar
Be careful what you ask for - one cannot assume that the person required is actually available and can be spared from their other CN work at the exact time required - which will vary if the trains are late.
Actually, VIA crews are qualified for the task, but the paperwork required to comply with the rules around operating manual switches within CTC is the constraining part. As is the fact that having a switch means maintenance costs even if it’s manual.. A backup move by signal indication through a power switch is the slickest scheme. I’m impressed that someone got VIA the funding for what exists.
- Paul
Allandale25
Senior Member
I believe this was one of the new train sets.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Their article didn't say what the train number was or what date the incident occured but I found it in the logs, it was train 622 eastbound from Montreal to Quebec on the 31st of Aug (yesterday).
https://asm.transitdocs.com/train/2024/08/31/V/622
Based on the GPS trace from the link above, here's the timeline of what happened. This all occurred between Drummondville and Québec Ste-Foy on the single-tracked CN Drummondville Subdivision. The weather was 18 degrees with light drizzle, 100% humidity, visibility 2 km. Winds were less than 5 km/h.
At 11:04 they stopped the train near Milepost 24, located 1.7 km west of the town of Saint-Janvier-de-Joly. Three minutes earlier the train had been going 129 km/h so this was presumably an immediate braking application, not an attempt to coast to the nearest town or crossing. It would remain there for about 2.5 hours.
At 13:43 the train started moving again, remaining below 50 km/h (30 mph). It travelled another 12.6 km, travelling slowly throuth the town of Laurier-Station where it passed Via 37 (westbound to Ottawa via Montreal) which was waiting for it in the siding there. Via 37 departed the siding at 14:02 and continued normally, arriving in Montreal 44 minutes late, and Ottawa 35 minutes late.
Train 622 became stranded at 14:03, coming to a stop near Milepost 25, located 6.8 km east of Laurier-Station and 5.6 km west of St-Apolinnaire. It would remain there for the next 4 hours. The site where the train was stranded is immediately adjacent to Chemin Bourret (a public road), adjacent to Exit 285 Rang de Pierriche on Autoroute 20. It's a 2h15 drive from Via's headquarters in downtown Montréal, or a 1h drive from Québec gare du Palais. This is a single-tracked segment so the train was blocking all rail traffic between Montreal and Quebec.
At 15:25 Via 24, the next eastbound train from Montreal to Quebec (originating in Ottawa), pulled up behind train 622. At some point in the next 3 hours, they coupled the two trains together.
At 18:13 the two trains started heading slowly back to the siding in Laurier-Station. At 18:19 they stopped for about 15 min within the siding near its east end. At 18:35 they started moving slowly to the west end of the siding (near the centre of the town), arriving there at 18:43. The GPS trace for train 622 ends at 18:49, though there is a single ping at 21:04 immediately west of the siding.
According to the CityNews article, firefighters helped evacuate Via 622 and transfer them to Via 24. There were not enough seats for the combined passenger loads within the single train, so many passengers needed to stand.
At 20:36, Via 24 departed eastbound to Quebec. It travelled slowly within the siding and then accelerated to the 90 mph speed limit (145 km/h), travelling at normal track speeds for the remainder of the journey to Québec Gare du Palais, arriving there at 21:54, which is 5h43 late compared to its schedule, or 10h06 late compared to the schedule of Via 622.
Here is an overview of the various places the train stopped:
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lenaitch
Senior Member
So in those intervening hours, nobody had the authority, ability or foresight to get provisions for the passengers, maybe even a bus as soon as they got to a siding or crossing, in that deep wilderness area of Quebec? Here we go again.
Not being a railroader, but it took 3 hours for another train to hook-up and haul it back a short distance?
Not being a railroader, but it took 3 hours for another train to hook-up and haul it back a short distance?
reaperexpress
Senior Member
On the 6th of March when I took Via from Ottawa to Toronto they held us for an hour in Brockville with the intention to back up to Cornwall to rescue a stranded train from Montreal. After an hour they let us go because the following train from Ottawa showed up (they were the ones who ended up rescuing that train)
Even though our delay was only an hour, the crew ordered pizza to Kingston Station, which they picked up during our station stop there and handed out during the trip. Had they not given us pizza, I would have been quite hungry by the time I arrived in Toronto since I had intended to get lunch after I arrived.
It seems quite absurd that a train that was stranded next to a public road, only a 5 minute drive from the nearest town, and 60 minutes from the major station in Québec City would go for 5+ hours without being at least being reprovisionned for food and water. This was hardly deep wilderness. Is there no food delivery service in St-Apolinnaire, Laurier-Station or Québec City?
The statement from Via Rail in the TVA article says that passengers received drinks, snacks and a meal during the delay. Are they implying that that is sufficient food and drink for 14 hours? The passenger interviewed confirmed that they received food and drink, but only for the first 4 hours, leaving them without food or water for the remaining 6 hours of delay.
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crs1026
Superstar
There are explanations being offered by usually reliable sources on Facebook (which being unofficial, I won't propagate) about why the rescue of the equipment took all day (hint: more than just the trainset had problems) - but these don't explain why the focus was on rescuing the equipment and not the passengers.
Sure seems to me that there needs to be a higher power that takes charge for any delay where passengers are kept on train for over x hours. I feel the same way about airplanes held on the tarmac or out of gate. Passengers should not have to come equipped with enough living supplies to camp out.
- Paul