[crs1026]

Paul, I love you, but you are very, very wrong here.

I may be making some different conclusions (but the love is appreciated, and back at ya).

- CN's abnormally low shunt voltage means that it more susceptible to continuity problems with dirty track or dirty wheels. This is why there are all sorts of rules in their rulebook about requiring more than 12 axles in order to allow a train to proceed at track speed (fewer axles are limited in speed in order to ensure that they to shut all of the track circuits).

This is where I think we have to take the longer broader view. CN has run its idiosyncratic signal design for many decades, and never has a regulator or government told them to get with the plan and standardise with other railways away from the low voltage designs. So effectively, what they are doing is legitimised technically and in a regulatory sense. Signal engineers on other railroads may roll their eyes and mutter, but if CN's practice has never been challenged, it "meets code" just as well as what the other railroads do. Hence my view that there has been an elephant in the room all along.

The first issue is a known problem in the sense that the railways have all been here before - although never with a trainset as long as the Ventures + Chargers - and has a known solution. Amtrak out of Chicago has been dealing with CN on this issue for a couple of years now, and their way around it was to tow additional cars in each consist in order to get enough wheels to ensure continuity. Historical, CN resolved this problem with their RDCs - which also don't have any tread brakes - by installing "scrubbers", a small brake shoe that sat on the top of each wheel by gravity with the sole purpose of wiping down each wheel face and making sure it was clean. But even with scrubbers installed, CN still required a minimum of 3 RDCs in order to operate at track speed in any territory that had signalling.

Again, when CN made these demands in the US, nobody told them to smarten up. CN's infrastructure was there first. Amtrak may have caved, er, conceded.... but they added the extra cars instead of seeking support from say the FRA. I don't know the details of CSX's involvement, but one assumes they had some signalling that was of like kind or they had similar experiences.

VIA's bulletin indicates that they are reluctant to start messing with lengthened Venture consists, but it's a pretty obvious and pragmatic solution, and is just an extension of that older RDC and light engine rules doctrine.

We both have enough photos in our collections of 2-car CN and VIA RDC consists in signalled territory to know that CN cut itself some slack in past decades when convenient. That's what has changed.... these days, once the problem is admitted, it cannot be downplayed by management, regulators or by company lawyers, even once in a while. Zero public tolerance.

The second issue is far, far harder to fix - in fact, considering the size of CN"s network it may well be impossible. While increasing the shunt voltage would resolve a lot of continuity issues, it may well require the replacement of hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of additional signalling components.

This is the thing. Directing CN to pull up its socks would likely be a huge legal fail. Possibly as PTC has rolled out and newer flavours are being implemented, CN has positioned itself to gradually solve this problem - but I suspect that to CN shareholders, this ain't broke and doesn't need fixing: Just tell Amtrak/VIA to go away.

So, what to do? In the short term, I can't help but think that sourcing and installing scrubbers on the Ventures + Chargers will help resolve the situation.

I would love to see the graph that shows that 24 axles is not acceptable but 32 is. How is that threshold determined? As a non-engineer, possibly scrubbers plus 28 axles would bean interesting calculation.

(Want to be really nasty about it? Make CN pay for their development, design, production and installation.)

As per above, I can't imagine this would ever happen.

It should be noted that the Chargers and Ventures are running in lots of other places in the US, and on multiple different railways - sometimes in shorter consists. CN's network is the only one where they have these issues. As well, I have not yet heard of one instance on the Kingston Sub where a Charger has failed to activate a signal or level crossing, so this may be a situation of "an abundance of caution" versus a singular or small multiple of actual instances.

I am taking the high road here and accepting CN's concern as bona fide, although one wonders if they are simply playing a trump card as a strategic paper cut against passenger trains on their network. I alluded to CN pushing other agendas - the summer heat speed restrictions on jointed rail is one I would point to, as possibly a vast overstatement of the risk of sun kinks. Whole lot of knowledgeable railroaders scratching their heads about that one, doesn't help that CN exempts itself from those rules in some locations. So maybe this is a bit of malicious compliance, but I think CN may hold the winning cards.

- Paul

 

[dowlingm]

VIA’s own tracks (Brockville-Ottawa-Coteau, Chatham-Windsor) are ex-CN, right? Is it reasonable to assume their detection technology has not been changed out since? There were those crossing issues in Ottawa a few years back but I don’t remember what root cause was assigned to those

 

[Urban Sky]

VIA’s own tracks (Brockville-Ottawa-Coteau, Chatham-Windsor) are ex-CN, right?

At least in the case of the Brockville Sub (Smiths Falls to Brockville), this shouldn’t be a problem, as that line is ex-CP, not ex-CN.

 

[nfitz]

It's completelyl absurd how they are noticing this now, in operational trains with passengers, but didn't notice it when they were running empty during tests?

GIven this gross incomptence appears to be entirely CN's fault, the temporary solution shouldn't be to slow trains. It should be to post CN staff at each and every impacted level crossing, so as to manually close the gates when VIA trains are approaching.

Hopefully VIA Rail get's cost recovery from CNR.

 

[Allandale25]

Will this be an issue for Ontario Northland on the portion between Washago and North Bay?

 

[Urban Sky]

It's completelyl absurd how they are noticing this now, in operational trains with passengers, but didn't notice it when they were running empty during tests?

As I wrote on groups.io, not all issues can be detected during testing:

Some issues are so rare (e.g., once-in-a-million train-miles travelled or level crossings encountered) that they don’t get detected during testing or even after years of operations, but once they are detected, they are so potentially dangerous that they require additional safety procedures (such as automatic warning devices at level crossings which don’t get activated when required).

Testing catches a large number of issues you’ll never hear about (because they have been resolved before the first passenger sets foot into them), but others are just so infrequent they only surface after years of revenue operations…

Re: Ventures-Shunt

groups.io

GIven this gross incomptence appears to be entirely CN's fault, the temporary solution shouldn't be to slow trains. It should be to post CN staff at each and every impacted level crossing, so as to manually close the gates when VIA trains are approaching.

For someone who understands less about rail operations and safety than quite a few other commenters here, your comments here appear to me as strikingly opinionated and judgemental…

Hopefully VIA Rail get's cost recovery from CNR.

My understanding is that both side have waived the right to demand compensation from each other in the case of accidents and you can find examples for when that presumably worked in favour of CN (Hinton) or of VIA (Burlington)…

 

[nfitz]

For someone who understands less about rail operations and safety than quite a few other commenters here, your comments here appear to me as strikingly opinionated and judgemental…

My understanding is that both side have waived the right to demand compensation from each other in the case of accidents and you can find examples for when that presumably worked in favour of CN (Hinton) or of VIA (Burlington)…

Do you have a source for that agreement?

In the case of Hinton, why would two different federal government corporations start suing each other? That would simply be a Ministeral decision on who pays. In terms of fault, I don't see how it wouldn't have been 100% CN.

In terms of the Burlington crash, neither company was blameless. Little point in suing. While the two engineers were VIA employees, they'd had mostly CN experience until VIA hired them. The primary factor of forgetting that the signals they had passed 5 minutes or so earlier was certainly those engineers fault, but most of the contributing factors CN was responsible for. The board was very quick and clear to point out that CN had not taken action on their 2001 recommendation to employ additional backup safety systems. And good grief - what kind of incompetent railroad only puts signals before a station, not afterwards!

We've known since at least Hinton that CN prioritized money and loyalty over safety, given CN's behaviour in the Hinton investigation.

The government and VIA have never taken the kind of hardline that is necessary with CN. However, I should point out my Conflict of Interest - I am a CNR shareholder.

 

[dowlingm]

Will this be an issue for Ontario Northland on the portion between Washago and North Bay?

Why stop at Washago? Presumably CN uses the same detection technology all the way to Toronto, and Metrolinx may not have changed it out at Pottery Road.

 

[crs1026]

Why stop at Washago? Presumably CN uses the same detection technology all the way to Toronto, and Metrolinx may not have changed it out at Pottery Road.

While the restriction is system wide, There may be less impact where track speed is only 50ish (versus 100 in the Corridor) as the requirement to approach crossings able to stop and protect does not require so much deceleration and added time.

- Paul