[nfitz]

I honestly am starting to believe CN is just letting it rot because they want GO and VIA to take it off their hands.

Or at least pay for the maintenance.

 

[crs1026]

I honestly am starting to believe CN is just letting it rot because they want GO and VIA to take it off their hands.

There is absolutely no business on that line for CN, except for the grain terminal which can be accessed from London. There is no reason why they would spend a single dime to maintain it.

It may be a good time to re-post this old chestnut. With Ontario making promises, why would CN spend money to keep the line up?

- Paul

 

[cplchanb]

I honestly am starting to believe CN is just letting it rot because they want GO and VIA to take it off their hands.

I would welcome that investment. CN never cared about via anyways. Might as well rip off the bandaid and own the line.

 

[smallspy]

I heard that CN has dropped the speed limit between Stratford and London on the Guelph Subdivision to 20 mph. I noticed on the VIA tracker that VIA 84 took 40 minutes to travel the ten miles between St. Marys and Stratford. Brutal.

There seems to be nothing in the timetable or GOIs that indicate that this is the case.

VIA's trains have been having lots of difficulty on this section due to the grades and the leaves on the track. Starting today or tomorrow, 84 & 87 will be equipped with a trainset that has two locos on it to overcome the issues.

Dan

 

[Urban Sky]

I don’t think that CN is more of a holdup in selling the line to VIA than TC allowing VIA to purchase it…

 

[roger1818]

There seems to be nothing in the timetable or GOIs that indicate that this is the case.

VIA's trains have been having lots of difficulty on this section due to the grades and the leaves on the track. Starting today or tomorrow, 84 & 87 will be equipped with a trainset that has two locos on it to overcome the issues.

Dan

I'm curious how they will do this when VIA has retired their entire legacy fleet? I thought they can't couple F40s to Charger/Venture trainsets in revenue service, or am I misunderstanding this?

 

[dowlingm]

I'm curious how they will do this when VIA has retired their entire legacy fleet? I thought they can't couple F40s to Charger/Venture trainsets in revenue service, or am I misunderstanding this?

VIA has by no means retired their legacy fleet. VIA is currently running 13 out of 28 corridor equipment rotations as Venture, 11 as LRC, 4 as HEP. 84 and 87 will be operated with four LRC coaches between the locomotives.

 

[innsertnamehere]

You're overestimating the roughness of the terrain. The route passes through around 80 km of Canadian Shield. The rest is mostly farmland. There are no mountain ranges and there's probably no need for tunnels. HSR lines go through harder terrain in places like California, Italy and Spain. It's a moderately difficult area, not some impenetrable barrier.

yup. It no doubt need blasting, but MTO has built plenty of freeways through similar terrain on the relative cheap. Blasting in the grand scheme of things actually isn't all that expensive.

I mean.. it's not hard to shove a few sticks of dynamite down a hole and then plow it out of the way:

In Fact.. this process is likely far cheaper than buying the more expensive land to the south. It wouldn't surprise me if a decent chunk of the alignment east of Peterborough is literally still crown land and doesn't even need expropriation.

 

[Bordercollie]

I don’t think that CN is more of a holdup in selling the line to VIA than TC allowing VIA to purchase it…

I wonder what the cost would be to purchase the corridor. But they are paying to use the track, how is their no obligation to fix the track?

 

[trainfanjacob8]

There seems to be nothing in the timetable or GOIs that indicate that this is the case.

VIA's trains have been having lots of difficulty on this section due to the grades and the leaves on the track. Starting today or tomorrow, 84 & 87 will be equipped with a trainset that has two locos on it to overcome the issues.

Dan

Thanks for passing along this information! I’m kinda surprised to hear that, as today’s 84 had two units and only did about 20 mph on the relatively flat terrain between St. Marys and Stratford. I would have thought they’d struggle more on the hilly Stratford-Kitchener and Guelph-Silver segments instead.

 

[Sauga89]

yup. It no doubt need blasting, but MTO has built plenty of freeways through similar terrain on the relative cheap. Blasting in the grand scheme of things actually isn't all that expensive.

I mean.. it's not hard to shove a few sticks of dynamite down a hole and then plow it out of the way:

In Fact.. this process is likely far cheaper than buying the more expensive land to the south. It wouldn't surprise me if a decent chunk of the alignment east of Peterborough is literally still crown land and doesn't even need expropriation.

For those curious, the Ontario government maintains an interactive map of Crown land in the province. I took a screenshot. The grey is private land with Crown land in yellow and orange. Peterborough is just out of sight in the bottom left corner. It looks like you'd have to take a much more northerly route to Ottawa if you wanted to make use of Crown land.

Here is the link to the map if anyone wants to explore themselves. https://www.lioapplications.lrc.gov.on.ca/CLUPA/index.html?viewer=CLUPA.CLUPA&locale=en-CA