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VIA Rail

Urban Sky said:
If the company has a separate department which makes travel arrangements and books for the employee, then maybe, but if the employee books by himself, then he will have a strong bias for flexible tickets for three separate reasons:
  • To save them the need to justify why they needed to change or cancel existing reservations.
  • Flexible tickets usually accumulate more points than semi-flexible ones.
  • Lack of financial incentive to book cheaper tickets.
Having gone through my bookings, I can’t stress enough how much my employer has saved through the new reservation system, as this overview of the undiscounted one-way Business Plus tickets between Montreal and Toronto shows:

Old reservation system
  • 2021/22: $283+tx
  • 2022: $298+tx
  • 2023: $313+tx
New reservation system
  • $152+tx (4x)
  • $184+tx (2x)
  • $186+tx (3x)
  • $195+tx (1x)
  • $197+tx (4x)
  • $200+tx (1x)
In fact, the decrease in ECO+/BUS+ tickets was so extreme that I could cancel 4 ECO+ tickets I had already booked for $222+tx before the introduction of the new system and rebook them in BUS+ for $184+tx (2x) and $197+tx (2x), thus saving (!) the company $126+tx while upgrading to Business Class! And as you can see above, I have yet to pay as much for BUS+ as the $222+tx I used to pay for ECO+…
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I agree, but I don't think you understand my point. If I am booked on the 6:30pm train but I am done early and can catch the 3:30 train, most companies will pay whatever the cost differential is from the ticket I have to allow me to get home 3 hours earlier. Sure it might be cheaper to book ECO+ tickets on the 3:30, 4:30, 5:30 and 6:30 trains in advance, and the ones you won't use, but all you need to do is forget to cancel 1 of them in time (cancelations must be done before departure to get a refund) and those savings will be lost. IMHO, its easier to buy a ECO+ ticket for only the 6:30 train and if the fare goes up for the 3:30 train, c'est la vie. The cost of train travel is cheap enough that most managers will sign off on it without any question.

Urban Sky said:
Sure, but that way you just invite people to book a cheaper, later train and then just walk up for the earlier train…
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Only if there is enough availability on the earlier train that VIA is confident that the seat would have otherwise gone unsold, at which point, what does it matter. As I said, they need to be a litte careful that they don't give away seats that could get sold a premium at another station. If they are really worrid about it, they could not allow this for Escape fares (which are "Non-Exchangeable").

Besides, this isn't unique to VIA. Airlines also have dynamic pricing and they will fill seats on a flight that is about to depart with passengers on a future fight in hopes that they can fill that seat in the later flight. Even if they can't, it creates good will with their passengers.
 
crs1026 said:
Funny, they have fluids that clean windows on cars in the winter. They even de-ice airplanes with it.

I bet a bucket or two like one finds at gas stations and a squeegie would be sufficient.

- Paul
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Glycol is poisonous for animals if ingested. So just letting it penetrate Into the ground is not an option, and the environment can only absorb so much liquid. You're gonna need more than a bucket to clean a 70 foot rail car x 6/7 car consists plus 10+ consists per day x 30 days.
I would say minimum 50L per car per side so that's 600L per consist x 10 per day is 6000L with a 10% glycol content would be 600L of glycol per day that needs to be recycled.

Even that much of soapy water is an environmental hazard.
 
Bordercollie said:
Glycol is poisonous for animals if ingested. So just letting it penetrate Into the ground is not an option, and the environment can only absorb so much liquid. You're gonna need more than a bucket to clean a 70 foot rail car x 6/7 car consists plus 10+ consists per day x 30 days.
I would say minimum 50L per car per side so that's 600L per consist x 10 per day is 6000L with a 10% glycol content would be 600L of glycol per day that needs to be recycled.

Even that much of soapy water is an environmental hazard.
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Indeed, by the time you’ve completed the EA procedure and obtained all necessary permits to start construction for your temporary car wash facility, the new maintenance facility is already fully operational…
 
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Urban Sky said:
Indeed, by the time you’ve completed the EA procedure and obtained all necessary permits for your temporary car wash facility, the new maintenance facility is already fully operational…
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I don't know ... those squeegee kids (more like adults these days) at the traffic lights seem to get all the necessary permits fast enough.

Maybe just hire some of those and at least do the windows. :)

(I don't see secondary containment or even primary containment for window washers outside buildings)
 
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nfitz said:
I don't know ... those squeegee kids (more like adults these days) at the traffic lights seem to get all the necessary permits fast enough.
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This is the thing.... one or two workers with buckets of soapy water are not going to need an EA to walk down the side of a train, soap the windows, and squeegie them.
To wash the entire sides of the consist, sure.... but just to do the windows ?
I can forgive VIA (sort of) for not washing the entire consist, but dirty windows harm the passenger experience.
Maybe one cuts some slack when the temp slides way low, but we have enough above-zero days even in January to get the worst of the grime under control. And we don't need wiper fluid with -45C rated glycol content, either. I bet the windows themselves are warmer than the carbody, and won't freeze when soaping them even a few degrees below freezing.


- Paul

1737415786825.jpeg
 
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Bordercollie said:
Glycol is poisonous for animals if ingested. So just letting it penetrate Into the ground is not an option, and the environment can only absorb so much liquid. You're gonna need more than a bucket to clean a 70 foot rail car x 6/7 car consists plus 10+ consists per day x 30 days.
I would say minimum 50L per car per side so that's 600L per consist x 10 per day is 6000L with a 10% glycol content would be 600L of glycol per day that needs to be recycled.

Even that much of soapy water is an environmental hazard.
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Washer fluid is made from methanol not ethaline glycol, since the later becomes acidic when it breaks down and becomes corrosive to metals. There is a reason why you don't want to mix up the coolant and washer fluids in your car.

While methanol is still posinious, it isn't nearly as bad as ethalline glycol. I don't know how much of a problem a methanol solution would be at the quantities needed to clean the windows. When spraying it on your windshild while driving, it will evaporate quickly and disipate. The question becomes what would happen if you squegied large quantaties of methanol on a stationary train.
 
Hard to persuade the transit industry that at the minimum they should clean windows with a dude with a brush as pictured above so customers can see out, when that runs against the sales team negotiating whole-vehicle-wrap deals with advertisers which put a form of plastic dirt over those same windows, and against politicians who want to see public services run "lean" especially in headcount numbers.
 
smallspy said:
It seems that the wash rack at the TMC is still out of service due to construction going on there.
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This may be a stupid question, but is there anything else out of service due to the construction at the Toronto maintenance centre? Or anything that will be disrupted once the Montreal maintenance centre starts to be renovated? The VIA project website is somewhat light on details.
smallspy said:
trains still need to be fueled, have the insides cleaned and restocked. Considering a lot of the trains are only at the TMC for a couple of hours, there just really isn't much time
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I know that aesthetics are important, but I'm more curious about the impact on all of the other maintenance that goes on in these facilities besides exterior cleaning. If they are managing to keep up most of their usual work in the midst of a big renovation, that seems pretty good to me.
 
Sauga89 said:
This may be a stupid question, but is there anything else out of service due to the construction at the Toronto maintenance centre? Or anything that will be disrupted once the Montreal maintenance centre starts to be renovated? The VIA project website is somewhat light on details.
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The Progressive Maintenance bays - the three long covered tracks on the north side of the structure labelled S2 through S5 - are obviously out of service as they are where the new PM bays with its overhead cranes are being built. The former CRCR building has also been torn down, but that was part of the loco shop on the south side of the building.

In spite of this, the loco shop (tracks M1 to M5) and heavy maintenance bays are still active and in use, and where trains are currently being maintained when they need more than just a fueling or restocking.

Sauga89 said:
I know that aesthetics are important, but I'm more curious about the impact on all of the other maintenance that goes on in these facilities besides exterior cleaning. If they are managing to keep up most of their usual work in the midst of a big renovation, that seems pretty good to me.
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Obviously the current situation is not idea, but it's still completely workable. It's just that it takes more time to accomplish a task than it might otherwise. For instance, a full Siemens train does not fit into any of the loco shop tracks, so it may require one or both of the access doors open while they work on it - which obviously isn't ideal on a day like today.

Dan
 
Presumably they are staging the work so that some services can be provided by one or the other facilities, while the other is offline.

I know redundancy for transit might come as a surprise for people from Ottawa. 🤣
 
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