VIA Rail

[casper]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

Having the head office somewhere other than Montreal would make absolutely no difference. The problem is the federal government, the provincial government, politicians and the public at large. Changing the location of the head office will not change anything. Via is only given so much cash. It is the funding that in part needs to be addressed.

The Rocky Mountaineer makes money but it only runs part of the year. They also charge a fortune for the ride/ experience. Nobody who just wants to get from A to B would be willing to pay their price. Their trains are still delayed by freights.

Not all their equipment is old, some of it is new. That is a sign they are making money.

A tourist train is not general public transportation, but a non-tourist train can still carry tourists.

Separating the management team that handles the corridor and the Canadian is critical. They are fundamentally two different business serving different customers with different needs. Both those programs need to be tailored around their customer base.

Leaving out the Economy cars on the Canadian both The Rocky Mountaineer and Canadian are after the same passenger and should have comparable pricing. Via should start by trying to make that successful.

It can then in phase II add some economy cars and go after the connect A to B market.

Being delayed by freight trains is a non-issue for the Canadian. I used the Canadian a few time between Saskatoon and Vancouver between 2000 and 2013. If you ask the on board staff there are multiple hours of slack in the schedule to ensure it pass through the mountains at the best time for viewing and arrives after breakfast service in Vancouver. I have left two-three hours late and no one is worried about making an on-time arrival.

[someone123]

By the way, people sometimes mention that Vancouver doesn't have much commuter rail but there is the West Coast Express. It is operated by TransLink, the regional transportation authority.

Without TransLink to operate this service, what are the odds that VIA or some other federal level agency would have stepped in and set it up? What would Toronto have if there were no Metrolinx and VIA were the only potential operator?

We cannot know for sure but for whatever it's worth, my take on it is that very little would have to change in a parallel universe to end up with no commuter rail at all in those cities and that, if it didn't exist, people would treat it as something exotic and unproven. To some degree this is the world many other metro areas or provinces are stuck in, where there is nobody to champion regional public transportation goals.

[casper]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Name me another federal government thing that is only focused on one small area of the country, and is expected to pay for itself.

Examples of this exist all over the country.....

Here in Vancouver, Granville Island is well some old historical building that operate as a farmers market. Guess who owns and operates it. The feds.

No shortage of ports and marinas all over the country.

The Saint Lawrence Sea Way.

The Ferries in Atlantic Canada.

.... the list goes on.

[casper]

Originally Posted by someone123

By the way, people sometimes mention that Vancouver doesn't have much commuter rail but there is the West Coast Express. It is operated by TransLink, the regional transportation authority.

Without TransLink to operate this service, what are the odds that VIA or some other federal level agency would have stepped in and set it up? What would Toronto have if there were no Metrolinx and VIA were the only potential operator?

We cannot know for sure but for whatever it's worth, my take on it is that very little would have to change in a parallel universe to end up with no commuter rail at all in those cities and that, if it didn't exist, people would treat it as something exotic and unproven.

The train between Vancouver and Seattle is operated by a US railway but with the provincial government helping to bring that to life.

BC for many decades had BC Rail operating a passenger rail service. There is probably a strong business case to bring that back that a train east.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Name me another federal government thing that is only focused on one small area of the country, and is expected to pay for itself.

NAS airports, most ports.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

I wish VIA Rail implemented a "Vancouver-Edmonton Corridor" That looked something like this:

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Well, let's call a spade a spade (speaking metaphorically, and in a non racialized context).

Most of the anti-VIA posters on here are urbanists (not surprising since this is SSP), and thus primarily interested in commuter rail and intercity travel in the densest corridor in the country. The rest of Canada can just pound sand.

To these urbanists, the only REAL Canada is the Windsor- Quebec City corridor (and Vancouver), and, since they have no real interest in seeing what Kapuskasing actually looks like, it serves their purposes to dump all federal subsidies into the country's airports rather than the rail system. The rest of Canada is after all "flyover country" - easily dismissed, and, if you never see it, you can pretend it doesn't exist...........

The rest of Canada is flyover country for people who live in rural areas and smaller communities too. Most people don’t Have 10 days and $2000 to get from Toronto to Vancouver.

Also, most airports did not get subsidies in the Before Time, most of them were expected to cover all capital and operating costs plus pay rent to the Federal Government.

[casper]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The rest of Canada is flyover country for people who live in rural areas and smaller communities too. Most people don’t Have 10 days and $2000 to get from Toronto to Vancouver.

Also, most airports did not get subsidies in the Before Time, most of them were expected to cover all capital and operating costs plus pay rent to the Federal Government.

Getting people from A to B is not what the Canadian is. It is the Vacation. They need to focus on making that profitable and attracting tourists to Canada. Along the way if they can provide a passenger service that is useful to the average Canadian on the route that is cool.

There are other routes that are about connecting communities.

There is a second route that connects to the Canadian and Jasper but continues to Prince George and then Prince Rupert. Same thing, it is a tourist train and with COVID it is empty.

• Video Link

[Aylmer]

The distinction between "travel passengers" and "tourism passengers" is one which seems totally fine to me at first blush. But the more I think about it, the less clear the distinction becomes tricky.

For example, when I can spare the time, I prefer to take the train to my in-laws in Winnipeg rather than flying. Or I've gone to conferences in Halifax via train, and Seattle and Calgary via train+bus. In all cases, I'm going somewhere, but I also do it because I enjoy the experience of getting there. I don't know what bucket that puts me in.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by casper

Getting people from A to B is not what the Canadian is. It is the Vacation. They need to focus on making that profitable and attracting tourists to Canada. Along the way if they can provide a passenger service that is useful to the average Canadian on the route that is cool.

1) There's a very limited market for an expensive week long ride through rural Canada and wilderness. Especially at the amount of time the Canadian takes and at its prices.

2) Why should the Government of Canada be in the business of running tourist services? If so, why stop with VIA? Do we expect the federal government to run Arctic cruises too?

[MonctonRad]

VIA needs to be a national rail passenger service - i.e., transcontinental and interconnected.

If it is neither of these two things, then, in my mind, the need for a federally operated rail passenger service ceases to exist. Montreal to Toronto is not Canada - Halifax to Vancouver is (I would include St. John's, but there is no longer a railway on the island of Newfoundland).

If VIA is not going to offer services in eight provinces, then why should taxpayers in those provinces want to continue to hand over their dollars to fund what is essentially a Toronto/Montreal intercity service!

If the Canadian and the Ocean are eliminated, then eliminate VIA too. Let Ontario and Quebec fight over how to fund the Toronto/Montreal service (or not)………..

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

VIA needs to be a national rail passenger service - i.e., transcontinental and interconnected.

If it is neither of these two things, then, in my mind, the need for a federally operated rail passenger service ceases to exist. Montreal to Toronto is not Canada - Halifax to Vancouver is (I would include St. John's, but there is no longer a railway on the island of Newfoundland).

If VIA is not going to offer services in eight provinces, then why should taxpayers in those provinces want to continue to hand over their dollars to fund what is essentially a Toronto/Montreal intercity service!

If the Canadian and the Ocean are eliminated, then eliminate VIA too. Let Ontario and Quebec fight over how to fund the Toronto/Montreal service (or not)………..

VIA already does not serve all of Canada, the existence of the Canadian is a mirage, its service is irrelevant as it serves no useful transportation service. It is a relic of the past that we keep only for emotional reasons, not rational ones.

While the Canadian is a waste of money, I don't find that to be its greatest problem. The biggest problem it causes is the damage to the national conversation on passenger rail. The starting point is always "what should we do with the Canadian?", not "how can we best serve Canadians with public transport?". And you would never answer the second, correct question by building the Canadian.

[MonctonRad]

I repeat - Montreal to Toronto is not Canada. If your vision of VIA is to serve the corridor and nothing else, then it is no longer a national passenger rail carrier, and the feds have no business operating the service. Sell the whole damned thing off...………

If you want to maintain VIA, then let it fulfill it's entire mandate, from coast to coast, and fund it appropriately. Also look at route expansion and give passenger trains priority on the trackage.

In other words, make VIA relevant again.

If you build it, they will come...………...

[wave46]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

VIA needs to be a national rail passenger service - i.e., transcontinental and interconnected.

If it is neither of these two things, then, in my mind, the need for a federally operated rail passenger service ceases to exist. Montreal to Toronto is not Canada - Halifax to Vancouver is (I would include St. John's, but there is no longer a railway on the island of Newfoundland).

If VIA is not going to offer services in eight provinces, then why should taxpayers in those provinces want to continue to hand over their dollars to fund what is essentially a Toronto/Montreal intercity service!

If the Canadian and the Ocean are eliminated, then eliminate VIA too. Let Ontario and Quebec fight over how to fund the Toronto/Montreal service (or not)………..

In a certain sense, you're probably right. Effectively, VIA 'steals' passengers from other modes of transportation even on the Corridor and subsidizes their journey, so why should someone from New Brunswick pay for that?

On the other hand, the current trajectory is 'mediocrity for all'. Which makes it increasingly irrelevant and a hole to flush tax dollars down. So, I keep sounding like a broken record: What is VIA's mandate? As it stands, it currently has none.

In a sense, it reminds me of our Navy's Iroquois destroyers - a decision to replace them was continually put off until basically they suffered catastrophic failure. Now we're just getting around to the idea of replacing them. I suspect VIA will have a similar trajectory. We won't decide what VIA wants to be before it needs a huge capital injection, at which point killing it might be the better option (at least in some political circles).

Admittedly VIA needs to be retained in some form for those isolated communities with no other service, but that's a handful of routes.

[jamincan]

I personally think that there is value in having a national rail passenger system, but people do have a point in noting just how uneconomic a lot of the VIA service is. To be clear, no service currently operates without a subsidy, even within the corridor, but the difference between corridor service and non-corridor service is pretty stark. From VIA's 2019 Annual Report (pdf):

ROUTE                       SUBSIDY/PAX    SUBSIDY/PAX-MILE
Corridor:
Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto          $34.56    $0.15
Quebec-Montreal-Ottawa           $23.05    $0.15
Toronto-London-Sarnia-Windsor    $23.02    $0.19
Toronto-Niagara                  $97.47    $1.23
Average:                         $30.28    $0.16
Total shortfall: $144,833,000

Long-haul:
Montreal-Halifax                $535.26    $0.98
Toronto-Vancouver               $594.72    $0.48
Average:                        $565.69    $0.63
Total shortfall: $90,786,000

Mandatory (Montreal-Gaspe/Jonquier/Senneterre, Sudbury-White River, Winnipeg-Churchill, Jasper-Prince Rupert):
Average:                        $654.02    $2.55
Total shortfall: $42,362,0000

It does raise the question whether some of this service might be more economically and environmentally provided by other means. Sudbury-White River has less than 10% fare recovery and serves less than 6000 people per year. Does it really make sense to spend $4 million per year on this route?

How many passengers on the Canadian rely on the service versus tourists who are riding on it as a leisure activity - a rail-based cruise so-to-speak. Would we be okay funding $500-$600/passengers on a cruise ship by comparison? Would splitting out the tour train aspects of the Canadian from mandated local services allow for better fare recovery?

I think this are worthwhile questions, but nevertheless, the political reality is that it's not like the government gives VIA rail a set amount of money and then VIA can do with it as it pleases. If VIA rail were to cut its long-haul services, you can bet that they'd likely lose $100 million in funding. Improvements in the corridor are not something that they can make at the expense of other services because the funding model just doesn't work that way.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

VIA needs to be a national rail passenger service - i.e., transcontinental and interconnected.

If it is neither of these two things, then, in my mind, the need for a federally operated rail passenger service ceases to exist. Montreal to Toronto is not Canada - Halifax to Vancouver is (I would include St. John's, but there is no longer a railway on the island of Newfoundland).

If VIA is not going to offer services in eight provinces, then why should taxpayers in those provinces want to continue to hand over their dollars to fund what is essentially a Toronto/Montreal intercity service!

If the Canadian and the Ocean are eliminated, then eliminate VIA too. Let Ontario and Quebec fight over how to fund the Toronto/Montreal service (or not)………..

I'm always surprised that those who advocate for expanded VIA services think this argument will work.

If VIA closed up shop, I would bet money literally the only service that would remain operational is the Corridor, subsidized by the Ontario and Quebec governments. I doubt other provincial governments would care to maintain services in their provinces at all. The demise is Greyhound in Western Canada should prove instructive here.

[Dengler Avenue]

I'm wondering then: Can axing any one of the routes lead to even less funding for the rest? For example, if Go Train ends up running to Niagara Falls more regularly, VIA can probably ax it.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by someone123

By the way, people sometimes mention that Vancouver doesn't have much commuter rail but there is the West Coast Express. It is operated by TransLink, the regional transportation authority.

Without TransLink to operate this service, what are the odds that VIA or some other federal level agency would have stepped in and set it up? What would Toronto have if there were no Metrolinx and VIA were the only potential operator?

We cannot know for sure but for whatever it's worth, my take on it is that very little would have to change in a parallel universe to end up with no commuter rail at all in those cities and that, if it didn't exist, people would treat it as something exotic and unproven. To some degree this is the world many other metro areas or provinces are stuck in, where there is nobody to champion regional public transportation goals.

A single line that really hasn't expanded since day one!

Read that again......

GO and AMT/REM have added lines, frequency and stations since inception. Vancouver might have added a station and an extra time per day.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

1) There's a very limited market for an expensive week long ride through rural Canada and wilderness. Especially at the amount of time the Canadian takes and at its prices.

2) Why should the Government of Canada be in the business of running tourist services? If so, why stop with VIA? Do we expect the federal government to run Arctic cruises too?

1) and 2) Via could operate both, but we need to focus transporting more Canadians across Canada.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

VIA needs to be a national rail passenger service - i.e., transcontinental and interconnected.

If it is neither of these two things, then, in my mind, the need for a federally operated rail passenger service ceases to exist. Montreal to Toronto is not Canada - Halifax to Vancouver is (I would include St. John's, but there is no longer a railway on the island of Newfoundland).

If VIA is not going to offer services in eight provinces, then why should taxpayers in those provinces want to continue to hand over their dollars to fund what is essentially a Toronto/Montreal intercity service!

If the Canadian and the Ocean are eliminated, then eliminate VIA too. Let Ontario and Quebec fight over how to fund the Toronto/Montreal service (or not)………..

I like your thinking....

Originally Posted by milomilo

VIA already does not serve all of Canada, the existence of the Canadian is a mirage, its service is irrelevant as it serves no useful transportation service. It is a relic of the past that we keep only for emotional reasons, not rational ones.

While the Canadian is a waste of money, I don't find that to be its greatest problem. The biggest problem it causes is the damage to the national conversation on passenger rail. The starting point is always "what should we do with the Canadian?", not "how can we best serve Canadians with public transport?". And you would never answer the second, correct question by building the Canadian.

Let's start by making major cities hubs.
Have trains terminate there.
Have trains start there.
Run them at least once a day, every day, both directions.

In other word, copy what makes the Corridor successful.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I repeat - Montreal to Toronto is not Canada. If your vision of VIA is to serve the corridor and nothing else, then it is no longer a national passenger rail carrier, and the feds have no business operating the service. Sell the whole damned thing off...………

If you want to maintain VIA, then let it fulfill it's entire mandate, from coast to coast, and fund it appropriately. Also look at route expansion and give passenger trains priority on the trackage.

In other words, make VIA relevant again.

If you build it, they will come...………...

I doubt outside the Corridor there will ever be enough demand for HSR, but regular, frequent, on time train service should have enough demand.

Originally Posted by wave46

In a certain sense, you're probably right. Effectively, VIA 'steals' passengers from other modes of transportation even on the Corridor and subsidizes their journey, so why should someone from New Brunswick pay for that?

On the other hand, the current trajectory is 'mediocrity for all'. Which makes it increasingly irrelevant and a hole to flush tax dollars down. So, I keep sounding like a broken record: What is VIA's mandate? As it stands, it currently has none.

In a sense, it reminds me of our Navy's Iroquois destroyers - a decision to replace them was continually put off until basically they suffered catastrophic failure. Now we're just getting around to the idea of replacing them. I suspect VIA will have a similar trajectory. We won't decide what VIA wants to be before it needs a huge capital injection, at which point killing it might be the better option (at least in some political circles).

Admittedly VIA needs to be retained in some form for those isolated communities with no other service, but that's a handful of routes.

I served on 2 of our destroyers.... "they are great", until you understand they had to use water compensating tanks for stability. That means that as we suck fuel out, we are filling those tanks with water. They bob too much. The crew bunks are below the waterline. The list goes on....

They had their use, back in the 60s, when they were designed. They weren't relevant towards the last 20 years of their lives.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I'm always surprised that those who advocate for expanded VIA services think this argument will work.

If VIA closed up shop, I would bet money literally the only service that would remain operational is the Corridor, subsidized by the Ontario and Quebec governments. I doubt other provincial governments would care to maintain services in their provinces at all. The demise is Greyhound in Western Canada should prove instructive here.

Right now, you would be correct. That is because everything outside of the Corridor has become irrelevant. It's time to change that.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I'm wondering then: Can axing any one of the routes lead to even less funding for the rest? For example, if Go Train ends up running to Niagara Falls more regularly, VIA can probably ax it.

How would it connect to the USA?

[swimmer_spe]

Boredom, and a desire to make things better out west, here are my ideas for daily service.



Existing routes hours
1. Toronto – Sudbury – Winnipeg 34
2. Winnipeg– Sudbury – Toronto 34
3. Winnipeg - Saskatoon – Edmonton 25
4. Edmonton - Saskatoon – Winnipeg 25
5. Edmonton - Kamloops – Vancouver 32
6. Vancouver - Kamloops – Edmonton 32
Feeders
7. Sudbury – White River 8
8. White River – Sudbury 8
9. Winnipeg – Churchill 40
10. Churchill - Winnipeg 40
11. Edmonton - Jasper – Prince Rupert 23
12. Prince Rupert - Jasper – Edmonton 23

New Routes Hours
13. Toronto – North Bay – Sudbury – Sault St Marie – White River – Thunder Bay – Winnipeg 44
14. Winnipeg– Thunder Bay– White River – Sault St Marie –Sudbury – North Bay – Toronto 44
15. Winnipeg – Regina – Calgary 16
16. Calgary– Regina - Winnipeg 16
17. Calgary – Kamloops – Vancouver 21
18. Vancouver – Kamloops – Calgary 21
19. Calgary – Edmonton 5
20. Edmonton- Calgary 5


 
Train route names
1. Canadian West
2. Canadian East
3. Canadian West
4. Canadian East
5. Canadian West
6. Canadian East
7. Lake Superior West
8. Lake Superior East
9. Hudson Bay North
10. Hudson Bay South
11. Skeena West
12. Skeena East
13. Great Lakes West
14. Great Lakes East
15. New Canadian West
16. New Canadian East
17. New Canadian West
18. New Canadian East
19. Chinook North
20. Chinook South
 
Train hubs and their routes:
Assume all trains leave at 0900 local time

Toronto
Train 1
34 hours
Leaves at 0900, to arrive at Sudbury for 1700, and arrive in Winnipeg at 1900 the next day
Train 2
34 hours
Arrives from Winnipeg at 1900. It would have left at 0900 from Winnipeg and pass through Sudbury at 1100
Train 13
37 hours
Leaves at 0900 to arrive in North Bay at 1400, arrives at Sudbury at 1700, arrives in SSM at 2300, arrives at White River at 0600, Arrives in Thunder Bay at 1300, Arrives in Winnipeg a day later at 2000
Train 14
37 hours
Arrives from Winnipeg at 2200. It will have left Winnipeg at 0900, Arrives in Thunder Bay at 1700, arrives at White River at 2400, arrives in SSM at 0800, arrives at Sudbury at 1400, arrive in North Bay at 1700,

Sudbury
Train 1
arrives at 1700 bound for Winnipeg
Train 2
arrives at 1100 bound for Toronto
Train 13
Arrives from North Bay at 1700
Train 14
Arrives from SSM
Train 7
Leaves at 0900 Arrives in white river at 1700
Train 8
arrives at 1700 from White river

White River
Train 7
Arrives in white river at 1700, Leaves at 0900 From Sudbury
Train 8
Leaves at 0900 to arrive at 1700 in Sudbury
Train 13
Leaves Toronto at 0900 to arrive at White River at 0600 the next day, Arrives in Winnipeg 2000
Train 14
Leaves Winnipeg at 0900, to arrive at 2400, arrives in Toronto at 2200


Winnipeg
Train 1
arrives in Winnipeg at 1900. The previous day, it leaves Toronto at 0900 and passed through Sudbury at 1700
Train 2
leaves Winnipeg at 0900. The next day, it passes through Sudbury at 1100 and arrives in Toronto at 1900
Train 3
Leaves Winnipeg at 0900, arrives in Saskatoon at 2100 arrives in Edmonton at 1000
Train 4
Leaves Edmonton at 0900, arrives in Saskatoon at 2200 arrives in Winnipeg 1000
Train 9
leaves Winnipeg at 0900. Arrives in Churchill at 0100 2 days later
Train 10
Leaves Churchill at 0900 Arrives in Winnipeg at 0100 2 days later
Train 13
Arrives in Winnipeg at 2000, Arrives in Thunder Bay at 1300, arrives at White River at 0600, arrives in SSM at 2300, arrives at Sudbury at 1700, arrive in North Bay at 1400, Leaves at 0900 from Toronto.
Train 14
It will have left Winnipeg at 0900, Arrives in Thunder Bay at 1700, arrives at White River at 2400, arrives in SSM at 0800, arrives at Sudbury at 1400, arrive in North Bay at 1700, Arrives in Toronto at 2200.
Train 15
25 hours
Leaves Winnipeg at 0900, arrives in Regina at 2100 arrives in Calgary at 1000
Train 16
Leaves Calgary at 0900, arrives in Regina at 2200 arrives in Winnipeg 1000

Edmonton
Train 3
Leaves Winnipeg at 0900, arrives in Saskatoon at 2100 arrives in Edmonton at 1000
Train 4
Leaves Edmonton at 0900, arrives in Saskatoon at 2200 arrives in Winnipeg 1000
Train 5
32 hours
Leaves Edmonton at 0900, arrives in Vancouver at 1700 the next day
Train 6
Leaves Vancouver at 0900, arrives in Edmonton at 1700 the next day
Train 11
23 hours
Leaves Edmonton at 0900, arrive in Prince Rupert at 0800 the next day
Train 12
Leaves Prince Rupert at 0900, arrive in Edmonton at 0800 the next day
Train 19
5 hours
Leave Calgary at 0600, arrive in 1100 Edmonton
Leave Calgary at 1100, arrive in 1600 Edmonton
Leave Calgary at 1600, arrive in 2100 Edmonton
Train 20
Leave Edmonton at 0600, arrive in 1100 Calgary
Leave Edmonton at 1100, arrive in 1600 Calgary
Leave Edmonton at 1600, arrive in 2100 Calgary

Calgary
Train 15
Leaves Winnipeg at 0900, arrives in Regina at 2100 arrives in Calgary at 1000
Train 16
Leaves Calgary at 0900, arrives in Regina at 2200 arrives in Winnipeg 1000
Train 17
21 hours
Leave Calgary at 0900, arrive in Vancouver at 0600
Train 18
Leave at Vancouver 0900, arrive in Calgary at 0600
Train 19
5 hours
Leave Calgary at 0600, arrive in 1100 Edmonton
Leave Calgary at 1100, arrive in 1600 Edmonton
Leave Calgary at 1600, arrive in 2100 Edmonton
Train 20
Leave Edmonton at 0600, arrive in 1100 Calgary
Leave Edmonton at 1100, arrive in 1600 Calgary
Leave Edmonton at 1600, arrive in 2100 Calgary

Vancouver
Train 5
Leaves Edmonton at 0900, arrives in Vancouver at 1700 the next day
Train 6
Leaves Vancouver at 0900, arrives in Edmonton at 1700 the next day
Train 17
21 hours
Leave Calgary at 0900, arrive in Vancouver at 0600
Train 18
Leave at Vancouver 0900, arrive in Calgary at 0600