Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
Which is pretty damning to the case that people have been suggesting - that to better service us poor westerners deprived of VIA service, we should keep propping up the Canadian. Despite your experience that VIA can barely even give away economy seats to people who might use the service for transportation rather than tourism. Those empty seats are nearly free for VIA, they could likely charge a few dollars and still make money - yet they remain empty, despite there only being a few trains per week to fill.
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Let me qualify what is said. They always have empty seats available. The train is not empty in economy. It is just never "full" and they don't sell out.
You might ask who is on the train? There are tourists and more tourists. People who view this as a once in a life experience. Some Canadian but many from overseas. The odd stop in a small town along the way where one or two people get off/come on.
Living in Saskatoon at the time, I found it marginally convenient to go to Edmonton and Vancouver if I had time (and usually I did not and would fly). There were always people boarding in Economy from Edmonton going as far as Jasper. Back then it was a morning departure, you had breakfast on board and arrived in Jasper late morning. I would never view this as an option for Toronto<->Vancouver it just takes to long.
The odd person in his early 20s heading from Montreal/Toronto to "start life" in Vancouver. The odd person in his early 20s heading from Vancouver/Edmonton/Saskatoon to "start life" in Montreal.
Looking at the revised "Covid" schedule it is displayed as 5 days but is actually 4 days (e.g. 4x24hours) from Toronto to Vancouver. The old schedule was also listed as 5 days but more like 4.5 days in real travel time. They have taken out a lot of slack in the schedule that was put in to improve sight seeing.
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