VIA Rail

[Mr Finish Line]

I very strongly disagree. And as always, it comes down to the signalling.

As I've said before, the Weston Sub can operate 90mph trains every 3 minutes (and slower trains more frequently than that). That is a considerably higher potential frequency than anywhere in North America as far as anyone in the industry can figure, and rivals a lot of the high-zoot wayside signal installations on mainline railways elsewhere in the world.

I would love to live in a universe where GO will be operating express trains every 3 minutes, but that seems excruciatingly unlikely in any event horizon that includes my lifetime. And so there will be room to slot in any potential half-hourly VIAs.


My assumptions are including HSR, and considering the same reasons as above.

Dan

I know potential routes out of Toronto have been thrown around on this thread a few times, but I don't remember a discussion about using LSE to get out of the urban area. If I understand @smallspy correctly, there's plenty of capacity for 1/2 hourly HSR on a quad tracked LSE, assuming the right signalling.

Following the route where it drops down to double track east of Guildwood, it looks like there is sufficient space for another set of tracks all the way to Pickering where it looks like it starts to become a tight squeeze between the 401, GO, and CN. If another set of grade separated tracks could be squeezed all the way to the 412, it's a straight shot up to the old CP route to Peterborough (Havelock sub?). Metrolinx would have to move stuff around, like the platforms at Rouge Hill, but they would presumably also benefit from a bunch of new grade separations east of Scarborough GO. Does this seem like one of the potential routes?

 

[guavadelic]

How practical would it be for regional/commuter rail to also operate on potential HxR tracks? VIA HFR execs have been playing up the potential of cities like Peterborough and Trois-Rivieres to be part of the commuter shed of Toronto and Montreal respectively. However the likely cost of HxR tickets won't make it a viable option for most commuters.

 

[Urban Sky]

I know potential routes out of Toronto have been thrown around on this thread a few times, but I don't remember a discussion about using LSE to get out of the urban area. If I understand @smallspy correctly, there's plenty of capacity for 1/2 hourly HSR on a quad tracked LSE, assuming the right signalling.

Following the route where it drops down to double track east of Guildwood, it looks like there is sufficient space for another set of tracks all the way to Pickering where it looks like it starts to become a tight squeeze between the 401, GO, and CN. If another set of grade separated tracks could be squeezed all the way to the 412, it's a straight shot up to the old CP route to Peterborough (Havelock sub?). Metrolinx would have to move stuff around, like the platforms at Rouge Hill, but they would presumably also benefit from a bunch of new grade separations east of Scarborough GO. Does this seem like one of the potential routes?

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There are of course multiple ways for an HxR corrridor to leave Toronto, but you‘ll struggle to find a second existing rail corridor which already leaves the built-up area of tve GTHA after ~20 km, then continues in a straight line over farmland for another ~20 km while avoiding any populated areas for another ~80 km.

It‘s always worthwhile to explore alternative routibg optiond, but in the end of the day, you would require some very compelling and valid reasons to discard the Peterborough/Havelock corridor.

How practical would it be for regional/commuter rail to also operate on potential HxR tracks? VIA HFR execs have been playing up the potential of cities like Peterborough and Trois-Rivieres to be part of the commuter shed of Toronto and Montreal respectively. However the likely cost of HxR tickets won't make it a viable option for most commuters.

Unfortunately, one of the factors which make the Havelock and North Shore compelling HSR corridors (near-total absence of built-up areas between the metropolitan areas of the GTHA&Peterborough and Greater Montreal & Trois-Rivières, respectively) also makes it highly unviable for regional/commuter rail.

Thankfully, there shouldn’t ‘be a shortage of empty seats (and the number of people commuting more than 100 km from a city of 100k should be rather limited) and I would certainly expect ticket offerings which will provide steep discounts for regular travellers, just as you‘ll find in other rail nations…

 

[CapitalSeven]

If as likely they go with real HSR, an Ottawa bypass will almost certainly not happen. But I think there will be consideration of 3 or 4 Montreal-Toronto express trains per day making no stops, which could save around half an hour.

It's not clear what will be done about Fallowfield and Dorval, both of which are very important to Ottawa residents, but to which almost no one from Montreal or Toronto will be travelling. With Air Canada involved, they may well be intending to cut their inefficient Ottawa-Montreal flights and put the pax on trains. One can even dream of check-in and luggage handling in Ottawa.

 

[smallspy]

So neither a new problem nor isolated to Siemens Chargers, it seems.

It is a new problem, and it is isolated to the Chargers and Venture cars.

But Amtrak is getting ahead of the curve in order to future-proof its entire fleet. It's not very likely that the freight railroads are going to stay in their current configuration forever, and so they need to be prepared for that eventuality. This will head off any future potential problems should CN expand its signalling, or in the unlikely situation that the freight railroads standardize their signalling.

Dan

 

[lenaitch]

It's legacy north American railroad standards meeting the rest of the world

Perhaps, but earlier information suggested that the 'shunting' problem was unique to CN.

Besides, my understanding is the Siemens Charger was built for the North American market.

Edit: My earlier post suggested the problem might not be isolated to Siemens, but it might be since Amtrak operates many of them.

 

[lenaitch]

It is a new problem, and it is isolated to the Chargers and Venture cars.

But Amtrak is getting ahead of the curve in order to future-proof its entire fleet. It's not very likely that the freight railroads are going to stay in their current configuration forever, and so they need to be prepared for that eventuality. This will head off any future potential problems should CN expand its signalling, or in the unlikely situation that the freight railroads standardize their signalling.

Dan

Dan - Have they imposed similar speed restrictions in the US?

It seems that equipment has been in service since around 2017.

I wonder if Siemens is tossing any money into the hat to rectify (no pun intended) their deficiency. If there was a comparable safety-related defect discovered in automobiles, US DOT would consider issuing a recall.

 

[dowlingm]

So neither a new problem nor isolated to Siemens Chargers, it seems.

Interesting to see spending beyond the notorious axle count requirement on CN-IC between Illinois and Louisiana

 

[dowlingm]

I wonder if Siemens is tossing any money into the hat to rectify (no pun intended) their deficiency. If there was a comparable safety-related defect discovered in automobiles, US DOT would consider issuing a recall.

It’s only a deficiency if the contract specified that the trainsets shunt all crossings. It’s up to Amtrak to assemble safe train lengths for a given route, so how can any individual coach be defined as “defective”? Amtrak is all in on Siemens and the company is building a politically advantageous factory in SC. There will have to be some other solution found.

No, if anyone should be tagged here it’s probably the NGEC for failing to identify and publicize the necessity for shunt compliance before defining specs for new NA equipment.

 

[roger1818]

No, if anyone should be tagged here it’s probably the NGEC for failing to identify and publicize the necessity for shunt compliance before defining specs for new NA equipment.

Such a specification of shunt compliance would likely be the electrical conductance (the reciprocal of the resistance) between rails. Does anyone else think that it’s ironic that the unit of measurement for electrical conductance is Siemens?

 

[dowlingm]

VIA Historical Association have restored a former VIA F-unit. The picture location is the Ontario Southland Railway Shop at Salford ON, near Ingersoll.

Railpictures.ca - Stephen C. Host Photo: At Salford Ontario on Halloween 2024, the Via Rail Historical Association (VHA) unveiled the fully painted 6539. The VHA has put years into their efforts to build a train to celebrate VIA’s upcoming 50′th an

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[lenaitch]

It’s only a deficiency if the contract specified that the trainsets shunt all crossings. It’s up to Amtrak to assemble safe train lengths for a given route, so how can any individual coach be defined as “defective”? Amtrak is all in on Siemens and the company is building a politically advantageous factory in SC. There will have to be some other solution found.

No, if anyone should be tagged here it’s probably the NGEC for failing to identify and publicize the necessity for shunt compliance before defining specs for new NA equipment.

Fair point about train size (i.e. number of axles) but if the finished product rolling off the assembly line is a single car/power unit, one would think it, in and of itself, should be safety compliant.

 

[Urban Sky]

If as likely they go with real HSR,

That’s entirely dependent on how much appetite the new (likely: Conservative) federal government will have to spend the dozens of billions required to fund „real HSR“. This project has scope-creeped into a beast which is many times more expensive than what VIA would have ever dared to ask for…

an Ottawa bypass will almost certainly not happen.

Thanks, at least we won‘t have to revisit this point!

But I think there will be consideration of 3 or 4 Montreal-Toronto express trains per day making no stops, which could save around half an hour.

Trains would have to crawl through Ottawa Station anyways, due to the sharp curve on its Western end, so the travel time loss would rather be some 5 minutes, assuming level boarding. Anyways, I would expect about half of the HxR ridership along the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor to either board or detrain in Ottawa and you would struggle to fill any Montreal-Toronto without any Ottawa-bound/based passengers, as demand for Montreal-Toronto will not magically double the second you skip the stop in Ottawa. You would have to make that Express train significantly cheaper than the other departures and that just destroys any commercial justification for operating such services. In short, building an Ottawa Bypass does not just violate any economic logic, but operating trains which needlessly skip Ottawa also violate any commercial logic.

Therefore, the Kingston Subdivision will continue to offer the only Ottawa Bypass, but its services will be converted to a milk run, as these services will now cater for secondary and intermediary markets.

It's not clear what will be done about Fallowfield and Dorval, both of which are very important to Ottawa residents, but to which almost no one from Montreal or Toronto will be travelling.

I would strongly assume that all trains will continue to stop at Dorval and Fallowfield, just like ICE trains in Germany usually stop multiple times in Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich.

With Air Canada involved, they may well be intending to cut their inefficient Ottawa-Montreal flights and put the pax on trains.

Air Canada replacing its short-haul YOW-YUL flights through a codeshare agreement with a railroad does not necessitate necessitate Air Canada to assume any commercial control over the rail operator. In fact, such an arrangement will likely hurt competition, as AC has every incentive to deny other airlines to replicate such codeshare agreements.

One can even dream of check-in and luggage handling in Ottawa.

I believe that transloading of checked luggage between trains and airplanes is no longer offered anywhere on this planet, but Lufthansa operates Check-In and baggage reclaims counters right at the long-distance rail station of Frankfurt Airport…

 

[Bojaxs]

How practical would it be for regional/commuter rail to also operate on potential HxR tracks? VIA HFR execs have been playing up the potential of cities like Peterborough and Trois-Rivieres to be part of the commuter shed of Toronto and Montreal respectively. However the likely cost of HxR tickets won't make it a viable option for most commuters.

All the way to Peterborough? Unlikely. Not worth it.

But if HxR means laying down new track that allows for trains to travel at higher speeds, then perhaps we could have something akin to MARC's Penn line where their commuter trains share a stretch of the N.E. corridor with the Acela, and take full advantage of the HSR tracks. MARC has the fastest commuter trains in North America.
Depending on where we decide to run the line we could have GO trains on either the LSE or Stouffville line running as fast as the MARC trains. If we decide to extend HxR all the way south to Windsor, then we could upgrade the tracks on the Kitchener line to allow for faster trains. This would also be dependent on whether CN agrees to construct the 407 bypass to take freight off the Kitchener line.

At the 2:01 mark, you see an Acela train chasing down a MARC commuter train.

 

[dowlingm]

Fair point about train size (i.e. number of axles) but if the finished product rolling off the assembly line is a single car/power unit, one would think it, in and of itself, should be safety compliant.

You’re assuming a common standard for “safety compliance” which doesn’t seem possible if railway companies are allowed to decide their own standards for crossing equipment.

If Ventures don’t conform to industry norms, why wasn’t it picked up at TTCI, or when Brightline put them in service, or before revenue service began in Canada. At some point the customer, not the manufacturer, must take responsibility for the usage of a product. There seems to have been ample historical warning for VIA, CN and TC to between them have anticipated this situation, and the time for someone to have shouted stop was before passengers went onboard. That this did not happen seems to me proof of how desperate at least two of those parties must have been to retire Renaissance and LRC.