VIA Rail

[reaperexpress]

If it was as simple as saying “yank that gear and put in ones that work better” why haven’t Amtrak and VIA gone to the STB and TC to demand CN and BNSF do so? Presumably that is a worse option, either because they know the railroads will get a decade or more to do so, that the railroads might decide to decrease zone speeds to narrow the gap between passenger and freight, or something else

The winner of the Glacially Slow Rail Passenger Progress Award is a tie! Half to VIA for taking ten months to finally start making some changes like J-trains, XS and XL consists, getting CN to give a little on its unreasonable demands as the rail infrastructure owner, and finally getting some chutzpah when it comes to remarshalling. Once CN gets its Permanent Slow Order signs up (which in itself apparently takes multi-agency approval) I doubt they'll be coming down.

I suspect the reason that Via didn't take any significant actions to mitigate the millions of dollars in financial damages caused by the speed restrictions is that they were hoping to measure those damages to support their case in court and hopefully collect that money back from CN.

It appears that Via has now given up on the possibility of the courts coming to their defence, so they are exploring options that will have significant negative impacts on their business (i.e. reducing train frequency) for many years. Buying more coaches, replacing level crossing equipment and developing/approving shunt enhancers will all take several years and millions of dollars.

The key question is who is responsible for those millions of dollars. In my mind it is clear that CN should be responsible for paying the costs of making their detection equipment functional, whether that be shunt enhancers, new coaches or replaced crossings. CN presumably prefers shunt enhancers because they'd have an easier time passing the bill to Via than if the solution is to replace their substandard crossing equipment. Because Transport Canada refuses to hold them accountable, it now appears that CN has succesfully passed the costs of the speed restrictions on to the Canadian taxpayer, whether that be in reduced benefit of rail service due to reduced frequency, or a literal cost of purchasing additional equipment for Via (shunt enhancers or coaches).

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

. In my mind it is clear that CN should be responsible for paying the costs of making their detection equipment functional, whether that be shunt enhancers, new coaches or replaced crossings.

Ooh, speaking of court cases. That sure sounds like it might be one...

 

[MisterF]

I suspect the reason that Via didn't take any significant actions to mitigate the millions of dollars in financial damages caused by the speed restrictions is that they were hoping to measure those damages to support their case in court and hopefully collect that money back from CN.

It appears that Via has now given up on the possibility of the courts coming to their defence, so they are exploring options that will have significant negative impacts on their business (i.e. reducing train frequency) for many years. Buying more coaches, replacing level crossing equipment and developing/approving shunt enhancers will all take several years and millions of dollars.

The key question is who is responsible for those millions of dollars. In my mind it is clear that CN should be responsible for paying the costs of making their detection equipment functional, whether that be shunt enhancers, new coaches or replaced crossings. CN presumably prefers shunt enhancers because they'd have an easier time passing the bill to Via than if the solution is to replace their substandard crossing equipment. Because Transport Canada refuses to hold them accountable, it now appears that CN has succesfully passed the costs of the speed restrictions on to the Canadian taxpayer, whether that be in reduced benefit of rail service due to reduced frequency, or a literal cost of purchasing additional equipment for Via (shunt enhancers or coaches).

This whole debacle is why I laugh whenever someone on here suggests that the federal government should just force CN to give priority to Via trains. "With the stroke of a pen" is a term I've seen thrown around. When the feds are too timid to do something as basic as making freight railroads stop slowing passenger trains down arbitrarily, there's no hope of dropping the hammer on CN even more.

Our only hope for reliable passenger trains in Canada is building them their own corridors.

 

[dowlingm]

Any pictures?

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[crs1026]

If the assumption is that it takes 4 trainsets to make two longer trainsets and one shorter J trainset, then the capacity reduction is about 25% or 24 instead of 32 useable trainsets....

This may delight CN, as the best use of those longer trainsets might well be less frequent, but longer, trains Toronto-Ottawa or Toronto-Montreal.

If I were VIA, I might see if I could scrape enough HEPII capacity to substitute for Ventures on slower runs (eg a Venture to Sarnia over the slow and stop-heavy Guelph Sub is futile from the start). So maybe full reconfiguration isn't needed.

And, I might play with the price points to try to fill more seats on those longer trains - which might even improve modal share, and change the revenue. "We lose a dollar a seat, but we make it up on volume" actually works sometimes..

- Paul

 

[reaperexpress]

If the assumption is that it takes 4 trainsets to make two longer trainsets and one shorter J trainset, then the capacity reduction is about 25% or 24 instead of 32 useable trainsets....

This may delight CN, as the best use of those longer trainsets might well be less frequent, but longer, trains Toronto-Ottawa or Toronto-Montreal.

If I were VIA, I might see if I could scrape enough HEPII capacity to substitute for Ventures on slower runs (eg a Venture to Sarnia over the slow and stop-heavy Guelph Sub is futile from the start). So maybe full reconfiguration isn't needed.

The Sarnia is actually one of the best places to use a short Venture consist, since most of the line is so slow that the speed restriction at crossing is actually faster than the track speed. Plus 80km is owned by Metrolinx who doesn't impose those speed restrictions. I think Windsor-Toronto is probably a good fit for legacy equipment since it's a relatively low-demand route with relatively high track speeds.

And, I might play with the price points to try to fill more seats on those longer trains - which might even improve modal share, and change the revenue. "We lose a dollar a seat, but we make it up on volume" actually works sometimes..

Looking at the capacity of the various Toronto-Ottawa services, it appears that the vast majority of travel in the corridor is on Highway 401. Of the seats available or the public to book, nearly a third are on buses, and it's safe to assume that the number of people driving is at least double that.

The train is already faster than driving (CN restrictions notwithstanding), so the main advantage that buses and cars have is price. It's frankly remarkable that there is so much demand for cheaper tickets that other companies can run 33 buses per day on a route already served by Via. Some of the buses do serve other destinations like Pearson, Peterborough and Scarborough Centre, but in my experience having ridden every bus service, most of the bus ridership is from Downtown Toronto to Ottawa Station.

So yes, it appears that there is a huge amount of ridership to be gained simply by reducing ticket prices. Combining coaches into fewer but longer trains could reduce costs by reducing the number of locomotive operators per passenger and reducing the number of trips on CN tracks (though I'm not sure how track fees are calculated). But even then there's probably enough demand to keep ticket prices high simply due to the finite number of seats. The longer-term solutions to bring down ticket prices would be to buy more Economy-class coaches, and adjust Via's operating practices to reduce the number of attendants per Economy-class coach and reduce the number of employees in major stations.

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

Good news story. With CN's crossing speed reductions transitioning to Permanent Slow Orders, VIA Ventures' On-Time Performance (OTP) yesterday was the best it's been since the imposition of the restrictions. Instead of the usual 40-minute average OTP delay Toronto-Ottawa and 50-minute average OTP delay Toronto-Montreal, yesterday's were 27 minutes Toronto-Ottawa and 12 minutes Toronto-Montreal. The Toronto-Ottawa average was skewed by one train that took a big 40 minute-delay around Oshawa and stayed that way. This average also does not include the four J-trains nor the XL set (8, 7, 38, OT, 3 minute delays to OTP).

MON. SEPTEMBER 1, 2025 UPDATE
Fourteen (today Fifteen!) Venture Monday's OTP by Train No.(Minutes Late):
44(50), 45(!7), 46(49), 47(!1), 59(25), 61(!11), 66(*3!), 68(14), 69(26), 643(30), 669(OT).
60/50 Venture J-train (OT) at Kingston, (!8Mtl/!7Ott) [not counted in average; not subject to speed reductions Toronto-Brockville due to axle count >32]
62/52 Venture J-train (5) at Kingston, (38Mtl/ OT Ott [not counted in average either]
Average non-J Ottawa-Toronto OTP = 27 minutes late.
Average non-J Montreal-Toronto OTP = 12 minutes late.
(Symbols: !speedster; *Augmented Set 12, not included in average)
No significantly late departures.

 

[nfitz]

Why do the slow orders cause less delay?

 

[Bordercollie]

Why do the slow orders cause less delay?

It's just skewed. They probably modified the schedule to reflect the slow orders.

But by J ing the trains they don't need to slow down at crossings.

 

[smallspy]

Why do the slow orders cause less delay?

In large part, it's taken a fair amount of the guesswork out of the engineer's jobs. They now know exactly where they need to slow down, and by how much - before, there was far more guesswork, and so the slowdowns were far more variable - as were the delays.

Dan

 

[reaperexpress]

MON. SEPTEMBER 1, 2025 UPDATE
Fourteen (today Fifteen!) Venture Monday's OTP by Train No.(Minutes Late):
44(50), 45(!7), 46(49), 47(!1), 59(25), 61(!11), 66(*3!), 68(14), 69(26), 643(30), 669(OT).
60/50 Venture J-train (OT) at Kingston, (!8Mtl/!7Ott) [not counted in average; not subject to speed reductions Toronto-Brockville due to axle count >32]
62/52 Venture J-train (5) at Kingston, (38Mtl/ OT Ott [not counted in average either]
Average non-J Ottawa-Toronto OTP = 27 minutes late.
Average non-J Montreal-Toronto OTP = 12 minutes late.
(Symbols: !speedster; *Augmented Set 12, not included in average)
No significantly late departures.

What does "Speedster" mean?

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

"Reducing to 45 mph from a quarter-mile and complying with 103.1 (f) is gone on most subdivisions. Important to remember that the 45 mph restriction was imposed by VIA, CN only placed the 103.1 (f) restriction on Venture trains. It's replaced by large "zone" (actually PSO) speed reductions that encompass multiple crossings. The speed in each zone varies, some are anywhere from 65-80 MPH for several miles, sometimes 10+ miles. 70-75 MPH seems to be the most common. There are stretches where normal track speed is possible. These new speed "zones/PSO's" effectively more than double the existing number of zones and PSO's, so there's a lot of familiarization for crews to contend with. It will help improve travel times, but it will not be anywhere near back to normal. All in all, it should definitely help with workload for engineers, especially once signage is in place. But this is CN, so signage may never happen." - from a VIA source

Why do the slow orders cause less delay?

Here's the next question...if CN is so doubtful about the Ventures' ability to not lose shunt at what are now increased speeds, what's the problem with their GCWDs?

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

What does "Speedster" mean?

My own term. Just my own wonderment that a given train arrives 45 minutes late week-on-week, then one week it's only 11 minutes. Particularly true from Brockville-Ottawa, where making up 10 minutes or more is not unheard of. I've also had it reported to me that certain VIA LEs are more aggressive in timekeeping than others, perhaps resulting in more drink spillage in Business Class at times but these are likely the ones piloting the 'speedsters'.

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

It's just skewed. They probably modified the schedule to reflect the slow orders.

But by J ing the trains they don't need to slow down at crossings.

The schedules were not modified, and there have been many suggestions that VIA can add/subtract frequencies on the Corridor at will. My understanding is that with the years-long discussions on the Train Service Agreement between CN and VIA, each slot is negotiated, plus with Metrolinx(!) and that varying schedules is not a unilateral discussion. It would help OTP if more J-trains could be operated, not just the two morning pairs east out of Toronto, but also the newly-minted XS-J set, that has yet to enter revenue service.

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

While waiting, and waiting, for TC to rule on the CN-imposed crossing speed reductions, this popped up. VIA commissioned an independent technical investigation that covered, amongst other items, a review into rescue maneuver procedures involving passenger trains with inoperative brakes:

Order Under Section 32.01 and 36 of the Railway Safety Act (MO 25-01)

Order Under Section 32.01 and 36 of the Railway Safety Act (MO 25-01)

tc.canada.ca