[roger1818]

On an unrelated note, Railways Explained recently did a video on the (non-existent) HSR in Canada. Well worth a watch.

 

[bgb_ca]

I have a trip booked from Kitchener to London on Sunday, and I got a call from VIA that they are changing their trains to buses on that route for the next two weekends.

Besides the fact my business class train seat is now a seat on a crowded bus, they at least are doing a partial refund on my fare to bring it back to what an economy seat costs.

I am guessing there is going to be some track maintenance somewhere on that line over the next few weekends? Anyone have this happen to them before? Who do they use for this substitution? I'm guessing it will still be all stops (St. Mary's and Stratford?)

It sucks that this is the only affordable option with Greyhound gone.

 

[Bordercollie]

First of all, that corporate plan is from 2017, prior to receiving approval to order the new fleet. There are 3 newer corporate plans available (and the 2021 one will hopefully be published soon).

As for the long distance fleet, it certainly is an issue (it becomes more apparent how bad it is in the 2020-2024 Corporate Plan). Unfortunately, as the long distance fleet replacement will be more expensive than the corridor fleet replacement, as VIA owns over 250 long distance cars (compared to the 160 corridor cars replaced). I don't know if any government will want to invest that much money in the long distance services. Then again, they won't want the responsibility of cancelling the services either, so they will most likely die a slow and painful death.

Likely if the Conservatives win there will not be any new investment in the long distance fleet and things will need to stay as they are.
There is a plan to rebuild all HEP II units which will take until 2023, so we will need to see what happens then. Some can join the long distance fleet once the new trains arrive in the corridor.

 

[ssiguy2]

The best thing about GO to London is that it would force VIA to upgrade the Windsor-Aldershot portions of the line increasing the speed, frequency, and reliability of the service.

London is the fourth busiest station in the system and Windsor seventh. We have already seen GO take a bite out of KW to Union ridership and as GO expands, VIA will become basically useless to people in Kitchener/Guelph/Stratford. SWO is a ridership and revenue generator that VIA cannot afford to sacrifice. In fact on a per-person/km travelled basis it requires the least amount of subsidy in the whole system. If GO reaches London {and got knows they couldn't be any slower or less reliable than VIA}, then the probably lower fares will blow a whole in VIA's wallet. Added to this it would mean VIA would have to greatly reduce frequency to stem the losses meaning far less frequency and hence poorer service to Windsor & Sarnia making VIA less appealing to those riders as well.

Even the threat of all day GO service to London might be enough to get VIA to finally inject some REAL money in the SWO corridors.

 

[Bordercollie]

The best thing about GO to London is that it would force VIA to upgrade the Windsor-Aldershot portions of the line increasing the speed, frequency, and reliability of the service.

London is the fourth busiest station in the system and Windsor seventh. We have already seen GO take a bite out of KW to Union ridership and as GO expends, VIA will become basically useless to people in Kitchener & Guelph. SWO is a ridership and revenue generator that VIA cannot afford to sacrifice. In fact on a per-person/km travelled basis is requires the least amount of subsidy in the whole system. If GO reaches London {and got knows they couldn't be any slower or less reliable than VIA}, then the probably lower fares will blow a whole in VIA's wallet. Added to this it would mean VIA would have to greatly reduce frequency to stem the losses meaning far less frequency and hence poorer service to Windsor & Sarnia making VIA less appealing to those riders as well.

Even the threat of all day GO service to London might be enough to get VIA to finally inject some REAL money in the SWO corridors.

It's not the same market.

GO is for people who want to go from London to ST Mary's or Kitchener or Brampton. VIA is more for customers who want to travel longer distances.

Would be nice if you could transfer and pay extra to catch the VIA train at Kitchener and ride Express to Union.

Upgrades could allow via to run express and GO to serve intermediate stops.

They could build smaller stations along the way for GO transit. All you need is a Presto kiosk and some shelters.

 

[roger1818]

Likely if the Conservatives win there will not be any new investment in the long distance fleet and things will need to stay as they are.

Even if the Liberals win, it is highly unlikely there will be any new investment in the long distance fleet. I am not even sure the NDP would financially back a new long distance fleet. It is a hot potato that no one wants to catch.

There is a plan to rebuild all HEP II units which will take until 2023, so we will need to see what happens then. Some can join the long distance fleet once the new trains arrive in the corridor.

We already know. In the 2020-2024 Corporate Plan, under "Heritage Fleet Modernization" (pg. 17) it says:

Unexpected issues have arisen resulting in review of the requirements that will reduce the scope of this project. VIA Rail will continue with routine state of good repair work for cars outside the scope of the program. Additional details regarding the current fleet, both Corridor and Non-Corridor, and the funding requirements foreseen to maintain the fleet are noted within Section 4

And then in section 4, under "Non-Corridor fleet renewal program" (pg. 23/24) it says:

VIA Rail recognizes that despite the inherent quality of construction and intrinsic longevity of the stainless steel used, it is no longer reasonable to expect an extended service life from the Budd manufactured rolling stock equipment (HEP cars) that is approaching or has exceeded 70 years of age.

At some point the effectiveness, usefulness and maintenance costs of any product will reach a point where replacement must be considered and unfortunately this also includes the HEP cars.

 

[ssiguy2]

VIA also has another problem which they generally ignore................they have to decarbonize their fleet.

There is no way, in hell, that Ottawa will demand the people and businesses spend money and effort to reach net-zero by 2050 and yet gives one of it's key Crown Corporations a pass. We are also not just talking about the Corridor either but the entire network from Vancouver to Halifax.

I don't think we are going to see any electrification of the routes within 10 years. Not until battery and hydrogen technology develop and the infrastructure is in place will Ottawa really consider zero emission vehicles for VIA. The first such trials would obviously take place in SWO and possibly Ottawa to Montreal.

 

[Urban Sky]

VIA also has another problem which they generally ignore................they have to decarbonize their fleet.

There is no way, in hell, that Ottawa will demand the people and businesses spend money and effort to reach net-zero by 2050 and yet gives one of it's key Crown Corporations a pass. We are also not just talking about the Corridor either but the entire network from Vancouver to Halifax.

I don't think we are going to see any electrification of the routes within 10 years. Not until battery and hydrogen technology develop and the infrastructure is in place will Ottawa really consider zero emission vehicles for VIA. The first such trials would obviously take place in SWO and possibly Ottawa to Montreal.

How often do we have to talk about your ever-same talking points? If you want to electrify this country's rail network, you will have to first get CN and CP on the table and see whatever solutions they might be willing to tolerate on their infrastructure or to even adopt for their own operations. They are the whales, whereas VIA is just a shrimp...

 

[rbt]

VIA also has another problem which they generally ignore................they have to decarbonize their fleet.

There is no way, in hell, that Ottawa will demand the people and businesses spend money and effort to reach net-zero by 2050 and yet gives one of it's key Crown Corporations a pass. We are also not just talking about the Corridor either but the entire network from Vancouver to Halifax.

I don't think we are going to see any electrification of the routes within 10 years. Not until battery and hydrogen technology develop and the infrastructure is in place will Ottawa really consider zero emission vehicles for VIA. The first such trials would obviously take place in SWO and possibly Ottawa to Montreal.

This is a tough problem. Hitachi is working on train to do a 300mile route in the UK from battery but that's the longest I've seen. Most target a 100 mile.

A battery powered The Canadian train appears technically possible but it'll be a royal pain in the ass due to the very large distances between major stops.

A company in Utah sells 1MWh of stored energy within a standard 40 foot container (designed for solar storage; they have a 1 hour quick-charge time and about a 4 hour discharge-time) but you probably need 25 to 30 containers to make the trip from Toronto to Winnipeg. Obviously some electronics needs to change to power a locomotive but it seems useful to use an off-the-shelf product as a reference point.

Charging at small towns isn't practical; the grid wouldn't support it. So charging would be major stations only likely via a cruise-ship style 8MW plug over a 90 minute period OR swapping the battery cars.

In either case, they're hauling around 50-60 tonnes of battery (that's lighter than I expected) and making even the longest Canadian line trains 50% longer.

 

[roger1818]

VIA also has another problem which they generally ignore................they have to decarbonize their fleet.

There is no way, in hell, that Ottawa will demand the people and businesses spend money and effort to reach net-zero by 2050 and yet gives one of it's key Crown Corporations a pass. We are also not just talking about the Corridor either but the entire network from Vancouver to Halifax.

I don't think we are going to see any electrification of the routes within 10 years. Not until battery and hydrogen technology develop and the infrastructure is in place will Ottawa really consider zero emission vehicles for VIA. The first such trials would obviously take place in SWO and possibly Ottawa to Montreal.

Just because there haven’t been any press releases about VIA’s plans to electrify 20 years from now, doesn’t mean they aren’t having internal conversations about it. After all, VIA did put forward the option to electrify HFR so they must be some discussions about it. As you said we are at least 10 years away from hydrogen or battery technology being feasible for the distances VIA travels outside the corridor.

As has been said many times before, on routes where VIA uses other railway’s track (which is 97% of the track they run on), their best bet is to wait for the host railway to electrify, and then use whatever infrastructure they build.

 

[Bordercollie]

This is a tough problem. Hitachi is working on train to do a 300mile route in the UK from battery but that's the longest I've seen. Most target a 100 mile.

A battery powered The Canadian train appears technically possible but it'll be a royal pain in the ass due to the very large distances between major stops.

A company in Utah sells 1MWh of stored energy within a standard 40 foot container (designed for solar storage; they have a 1 hour quick-charge time and about a 4 hour discharge-time) but you probably need 25 to 30 containers to make the trip from Toronto to Winnipeg. Obviously some electronics needs to change to power a locomotive but it seems useful to use an off-the-shelf product as a reference point.

Charging at small towns isn't practical; the grid wouldn't support it. So charging would be major stations only likely via a cruise-ship style 8MW plug over a 90 minute period OR swapping the battery cars.

In either case, they're hauling around 50-60 tonnes of battery (that's lighter than expected) and making the train 50% longer if double-stacked.

This type of application is suitable for GO transits lakeshore line. They can recharge at end point and at Union.

The only problem is that if for whatever reason the train is late and you need to turn the train and around faster it will be physically impossible to do that because the train nerds to charge at each end point.

For example if train A arrives at Oshawa and has a dwell time of 30 minutes but has a technical problem. With a 15 minute frequency when train B arrives it will need to de-train and then immediately leave to take train A's trip. It won't have the 30 minute dwell time to charge.

So that means to account for this you need to either be able to cover a round trip on one charge OR have an extra trainset idle to maintain schedule.

I think if it's for a less demanding application, it could be suitable like rush hour only from Richmond Hill to Union and then then it would have time to charge before departing for its next trip.

 

[reaperexpress]

Oh, it's this conversation again...

 

[ManyQuestions]

VIA also has another problem which they generally ignore................they have to decarbonize their fleet.

There is no way, in hell, that Ottawa will demand the people and businesses spend money and effort to reach net-zero by 2050 and yet gives one of it's key Crown Corporations a pass. We are also not just talking about the Corridor either but the entire network from Vancouver to Halifax.

I don't think we are going to see any electrification of the routes within 10 years. Not until battery and hydrogen technology develop and the infrastructure is in place will Ottawa really consider zero emission vehicles for VIA. The first such trials would obviously take place in SWO and possibly Ottawa to Montreal.

The climate crisis is a real issue but as somebody that has had experience working on large battery systems, I do not believe that they make sense for the vast majority or railway applications even with improvements with battery technologies. Railways not only face the standard battery challenges of weight, range, and changing time, but are also presented with the opportunity of using a direct connection to the electric grid to avoid these issues! Ofc batteries can make sense for limited applications such as minor branch lines and perhaps short sections where catenary installation would be exceedingly difficult. Lithium batteries are an amazing technology that are exceptional in many applications but, like any technology, they should not be viewed as a cure-all.

 

[Bordercollie]

The climate crisis is a real issue but as somebody that has had experience working on large battery systems, I do not believe that they make sense for the vast majority or railway applications even with improvements with battery technologies. Railways not only face the standard battery challenges of weight, range, and changing time, but are also presented with the opportunity of using a direct connection to the electric grid to avoid these issues! Ofc batteries can make sense for limited applications such as minor branch lines and perhaps short sections where catenary installation would be exceedingly difficult. Lithium batteries are an amazing technology that are exceptional in many applications but, like any technology, they should not be viewed as a cure-all.

Lets think about this:
One 12 car GO train can carry 1400 people in seats. That's the equivalent to 1400 cars not on the road creating congestion assuming people dont car pool.
Trains have much lower rolling resistance than cars, which already makes this very efficient.
The carbon emissions from one train is significantly less than 1400 cars.

Making this more efficient using whatever new technology that costs millions of dollars takes away money from projects to expand the use of transit. You need to do it as cost efficient and attractive as possible.

Lets also walk before we run, so maybe Hybrid Diesel Locomotives might be something we should adopt first seeing that it's a readily available and proven technology.

That is likely going to be cheaper and more realistic than spending billions running cables eveywhere when you dont even own all the track.

And dont even get me started on Hydrogen and how you will fuel those locomotives, and train everyone on how to maintain them.

 

[kEiThZ]

VIA also has another problem which they generally ignore................they have to decarbonize their fleet.

There is no way, in hell, that Ottawa will demand the people and businesses spend money and effort to reach net-zero by 2050 and yet gives one of it's key Crown Corporations a pass. We are also not just talking about the Corridor either but the entire network from Vancouver to Halifax.

I don't think we are going to see any electrification of the routes within 10 years. Not until battery and hydrogen technology develop and the infrastructure is in place will Ottawa really consider zero emission vehicles for VIA. The first such trials would obviously take place in SWO and possibly Ottawa to Montreal.

You seem to struggle with understanding what "net zero" means. It doesn't mean "zero emissions".

Aside from the fact that government targets three decades away are kind of dubious and that you shouldn't extrapolate national level targets down to individual agencies, let alone individual operations, a net zero target could be easily achieved for VIA, as long as the Corridor is electrified. Most of the rest of its network is a substantially smaller portion of emissions, such that a combination of lower emissions intensity fuels (such as synthetic biodiesel) and a few offset projects, can more than make up for those emissions. And that's if the federal government cares. VIA's non-Corridor emissions are miniscule compared to what the rest of the Government of Canada puts out, particularly the agencies involved in security and stability operations (CAF, CCG, RCMP, CBSA, DFO). Heck, Canada Post has higher emissions than VIA Long Haul.

Edit: Just to add some further data to make it clear, just how unimportant VIA's emissions are, just look at which departments and operations really generate emissions:

• In fiscal year 2019 to 2020, the top 6 emitting organizations (National Defence, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Correctional Service Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Transport Canada) generated 82% of the Government of Canada’s real property and administrative fleet GHG emissions

Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-b...anada-greenhouse-gas-emissions-inventory.html

As a point of comparison, VIA Rail's total Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in 2019 were 146 212 tCO2e, as per VIA's 2019 Sustainable Mobility Report. Emissions avoided, is estimated at 289 177 tCO2e. Scope 1 and 2 emissions will fall substantially in the coming years with the new fleet. And emissions avoided would go up substantially with HFR.