EnviroTO
Senior Member
The EA for GO Transit to K-W is almost done and the one for Milton hasn't even started.
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- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
One thing that hasn't been discussed, and would cost practically nothing but change virtually everything is the customer service one receives on passenger rail in North America. I know people tire of hearing examples of how great European rail service is, but generally "service" is implied to mean how great their infrastructure is, rather than how great their actual customer service is, which is just as important and often overlooked. To compare:
Europe:
- train sits on platform with open doors, you walk onto train yourself and find a seat
- you are free to walk up and down the length of the train and sit anywhere as long as the seat is in the same class and is not reserved. Meals can be bought at a dining car, subcontracted to a private catering operator.
- only one or two conductors are on board a train, walking up and down the length and they generally don't care if you are not in your seat
- you can disembark at a station along the way, as long as it is en route and doesn't exceed the trip length you paid for. For example, if I was traveling between Toronto and Montreal, I could get off at Kingston and wander around that city for a few hours and then catch a later train to Montreal without paying for two tickets.
Canada:
- you have to line up to gain access to the train. Five or ten minutes before departure, they open the doors and you go to a car that is designated for your destination. You then search for a seat in that car only while others are frantically doing the same.
- you are confined to your car for the duration of the trip. Meals can only be purchased by a VIA conductor who pushes a cart through the aisles according to his/her schedule.
- There is a conductor for more or less every car. Their job is similar to the cabin crew of an airline: they serve food, collect tickets and make announcements.
- Your ticket is only valid for your final destination city. Even if you wanted to get out and forfeit your ticket, you couldn't because the conductor will only open the door at its designated stop.
Basically, passenger rail in Canada is like flying, only you trade more legroom and the lack of a security check for a much longer travel time and less flexible schedules. If VIA ever wants to be competitive with air travel - especially given the rise of niche operators like Porter - it not only has to improve its speed and reliability but it has to completely rethink the way customers are treated.
Europe:
- train sits on platform with open doors, you walk onto train yourself and find a seat
- you are free to walk up and down the length of the train and sit anywhere as long as the seat is in the same class and is not reserved. Meals can be bought at a dining car, subcontracted to a private catering operator.
- only one or two conductors are on board a train, walking up and down the length and they generally don't care if you are not in your seat
- you can disembark at a station along the way, as long as it is en route and doesn't exceed the trip length you paid for. For example, if I was traveling between Toronto and Montreal, I could get off at Kingston and wander around that city for a few hours and then catch a later train to Montreal without paying for two tickets.
Canada:
- you have to line up to gain access to the train. Five or ten minutes before departure, they open the doors and you go to a car that is designated for your destination. You then search for a seat in that car only while others are frantically doing the same.
- you are confined to your car for the duration of the trip. Meals can only be purchased by a VIA conductor who pushes a cart through the aisles according to his/her schedule.
- There is a conductor for more or less every car. Their job is similar to the cabin crew of an airline: they serve food, collect tickets and make announcements.
- Your ticket is only valid for your final destination city. Even if you wanted to get out and forfeit your ticket, you couldn't because the conductor will only open the door at its designated stop.
Basically, passenger rail in Canada is like flying, only you trade more legroom and the lack of a security check for a much longer travel time and less flexible schedules. If VIA ever wants to be competitive with air travel - especially given the rise of niche operators like Porter - it not only has to improve its speed and reliability but it has to completely rethink the way customers are treated.
Northern Light
Superstar
I absolutely agree!
On behalf of UT I nominate Hipster to be our spokesperson for VIA Rail reform to the minister!
Seriously!
Though everyone else can join in two, as long as your as persuasive!
Here's the cheat sheet:
The Honourable John Baird
Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities
The Honourable John Baird Tower C - 330 Sparks St.
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1A 0N5
Telephone:
613-991-0700
Fax:
613-995-0327
E-mail:
mintc@tc.gc.ca
And/or
VIA RAIL
E-mail: customer_relations@viarail.ca
Mailing address:
Customer Relations
VIA Rail Canada Inc.
P.O. Box. 8116, Station "A"
Montréal (Québec) H3C 3N3
Telephone number: 1 800 681-2561 (Canada/U.S.)
On behalf of UT I nominate Hipster to be our spokesperson for VIA Rail reform to the minister!
Seriously!
Though everyone else can join in two, as long as your as persuasive!
Here's the cheat sheet:
The Honourable John Baird
Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities
The Honourable John Baird Tower C - 330 Sparks St.
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1A 0N5
Telephone:
613-991-0700
Fax:
613-995-0327
E-mail:
mintc@tc.gc.ca
And/or
VIA RAIL
E-mail: customer_relations@viarail.ca
Mailing address:
Customer Relations
VIA Rail Canada Inc.
P.O. Box. 8116, Station "A"
Montréal (Québec) H3C 3N3
Telephone number: 1 800 681-2561 (Canada/U.S.)
TOareaFan
Superstar
But you would have a hard time agreeing that they would get express service before any other station/town/city on the same corridor got it?
With the exception of one train in the morning that runs express from Bramlea, this line is a limited service line (albeit with bigger plans ahead) with all trains making all stops.......if the KW service arrived before the corridor was ready for full service, then any trains serving KW and Guelph would have to stop at all stops too...just a line extension sort thingy.
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
This is definitely the coolest thing about European trains that North American trains lack. In terms of those other points, VIA really takes away a bit of the freedom that one's supposed to have while on rails. I would love to see Canada get back on the rails, something like RR's Rail Ontario thing he posted a while back. I think that High Speed Rail in a dense corridor is the most logical place to start.
Epi
Active Member
I wonder how it would be like if we privatized the entire system. Would a private operator do a better job? In Japan the railroads are privatized.
Taking another page out of other countries, in some places, it's frequent that track time is subcontracted out to various companies so multiple types of trains might run on the same track. Would it even be possible to do this for us? Wouldn't be cool if say a porter-like company rented out the right of way for a train here and there but with good service.
kEiThZ
Superstar
The problem is that they try to compete with air. If you look at Europe, with the exception of high speed rail, regular rail is more likely to compete with the car and the bus. VIA can't compete with both markets; it can only compete with one market well. Today that seems to be air travel. The problem is that it charges fares that approach those of a flight sometimes but offers no where near the speed and possibly even service (VIA 1 vs. domestic business class on commercial air). Nor does it offer a significant speed or price advantage compared to a bus. This is what needs to be fixed. They need to pick a market and stick to it....and it will take time for many Canadians to get used to it. Canadians by and large can't imagine European style spartan rail systems. They generally think of trains as mini airplanes. I am skeptical that most Canadians would willing trade in VIA's service today for a less comfortable European style service if it meant saving just a few bucks.
vegeta_skyline
Senior Member
I'd have to disagree, we need less operators not more. Theres very limited room for any new users to operate with our system of shared tracks. Its difficult enough to maintain the current schedules in the GTA with GO, VIA, CN & CP getting in each others way.
Also a private operator will try to get by with the least amount of trackage possible to cut costs, see CN or CP for example. The only enterprise thats building new tracks out there to relieve congestion is the government.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
I wouldn't misconstrue giving people free reign to move in and out of the train like adults as a "Spartan" or "less comfortable" experience. On the contrary, that is precisely what makes train travel in Europe attractive. Right now, VIA treats its customers like they are elementary school children on a field trip.
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DSC
Superstar
Though many European trains are great and the schedules and frequencies are amazing it is NOT true to say you can just hop on and off at will. With SOME kinds of (much more expensive) tickets you can hop on and off but for MANY others. and all (?) the cheap tickets, if you take a train from A-Z you CANNOT get out at M and take a later train to reach Z. You CAN probably get out as all the doors usually open, or can be opened, but the getting back on part is not always possible with the same ticket.
In addition, though I certainly think VIA could improve, VIA never allow more people onto a train than there are seats. In Europe there is usually no such rule (except on the more expensive "seat rerservation essential' trains) and I have stood for several hours on several trips there.
In addition, though I certainly think VIA could improve, VIA never allow more people onto a train than there are seats. In Europe there is usually no such rule (except on the more expensive "seat rerservation essential' trains) and I have stood for several hours on several trips there.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I dunno. I took a train from Munich to Oberammergau (about 2 hrs away) in Bavaria and even the first class didn't really compare to VIA's Economy service let alone VIA 1. All I got was slightly less leg room than VIA, no food or even an offer of food by an onboard vendor and a seat that was about as comfortable as a regular VIA seat. And that was first class. The real benefit of rail in Europe was the price. At 25 Euros, that train ride was relatively cheap compared to anything approaching that cost for that distance in Canada. I would concede that the flexibility of the rules in Europe is really the key difference which helps make rail relatively more attractive there. I'd just question whether Canadians are really willing to adopt those service standards here so that they can lower fares.
nfitz
Superstar
Ah yes! Good example - that's kind of an oddball one isn't it. That land was all reserved for the GO-ALRT, so when GO-ALRT was cancelled, GO just went ahead with regular rail instead ... but your right, it's strictly passenger.
nfitz
Superstar
I'd have thought there was no way that Niagara Falls would get express GO trains before Milton ... but they have.
nfitz
Superstar
Wow ... I guess it HAS been a while since I took VIA; when did they finally go to reserved seating? They've had the seat labels up their on some of the trains since the 1970s, but I didn't think they'd ever go for it. I guess they got rid of the free food then too?
To be fair, part of the reason the ticket in Europe is good for several stations, is that the stations are a lot closer together on many services - there's more of a spectrum between GO-type service and VIA-type service; and for the many, many years I took VIA regularily, there was never any issue if your ticket said Guildwood and you got of at Union, or it said Montreal, and you boarded at Dorval. So that's the same here, really. And really there isn't the density of trains here, that you would ever simply have a ticket from A to B, and take whatever trains get you there (though GO can work that way).
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Hipster Duck
Senior Member
That's sort of an apples to oranges comparison. The Munich to Oberammergau milk run is a rural service that's meant for locals to connect from rural villages to larger, regional centers on mainlines. Since VIA only runs on mainlines, and doesn't serve many towns under 10,000 even if they're on route, you can't really relate the two. To put it in perspective, those milk runs would not even exist in Canada. You would be hard pressed to get to any rural village by anything other than a car.
There isn't assigned seating (well sometimes there is), but there are assigned cars and they generally discourage you from moving around the car because they write your destination on a post-it note and slap it on the overhead bin above your seat.
The open ticket phenomenon in Europe has more to do with the fact that there are multiple ways to reach your destination and you might want to choose between one route over another. Sometimes, you just end up missing a connection because of the tight scheduling and have to go another way. Is this an inconvenience? Well, no, because at least you have alternatives. If your train is late in North America, a connecting train will often have to delay its own departure to wait for your train to connect.
I guess it's subjective, but I'd rather stand than wait for another train. It's annoying, but it doesn't happen all that often, and the flip side is that the fares are lower, they don't have to spend as much money hiring a surplus of conductors, I could theoretically just wait an hour for the next train (which I can't in Canada), or I could tough it out by getting sloshed in the bar car (which I also can't do in Canada).
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