VIA Rail

[swimmer_spe]

https://www.thesudburystar.com/opini...2-4069f567e36b

This has been making the rounds. I did not write it.

Some exerts from it:

"On a regular basis, I have to travel 130 kilometres by car in order to reach the nearest VIA station – Sudbury. Ontario Northland’s bus service just isn’t a practical option for me because their schedules don’t align with the train."

"Returning from Thunder Bay, I must board a different passenger train – the Canadian – because of the reduced service between Sudbury and White River. For some unknown reason, travel by rail from the largest city in Northwestern Ontario just isn’t possible at the moment. Therefore, my partner and I must drive a few hours – on single lane provincial highways with limited to no cell phone service – before finally arriving at the station in Armstrong or Longlac."

"In both of these communities, the waiting rooms are not open to the public – at least for the time being. One can either wait for the Canadian’s arrival in a personal vehicle, or for those who are less fortunate, outside – which can often be in very warm or very cold temperatures depending on the season."

"Flights in this region are just too expensive. Buses aren’t comfortable for distances above a few hundred kilometres. People who drive quite simply can’t do anything else but keep their eyes focused on the road ahead."

"Considering that VIA has resumed many daily trains in the Québec-Windsor corridor, I am having great difficulty understanding why the two other Sudbury-White River runs and the second Canadian frequency can’t possibly be restored."

[Floppa]

I really think VIA should look at bringing train travel to Mars. It could stop at the Moon and Mt. Everest. Sure this would be physically impossible and benefit absolutely no one but it's really not fair that we only bring trains in the corridor and totally leave Mars and the Moon in the dust

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Floppa

I really think VIA should look at bringing train travel to Mars. It could stop at the Moon and Mt. Everest. Sure this would be physically impossible and benefit absolutely no one but it's really not fair that we only bring trains in the corridor and totally leave Mars and the Moon in the dust

I think humans will be on mars before most of the fantasy suggestions in this thread. Seriously.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Floppa

I really think VIA should look at bringing train travel to Mars. It could stop at the Moon and Mt. Everest. Sure this would be physically impossible and benefit absolutely no one but it's really not fair that we only bring trains in the corridor and totally leave Mars and the Moon in the dust

This is more politically than physically impossible. Both of those are not in Canada, and technically, Via does not run outside of Canada. AFAIK Amtrak runs into Canada with their equipment and our train crews.

Originally Posted by milomilo

I think humans will be on mars before most of the fantasy suggestions in this thread. Seriously.

Sadly, this is something I agree with you on. I'd like to be proved wrong though.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by Floppa

I really think VIA should look at bringing train travel to Mars. It could stop at the Moon and Mt. Everest. Sure this would be physically impossible and benefit absolutely no one but it's really not fair that we only bring trains in the corridor and totally leave Mars and the Moon in the dust

You are missing the bigger picture: we need to think about the environment and for saving the climate it is imperative that we replace polluting space rockets with more environmentally friendly trains. That's why we need to build electrified rail corridors between all planets (and their respective moons) within our solar system...

Originally Posted by milomilo

I think humans will be on mars before most of the fantasy suggestions in this thread. Seriously.

Probably, but only because property-owning martians are already bribing the Canadian government to make sure that passenger rail service in Western Canada doesn't get in the way of their ambitious plans for converting their properties into the galaxy's most popular destination for interplanetary tourism...

[esquire]

No one asked for my opinion but I'll provide it anyway.

I think that VIA service could catch on in the Prairies/BC, but the trouble is that the up-front costs of providing a critical mass of service (i.e. not just a 2x a week, super slow train useless to anyone who doesn't have loads of time to kill) are so great that they are simply not realistic given the federal government's tendencies with passenger rail over the last 50 years.

You basically need new rolling stock, a whole cadre of new employees, in many cases new stations. But the dagger here may simply be the fact that without control of the rights of way, such a project may simply never get off the ground... if a passenger train is relegated to the lowest priority by the private owners of the line (CN/CP) then it's hard to see how it could ever work.

Just because it's theoretically possible doesn't mean it's the smart thing to do with limited resources.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by esquire

No one asked for my opinion but I'll provide it anyway.

I think that VIA service could catch on in the Prairies/BC, but the trouble is that the up-front costs of providing a critical mass of service (i.e. not just a 2x a week, super slow train useless to anyone who doesn't have loads of time to kill) are so great that they are simply not realistic given the federal government's tendencies with passenger rail over the last 50 years.

You basically need new rolling stock, a whole cadre of new employees, in many cases new stations. But the dagger here may simply be the fact that without control of the rights of way, such a project may simply never get off the ground... if a passenger train is relegated to the lowest priority by the private owners of the line (CN/CP) then it's hard to see how it could ever work.

Just because it's theoretically possible doesn't mean it's the smart thing to do with limited resources.

Yep - this is a different way of saying what some of us have been. You can't do the incremental approach, as the minimum amount of money you need to spend to produce a service both better than an existing method of transport and that would give a somewhat reasonable rate of return is going to be in the billions. And this explains why the expected Calgary - Edmonton railway is something fairly high speed. You have to spend a ton of money regardless, so the marginal cost of going faster isn't that great while the benefits become much larger with decreased travel times.

There's also not much point talking about a Winnipeg - Regina route while there is no Calgary - Edmonton route. If the route with the best business case doesn't have rail, why worry about anything with a much worse justification?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by esquire

No one asked for my opinion but I'll provide it anyway.

I think that VIA service could catch on in the Prairies/BC, but the trouble is that the up-front costs of providing a critical mass of service (i.e. not just a 2x a week, super slow train useless to anyone who doesn't have loads of time to kill) are so great that they are simply not realistic given the federal government's tendencies with passenger rail over the last 50 years.

You basically need new rolling stock, a whole cadre of new employees, in many cases new stations. But the dagger here may simply be the fact that without control of the rights of way, such a project may simply never get off the ground... if a passenger train is relegated to the lowest priority by the private owners of the line (CN/CP) then it's hard to see how it could ever work.

Just because it's theoretically possible doesn't mean it's the smart thing to do with limited resources.

This is why the regulation should be changed that passenger service gets priority. Till then, you are correct that it won't work on the Prairies. It they could get that priority service, then having a train every day, each way would start the critical mass building.

Originally Posted by milomilo

Yep - this is a different way of saying what some of us have been. You can't do the incremental approach, as the minimum amount of money you need to spend to produce a service both better than an existing method of transport and that would give a somewhat reasonable rate of return is going to be in the billions. And this explains why the expected Calgary - Edmonton railway is something fairly high speed. You have to spend a ton of money regardless, so the marginal cost of going faster isn't that great while the benefits become much larger with decreased travel times.

There's also not much point talking about a Winnipeg - Regina route while there is no Calgary - Edmonton route. If the route with the best business case doesn't have rail, why worry about anything with a much worse justification?

I don't think anyone wants to terminate it in Regina. I do agree that the C-E service should come back.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

This is why the regulation should be changed that passenger service gets priority. Till then, you are correct that it won't work on the Prairies. It they could get that priority service, then having a train every day, each way would start the critical mass building.

Delaying hundreds of millions of tons of freight for a few tens of daily passengers makes little sense.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Delaying hundreds of millions of tons of freight for a few tens of daily passengers makes little sense.

So, what happens when with the first real cold day all their fleet is having problems with air, which then has many crews with their time running out, causing multiple day that sometimes take a few days to a week to clear the backlog?

I know on the CN mainline there is an oversiding train, each way, every day. This means that all other trains must yield to them as they do not fit in any of the sidings between the terminals. If CN can figure out how to fit those through, they can certainly figure out how to fit a passenger train through too without delaying it.

It boils down to them not doing it because they don't have to. Till that changes, nothing else really will.

[milomilo]

CP market cap: $60B, revenue: $7.7B
CN market cap: $96B, revenue $15B

VIA revenue: a few hundred million

That's the reason the freight operators get priority on their own tracks. One freight train carries millions of dollars of goods. The trains you propose, if they carry anyone at all, will have a handful of the least productive poor people, but probably not since a bus would get them where they want to go cheaper and faster.

[milomilo]

To put some numbers together, say you have a 100 car train of oil tank cars. They're 110,000L each, that's 690 barrels. At $50/barrel, that's $3.5 million for the train. You think a handful of poor people on a VIA train, that value their time so little that they'd choose a slower train over a bus, are a higher priority than the train carrying millions of dollars of goods?

Things are different on the corridor, where the trains are full of passengers that are high productivity members of society going to work or spend money. But it would not be the case on a slow milk run train in the prairies.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by milomilo

To put some numbers together, say you have a 100 car train of oil tank cars. They're 110,000L each, that's 690 barrels. At $50/barrel, that's $3.5 million for the train. You think a handful of poor people on a VIA train, that value their time so little that they'd choose a slower train over a bus, are a higher priority than the train carrying millions of dollars of goods?

Things are different on the corridor, where the trains are full of passengers that are high productivity members of society going to work or spend money. But it would not be the case on a slow milk run train in the prairies.

Even on the Corridor there's a limit. That's why it's hard to close a case for high speed rail.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

To put some numbers together, say you have a 100 car train of oil tank cars. They're 110,000L each, that's 690 barrels. At $50/barrel, that's $3.5 million for the train. You think a handful of poor people on a VIA train, that value their time so little that they'd choose a slower train over a bus, are a higher priority than the train carrying millions of dollars of goods?

Things are different on the corridor, where the trains are full of passengers that are high productivity members of society going to work or spend money. But it would not be the case on a slow milk run train in the prairies.

So, what you are saying is if we had the network set up better that would make the trains more full, then it would be profitable to run them instead of oil?

So how many 20 car passenger trains run on the Corridor?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, what you are saying is if we had the network set up better that would make the trains more full, then it would be profitable to run them instead of oil?

The geography of the prairies will never be conducive to favouring passengers over freight. Saskatchewan is twice the size of Germany and has 1% of the population.

[jamincan]

I'm actually surprised a full train of oil tankers would be worth so little.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I'm actually surprised a full train of oil tankers would be worth so little.

It's the easiest calculation I could think of. I don't know the value of your average shipping container - it might be more and you can double stack them. A train of grain, probably less valuable.

[Nouvellecosse]

Besides, if we managed to displace freight in favour of passenger rail traffic, what would that achieve? Transporting freight by road is massively less efficient than by rail in terms of energy usage so we'd hardly be improving sustainability, and freight is absolute torture on roads from the perspective of road quality and maintenance costs. In fact, the number of large trucks is the main determining factor for road wear. If anything, we should be trying to coax more freight service off of the road and onto the tracks.

No, if we're going to add additional passenger service to the country's railroads, it can't be at the expense of freight traffic. If we can't add attractive passenger service without disrupting freight, we either need to expand the infrastructure where economically plausible, or simply add intercity passenger services on the highway instead.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The geography of the prairies will never be conducive to favouring passengers over freight. Saskatchewan is twice the size of Germany and has 1% of the population.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Besides, if we managed to displace freight in favour of passenger rail traffic, what would that achieve? Transporting freight by road is massively less efficient than by rail in terms of energy usage so we'd hardly be improving sustainability, and freight is absolute torture on roads from the perspective of road quality and maintenance costs. In fact, the number of large trucks is the main determining factor for road wear. If anything, we should be trying to coax more freight service off of the road and onto the tracks.

No, if we're going to add additional passenger service to the country's railroads, it can't be at the expense of freight traffic. If we can't add attractive passenger service without disrupting freight, we either need to expand the infrastructure where economically plausible, or simply add intercity passenger services on the highway instead.

The one thing the Prairies have going for it is the thing that it is mocked for - flat land and being wide open (Your dog runs away and you see it for days.). This means for the most part, adding 1 more track is easy enough. Having double or triple track would not only be great for freight, but also for passenger service. have it so that the bottlenecks are west of Calgary/Edmonton and east of Winnipeg.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The one thing the Prairies have going for it is the thing that it is mocked for - flat land and being wide open (Your dog runs away and you see it for days.).

That would be yet another thing the prairies and mars have in common, but I guess having "flat land and being wide open" is why Africa and Mongolia have such dense passenger rail networks (hint: their passenger rail networks are as sparse as Canada's)...