[Urban Sky]

To those in the know. Would VIA use the new trains on the Seneterre and Jonquiere services eventually? Or is the fleet strictly restricted to Quebec-Windsor?

The easy answer is that 32 trainsets will only be sufficient to cover the Corridor service. Also, the on-board amenities (think: Business Class, but no insufficient storage for bulky cargo like canoes) are a clear mismatch with passenger needs on a remote service...

 

[p_xavier]

I moved heaven and earth to do this one same day! Canada's National Rail Carrier VIA has unveiled its new fleet, and the trains are among the nicest I’ve ever seen, come for a tour with me in this latest video!

Thanks Reece, great video. Straight to the point is where you shine most.

 

[EnviroTO]

Thanks Reece, great video. Straight to the point is where you shine most.

Agreed. Factual and with video focused on the things we want to see. Thanks for the walkthrough.

 

[Bordercollie]

As we discussed earlier (thanks @Urban Sky for the link) VIA 84 had to be moved later because with the decreasing track quality the travel time from London to Kitchener has now grown considerably longer than it was when the schedule was written. Prior to the schedule change on 15 November, it was physically impossible for the train to arrive in Kitchener less than about 20 minutes late, and the train was commonly more than 30 minutes late, causing it to block the first westbound GO train at Georgetown.

VIA tried a quick fix about a year ago by cutting the dwell time in London to allow the train to depart there earlier (thereby breaking the timed connection with VIA 70), but that was nowhere near enough. With the other constraints at London and at Georgetown, the train simply doesn't fit into that time slot anymore now, that it takes 2h12 to get from Kitchener to London.

If Stratford wants the old schedule back, they need to campaign for the track quality to be brought at least back to the level it was a few years ago when the old schedule was written. Whining to VIA will not do anything because the old schedule is physically impossible to achieve now. And it has been for a year, so surely Sharon McDonald, a "semi-regular rider" would have noticed that over the past year there was literally a 0% on-time performance with the old schedule, but with the new schedules trains are often on-time?

How much longer until Metrolinx buys the corridor so they retain control of the corridor?

 

[Urban Sky]

How much longer until Metrolinx buys the corridor so they retain control of the corridor?

Until CN is willing to sell it - which in the case of Halwest-Silver or London-Sarnia will probably never happen…

 

[Bordercollie]

Until CN is willing to sell it - which in the case of Halwest-Silver or London-Sarnia will probably never happen…

How about seperate the fact that the Sarnia train uses the Northern line and just have the northern line run from Union to London?

Have the train from Sarnia run on the Dundas sub?

Why does the train need to run on the northern line and go to Sarnia?

 

[Urban Sky]

How about seperate the fact that the Sarnia train uses the Northern line and just have the northern line run from Union to London?

Have the train from Sarnia run on the Dundas sub?

Why does the train need to run on the northern line and go to Sarnia?

We’ve been through this multiple times already: either you extend 82/83 beyond London (for an extremely early 5:30 departure out of Sarnia) or you swap Windsor for Sarnia for an existing service (despite Chatham alone having a larger CMA population than Sarnia) or you somehow succeed in extracting an additional frequency from CN…

 

[Bordercollie]

We’ve been through this multiple times already: either you extend 82/83 beyond London (for an extremely early 5:30 departure out of Sarnia) or you swap Windsor for Sarnia for an existing service (despite Chatham alone having a larger CMA population than Sarnia) or you somehow try to somehow succeed in extracting an additional frequency from CN…

Or build a passing tracks at Stratford with a second platform?

 

[Urban Sky]

Or build a passing tracks at Stratford with a second platform?

That would provide some sorely needed timetable flexibility, but it doesn’t address the fact that during the daylight hours there are only 3 one-hour gaps (at approximately 9am, noon and 3pm) through which you can sneak VIA trains past Georgetown…

 

[SkylineHorizon]

How much longer until Metrolinx buys the corridor so they retain control of the corridor?

Until CN is willing to sell it - which in the case of Halwest-Silver or London-Sarnia will probably never happen…

Yup.
Saddly will probably never happen as the government is more than content to continue kowtowing to lobbyists and big business in secret behind closed doors over the interests of the general public and making preparations for Canada to be competitive and continue prospering going forward into the 21st century.

 

[Urban Sky]

something interesting in UT's article is that the new trains will apparently result in about a 5% increase in train speeds over today, even without HFR. Which is very interesting to me, I wasn't aware the new trains would result in faster travel times.

I finally found the time to watch the accompanying video to this article and in conjunction with the reply to the rant video of “Not Just Bike” and other video’s of @Reecemartin, I really had to revise my previously negative opinion (and at times overly and unfairly harsh criticism) of his work!

As for the “5% increase in train speeds over today” mentioned in his UT article, I assume that he refers to the difference between 95 mph (152 km/h) today and 100 mph (160 km/h) on Track Class 5 in the future (note that even though P42s and LRCs can already reach that speed today, hardly any Corridor sets have been formed by these two fleet types only during the last few years). The construction of HFR would allow to push this to 110 mph (177 km/h), thus 16% faster than currently, but that’s an entirely separate project…

 

[nfitz]

Other than a change in speed limit, there's two ways I can think of, off hand, in cutting travel times with new trains.

One is faster acceleration.

The other is running faster on curves. As far as I know, the tilting equipment has been locked, if not removed, on the LRC cars for decades - and that's what I see mostly on the Kingston sub along with 1950s equipment. Not sure what Renaissance cars.

How do the new cars work?

 

[Urban Sky]

Other than a change in speed limit, there's two ways I can think of, off hand, in cutting travel times with new trains.

One is faster acceleration.

The other is running faster on curves. As far as I know, the tilting equipment has been locked, if not removed, on the LRC cars for decades - and that's what I see mostly on the Kingston sub along with 1950s equipment. Not sure what Renaissance cars.

How do the new cars work?

Faster acceleration for sure results in faster travel times, but the quantitative impact on average speed will vary widely from service to service, depending on the frequency of stops and of changes in speed limits.

As for tilting, the new trains aren’t equipped with it and there isn’t any need for it, as it would require CN to maintain their tracks to a much higher level, whereas for VIA’s own tracks, it will be cheaper to just increase the balanced super-elevation (i.e. the cant applied to the curves). Recall that tilting does only enable to operate with higher higher cant deficiency (unbalanced superelevation), while having no effect on the total superelevation which can be achieved on a curve. Tilting makes only sense on mixed-use infrastructure where the infrastructure owner is similarly interested in passenger and freight operations, which makes it an awkward fit with North American railroads (who own virtually all of its rail networks)…

 

[kEiThZ]

The easy answer is that 32 trainsets will only be sufficient to cover the Corridor service. Also, the on-board amenities (think: Business Class, but no insufficient storage for bulky cargo like canoes) are a clear mismatch with passenger needs on a remote service...

Thank you. Makes sense. I was thinking they might use them, simply because of the fleet commonality coming out of Montreal.

I guess they could always exercise options later, for 2-3 trainsets and fit out the cars a little differently. Or just wait for HFR plans to be confirmed and then determine the future fleet disposition for the Siemens fleet, post-HFR.

 

[cplchanb]

I think their next acquisition would be to replace the ancient dinosaur long distance trains and rdcs. By that time many would be almost 100 years old which is quite laughable for main line rolling stock for a developed country. Hell even third world countries have newer trains than us....