Urban Sky
Senior Member
Unfortunately, I can't provide any seat numbers here, as they might be mistaken as an official number. Nevertheless, I believe that all the numbers needed to approximate the current seat count are somewhat available for you:Add up car seats x number of cars. Use VIA's pages for coaches. That's what yields about that many seats. If I'm wrong, I'd love more data. That's why I am asking, what is VIA's capacity in the Corridor today.
And I get that there are constraints on which locomotives are used or operational practices. Again, that's why I am asking questions. They had previously suggested that 40 locomotives need to replaced in the corridor. And they're only choosing to buy 32 replacements. That's a 25% cut. I'd love to understand why that difference is there.
Quote from most recent Corporate Plan (pp. 1+6): "In the first quarter of 2015, VIA Rail retained the services of an independent international rolling stock consultancy firm to assist in assessing the condition and requirements of its Quebec – Windsor Corridor fleet, representing 200 of 495 total pieces of equipment. [...] VIA Rail operates four types of rail cars in the Corridor: the LRC (Light, Rapid, Comfortable), the stainless steel HEP 1 and HEP 2, and the Renaissance."
With the 40 locomotives you quoted, that would leave 160 cars currently assigned to the Corridor.
Let's assume that all LRC and HEP 2 equipment is assigned to the Corridor:
- Number of seats and quantity in VIA Rail's roster for LRC Business cars can be found here.
- Number of seats and quantity in VIA Rail's roster for LRC Economy cars can be found here.
- Number of seats and quantity in VIA Rail's roster for HEP-2 Business cars can be found here.
- Number of seats and quantity in VIA Rail's roster for HEP-2 Economy cars can be found here.
Okay, let's figure out how many baggage cars there are operating on the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec route by looking at the weekday trains (i.e. ignoring weekend departures) which show a baggage car in the most recent VIA timetable:
- #37: Quebec 13:00 to Fallowfield 19:34
- #29: Quebec 17:45 to Montreal 20:58
- #20: Montreal 06:20 to Quebec 09:43
- #24: Fallowfield 09:50 to Quebec 16:26
- #63: Montreal 08:55 to Toronto 14:07 (not Thursday)
- #65: Montreal 10:55 to Toronto 16:17 (Monday and Thursday only)
- #64: Toronto 11:30 to Montreal 16:47 (not Monday)
- #668: Toronto 17:57 to Montreal 22:56 (not Wednesday)
- #44: Toronto 14:20 to Ottawa 18:46 (Tuesday only)
- #45: Ottawa 10:30 to Toronto 14:48 (Wednesday only)
- #83: Toronto 16:35 to London 18:49 (not Thursday and Friday)
- #75: Toronto 17:30 to Windsor 21:56 (Monday and Thursday only)
- #82: London 06:25 to Toronto 08:35 (not Monday and Friday)
- #70: Windsor 05:30 to Toronto 10:04 (Tuesday and Friday only)
Assuming that the seat count for Baggage cars and Service cars is zero, how many units and seats have we counted so far?
Now, determine the number of revenue cars you find realistic for a Renaissance trainset and multiply that number with the number of Renaissance baggage cars you calculated above (to have exactly one Renaissance trainset spare).
- Number of seats per Renaissance Business car can be found here.
- Number of seats per Renaissance Economy car can be found here.
Finally, determine how many seats are missing to 9600 and how many cars are missing to 160 and divide the first number by the last. Then, browse through VIA Rail's official roster and sanity-check your calculated number of seats per car...
Please don't hesitate to ask for assistance, if needed...
PS: If anyone finds the cycling exercise with the baggage cars interesting and enjoyable to solve, I can let you know next time VIA Rail is hiring someone for the Network Planning department...
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