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VIA Rail

I am looking at doing a train trip between Toronto and Montreal at the beginning of March, on a weekday. Are there particular train numbers that tend to be more on time than others?
 
Article by Transport Action on fleet availability.

www.transportaction.ca

VIA Rail Struggling with Fleet Availability

One daily roundtrip between Ottawa and Toronto and some weekend departures have been cut from VIA Rail’s schedule at least until at least March 2025 as the company struggles with fleet availability. Caught between the need to retire its legacy corridor fleet, including life-expired LRC cars, and...
www.transportaction.ca www.transportaction.ca
 
Allandale25 said:
Article by Transport Action on fleet availability.

www.transportaction.ca

VIA Rail Struggling with Fleet Availability

One daily roundtrip between Ottawa and Toronto and some weekend departures have been cut from VIA Rail’s schedule at least until at least March 2025 as the company struggles with fleet availability. Caught between the need to retire its legacy corridor fleet, including life-expired LRC cars, and...
www.transportaction.ca www.transportaction.ca
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I guess they can't bring back the ren set to the corridor to fill the gap?

There are no additional HEP equipment?
 
Bordercollie said:
I guess they can't bring back the ren set to the corridor to fill the gap?
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The former Corridor Renaissance sets won’t return to Corridor service, as they are required to donate parts to support the Ocean until the new Long-Distance Fleet finally arrives.
Bordercollie said:
There are no additional HEP equipment?
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Everything which is available already operates.
 
Urban Sky said:
The former Corridor Renaissance sets won’t return to Corridor service, as they are required to donate parts to support the Ocean until the new Long-Distance Fleet finally arrives.

Everything which is available already operates.
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So, did they screw themselves over by not waiting till the last Siemens set arrived before retiring the Ren cars? Everyone knows with new equipment there will be teathing issues. Had they just parked them, ready to be used again, maybe this wouldn't have played out this way. These things are where I sometimes wonder about the people running the show. Some here may say that this is normal, but just because something is normal does not mean we should accept it.Mind you, if those cars have already been used to keep the Ocean cars going, we have bigger problems with the LDF.
 
micheal_can said:
So, did they screw themselves over by not waiting till the last Siemens set arrived before retiring the Ren cars? Everyone knows with new equipment there will be teathing issues. Had they just parked them, ready to be used again, maybe this wouldn't have played out this way. These things are where I sometimes wonder about the people running the show. Some here may say that this is normal, but just because something is normal does not mean we should accept it.Mind you, if those cars have already been used to keep the Ocean cars going, we have bigger problems with the LDF.
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It probably has to do with optics and funding.

You have to understand from the government's perspective, using tax payers funds appropriately.

Why would you retain your legacy feet in service when your shiny new fleet that we paid millions for have been delivered?

The fact that the new fleet has teething issues is a separate matter. They don't want to pay to maintain something when they have paid to replace it.

Also they may be in the shop having work done so to they can be swapped with the ocean fleet.
 
Bordercollie said:
It probably has to do with optics and funding.

You have to understand from the government's perspective, using tax payers funds appropriately.

Why would you retain your legacy feet in service when your shiny new fleet that we paid millions for have been delivered?

The fact that the new fleet has teething issues is a separate matter. They don't want to pay to maintain something when they have paid to replace it.

Also they may be in the shop having work done so to they can be swapped with the ocean fleet.
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Which part of “[t]he former Corridor Renaissance sets won’t return to Corridor service, as they are required to donate parts to support the Ocean until the new Long-Distance Fleet finally arrives” did you not understand? Every time you use the Renaissance cars you risk that something breaks and further reduces the already very constrained inventory of parts for this fleet which has close to zero commonality with the rest of VIA’s fleet.

Whatever fleet worries VIA currently has in the Corridor pales to the looming crisis on the Ocean, which critically depends on the Renaissance fleet which is literally falling apart, but won’t receive a replacement until the mid-2030s, if it gets procured at all. Wasting spare parts on Corridor services would border on insanity…
 
Urban Sky said:
Which part of “[t]he former Corridor Renaissance sets won’t return to Corridor service, as they are required to donate parts to support the Ocean until the new Long-Distance Fleet finally arrives” did you not understand? Every time you use the Renaissance cars you risk that something breaks and further reduces the already very constrained inventory of parts for this fleet which has close to zero commonality with the rest of VIA’s fleet.

Whatever fleet worries VIA currently has in the Corridor pales to the looming crisis on the Ocean, which critically depends on the Renaissance fleet which is literally falling apart, but won’t receive a replacement until the mid-2030s, if it gets procured at all. Wasting spare parts on Corridor services would border on insanity…
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The corridor HEP cars can be transferred to the Ocean and Canadian. But then you still need sleepers which we don't have enough of.
 
Bordercollie said:
The corridor HEP cars can be transferred to the Ocean and Canadian. But then you still need sleepers which we don't have enough of.
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So what do we learn? We need to keep those Renaissance Sleepers and Diners running on the Ocean until (hopefully) a new long-distance fleet arrives in the mid-2030s. And that’s why we can’t afford to waste spare parts while running the Renaissance fleet into the ground on entirely avoidable Corridor deployments. The Renaissance cars won’t return on Corridor assignments. Ever.
 
Urban Sky said:
So what do we learn? We need to keep those Renaissance Sleepers and Diners running on the Ocean until (hopefully) a new long-distance fleet arrives in the mid-2030s. And that’s why we can’t afford to waste spare parts while running the Renaissance fleet into the ground on entirely avoidable Corridor deployments. The Renaissance cars won’t return on Corridor assignments. Ever.
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What I have learned is our fleet, not just the LDF is in much worse shape than I thought. I have also learned that we need that LDF replacement to happen NOW if the Ocean is to remain active. Things are a lot worse off than I thought they were. I hope our next election doesn't kill off the LDF replacement.
 
micheal_can said:
What I have learned is our fleet, not just the LDF is in much worse shape than I thought. I have also learned that we need that LDF replacement to happen NOW if the Ocean is to remain active. Things are a lot worse off than I thought they were. I hope our next election doesn't kill off the LDF replacement.
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The concervative are down in the polls since Trump got elected so we should be safe.
 
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