Admiral Beez
Superstar
I saw this on the news yesterday.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Urban Sky
Senior Member
As we’ve discussed here multiple times, the main reason for not yet offering bike transporting servuces is that frequent equipment changes make it still rather difficult to predict on which trains the new trainsets will be deployed. Once the entire new Corridor fleet has been delievered and accepted, this will become a possibility.
Correct, and they were an absolute anachronism compared to the rest of the world, where baggage cars and checked baggage services disappeared decades ago.
Hauling an empty (buffer) car was a crash requirement by Transport Canada and given the (compared to the LRC and HEP fleet) limited luggage storage options, it was a no-brainer to convert the buffer car to a baggage car. However, this has no relevance for current and future operations in the Quebec-Windsor corridor.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Admittedly I am, because discussions with Michael is like Groundhog Day. He wants daily trains to and from everywhere, economics bedamned. In this go-round, the argument is build a VIA station at X and a community will spring forth. Perhaps it will, but perhaps the people that actually live there don't want to have it turned into a bedroom. But there will no cost because the developers will pay for all the infrastructure, apparently.
It likely will, but the landowners will probably be people who snapped up the land because they had an inside track on station locations. Wealthy (former) landowners does not necessarily make a healthy community.
Canadian Chocho
Active Member
My statement had absolutely nothing to do with buffer cars. Buffer cars were not in-service, not even as baggage cars. That would have been counter-productive to the entire endeavour of using them as a buffer in the event of a crash. This is the reason why pets in the baggage car were not allowed for a period on any HEP. The buffer car placed between the baggage car and the coaches meant that no one could access the baggage from the rest of the train (save for the LEs), meaning that passengers could not provide for their pets. Furthermore, this was done for HEP equipment exclusively. Renaissance equipment in service as a corridor train on QMO occaisionally had a baggage car as late as last summer. Think VIA #24.
In fact, we can see the baggage car in this video (seemingly filmed last summer) and we can see the station agent retrievng the checked bags in the Dorval station.:
You're "As we’ve discussed here multiple times" was unecessarily know-it-all-ey, when in actuallity you do not actually know it all. Cheers.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
My use of the word “buffer car” has absolutely zero to do with the “buffer car episode” Transport Canada (TC) mandated for all HEP equipment 1 or 2 years ago. The “Renaissance” cars were built to European standards and are therefore not compliant with North American crash worthiness standards.
Transport Canada was consequently only willing to issue a waiver for VIA Rail (mind you: we are talking about the early 2000s, so more than 20 years ago) from these otherwise binding standards by mandating that the leading car (i.e., the one directly behind the locomotives) would remain unoccupied (i.e., without any passengers during train movements, though I doubt that this ban also applied to employees). Given that these cars would not be able to accommodate passengers and the (for North American standards) limited room for luggage on board the revenue cars, it was a nobrainer to use them as baggage cars…
As per the above, Renaissance trainsets were not allowed to operate without a buffer car (which was always used as a baggage car)…
*Your (not: you’re, as in: you are). Sorry, couldn’t resist, but indeed, I certainly don’t know it all and have to occasionally eat my own words here after getting called out on some misconceptions. That said, I’ve assigned VIA’s fleet to individual trains across its entire network for 3 years and helped VIA during the introduction of a network optimizer software which had to be programmed with all the countless fleet dependencies which constrain what kind of cars go together and which ones don’t. Make from that what you want…
Cheers.
Edit (Nov-27@11pm): I’ve been made aware in the meanwhile that Renaissance trains operated without leading baggage cars in the early years, which makes me doubting whether there really was such regulatory requirement to have the lead car unoccupied, but at least it would confirm my comment that I have to eat my own words from time to time…
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micheal_can
Senior Member
If we are effectively talking about a bedroom community of Ottawa, then we should learn from the mistakes of other bedroom communities in the GTA. Having good transit built into the development is learning those mistakes.
nfitz
Superstar
Once again I call for VIA to bring back the Buffet car.
Sauga89
Active Member
If we assume that the high speed rail station will be at Tremblay, do you think they'll keep the existing station building? I used to live in Ottawa, and there are many things I like about the current building. It's very light-filled and open concept. The LRT makes getting downtown easy, (and the east and west ends too once the new extensions open). It also doesn't have the zoo of commuters that Union or Gare Centrale have, which is nice.
However, I found that at busy times people were lined up almost out the door, and I can't see the current building having enough capacity for HSR.
I'd love to see them build an extension to the existing building, perhaps on the parking lot to the west, which would be closer to the LRT station. If they removed the cafe and offices on the west side of the station, they could build a twin to the current building in the same architectural style. Then they could build a new tunnel south of the tracks to a new park and ride for cars and buses.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
The building has had a federal heritage designation since 1996 and is unlikely to be torn down. As with the Chateau Laurier downtown, there might be serious debate about what architectural style to use.
crs1026
Superstar
Ottawa does not have the security or narrow platform constraints that Toronto Union and Montreal Central have.
Any crowding constraints can be solved by simply letting people board commensurate with practices in other countries.
VIA creates its own crowding. There is no need to line up at Ottawa.
- Paul
Mihairokov
Senior Member
I was travelling across Germany a year or two ago and didn't totally understand their ticketing system and so ended up without a permanent seat for most of the trip. Ended up hanging out in the bar car for most of the trip drinking pints and hanging out with DB staff. A very enlightening trip, although after a few beers Berlin Hauptbahnhof becomes very confusing!
smallspy
Senior Member
I'm not sure that they did actually operate in service without the baggage cars.
4 or 5 F40s were modified in 2001 with the same type of coupler as the Ren cars, and were used to bring Corridor trainsets cars down from Thunder Bay as they were completed. And they did perform some network testing with them at that time.
But I think that by the time they entered service in mid-2002 the Corridor trainsets all had baggage cars added to them (which featured a standard AAR/APTA type F knuckle coupler at one end, and a Ren-standard "Shearback" coupler at the other), and the F40s that were modified were returned back to their original configuration.
Dan
Urban Sky
Senior Member
The Branchline magazine apparently reported at least two such consists in June 2002:
20th anniversary of first Ren trips
groups.io
dowlingm
Senior Member
I was surprised that cabs were signed off as full length passenger spec in a new build consist. The one thing about having a cab which has no or limited seating is that it does provide more buffer in the event of a collision, particularly when sharing track with freight locomotives with limited or no CEM (see Selby rail crash). The space could have been used for baggage or alternatively for HEP generation. Another upside of more storage space would be the facility to carry more food/fluids during inclement weather...
And of course, the decision to go with a shorter consist to save money is not exactly working out given the present axle count issues. Of course, the risks in both cases would be reduced if we could get serious on significantly reducing grade crossings on track >80mph (to start with)
micheal_can
Senior Member
I thought they were going to be having different lengths of trains for the Corridor service. I do not know where I heard it, but I thought there were going to be 5 and 7 car trains. AFAIK we only have 5 car trains. Please correct me if this is wrong.