[roger1818]

The interesting thing about that is, during COVID all the other remote services have been cut back, but still are operated at least once a week. Whereas the CN route in Northern Ontario has been eliminated totally. While COVId is an exceptional situation, one wonders if that implies a lower concern for remote service on the Canadian’s current route.

- Paul

Certainly VIA could, during COVID, operate a weekly train between Sioux Lookout and Toronto if it was considered important.

It's likely because Northern Ontario has Bus service with ONR, and then train service in the far north.

I am not sure how Bus service helps communities that don't have access to roads. This discussion came up on SSP in October, and Collins, ON came up as an example of a community on the Canadian's route that doesn't have any road access. Certainly interesting that we haven't heard any complaints about the lack of service through COVID though.

 

[micheal_can]

While I have neither expertise nor a dog in the hunt, moving Canadian to CP through Northern Ontario would provide a better customer experience (more scenic) and might even generate bookings for that leg alone (subject to scheduling). However I'm not sure running a couple of aging Budd RDCs from Sudbury all the way to Winnipeg to fulfill the remote service mandate would be sustainable.

Doe Via have the rolling stock to run a 5ish car train between Sudbury and Winnipeg? I would think that would be an easier solution.

There might be specific points on the route that needed servicing or station facilities, and perhaps track usage might have to be adjusted or track added in spots where freights are stopped or staged and where yard work is done.

Obviously, it would depend on whether CP felt it could accommodate the schedule. So there might be basic operability challenges, or VIA might have to alter the service to meet CP's available slots. One hears stories of the Budd Car not keeping to schedule, so the prospects for the Canadian time-wise might be no better on CP.

All of the engine crews Toronto-Winnipeg are VIA employees. They would have to be relocated. The length of their runs, and their changeoff points, would have to be worked out. Some might seek employment with CN rather than move. There would be a differential in housing prices. If the length of each run was different, there would be winners and losers in income. From a people perspective, one would have to be very confident that it's a good long term switch.

And then there's the question of whether remote service is needed on the CN line anyways, and whether the Canadian and the White River Budd Car were both needed.

And of course what CP would charge vs CN.

I have been led to believe that VIA and CP have looked at this in detail. If all the ducks lined up, I'm sure the change would have happened - intuitively the CP route is more marketable. Either the merits were nice-to-have but not compelling, or there was a showstopper or two.

- Paul

I feel the 2 biggest hurdles is the fee to pay to CP and fitting in their schedule. The rest are minimal. One could expect the existing service be cancelled, which may actually mean a more regular service. To remove 4 day service and replace it with 3 day service would seem bad to the ones that use it.

It's likely because Northern Ontario has Bus service with ONR, and then train service in the far north.

As far as I understand it, it has to do with anyone east of NW ON going into MB, needs to self isolate for 14 days.

 

[roger1818]

Doe Via have the rolling stock to run a 5ish car train between Sudbury and Winnipeg? I would think that would be an easier solution.

I would say probably not. As VIA said on pg.20 of their Summary of the 2020-2024 Corporate Plan, "This [cascading HEP cars to the Ocean] combined with the lengthened schedules of the Canadian, leaves VIA Rail without enough cars to assemble a fifth train consist to reinstate the partially suspended peak-season frequency on the Canadian between Toronto and Edmonton." In addition, on pg. 23, 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." So not only is the non-corridor fleet not big enough to provide all the service they currently want, but the equipment is reaching the end of its life and we can expect it to spend more time out of service for repairs.

 

[micheal_can]

I would say probably not. As VIA said on pg.20 of their Summary of the 2020-2024 Corporate Plan, "This [cascading HEP cars to the Ocean] combined with the lengthened schedules of the Canadian, leaves VIA Rail without enough cars to assemble a fifth train consist to reinstate the partially suspended peak-season frequency on the Canadian between Toronto and Edmonton." In addition, on pg. 23, 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." So not only is the non-corridor fleet not big enough to provide all the service they currently want, but the equipment is reaching the end of its life and we can expect it to spend more time out of service for repairs.

Souns like the only way the switch to CP can happen and still serve the CN service is if Via announces building new or used rolling stock.

 

[roger1818]

Souns like the only way the switch to CP can happen and still serve the CN service is if Via announces building new or used rolling stock.

That would certainly be one of the conditions.

 

[lenaitch]

Yeah, speaking personally, I would absolutely use such a service from Toronto to somewhere along Superior. What issues are involved with switching the Canadian from CN to CP here? Is there additional infrastructure needed?

Sudbury and Thunder Bay are the only northern points where the two lines interconnect.

As other folks, much more knowledgeable than I, have mentioned, there would no doubt be track and scheduling issues. Wayside facilities are probably pretty minimal since a lot of the flag stops (and even some of the scheduled stops) have a kiosk, at best. The cost compared to Sudbury-White River would be significantly higher simply due to distance.

The interesting thing about that is, during COVID all the other remote services have been cut back, but still are operated at least once a week. Whereas the CN route in Northern Ontario has been eliminated totally. While COVId is an exceptional situation, one wonders if that implies a lower concern for remote service on the Canadian’s current route.

- Paul

That's an interesting point. I have forgotten the mandate or authority that directs VIA to provide its remote service (I don't think it is laid out in any legislation). I suppose I just assumed it was on remote lines/remote communities that had CN/CP passenger service at the point when VIA was created. The numbers aren't huge but I wonder how the residents are getting by. I say all of this not knowing how many isolated settlements there are with permanent populations, as opposed to outfitters/remote camps. CN made the similar case when they stopped passenger service on the Soo sub (fmr ACR) - there were actually no permanent residents impacted, only camps and outfitters.

Certainly VIA could, during COVID, operate a weekly train between Sioux Lookout and Toronto if it was considered important.



I am not sure how Bus service helps communities that don't have access to roads. This discussion came up on SSP in October, and Collins, ON came up as an example of a community on the Canadian's route that doesn't have any road access. Certainly interesting that we haven't heard any complaints about the lack of service through COVID though.

There still might be isolated communities west of Sioux Lookout, it's be many years since I lived up there. I would think one of the problems would be crew management on such an infrequent service. Sioux was a crew change and servicing facility when I lived there but I don't know now, and I don't know enough of labour agreements and operating procedures. You certainly couldn't expect a crew to sit around for several days waiting for their turnaround run.

 

[micheal_can]

That would certainly be one of the conditions.

Kind of hard to do something like this without the rolling stock. Mind you, There is no reason that the Budds couldn't be used. They likely have enough to run 3 trips a week. It would suck to sit up all night if they did use them, but at least it would be something, The distance from Sudbury to Winnipeg seems to be about 26 hours along the CN route.

 

[Urban Sky]

Kind of hard to do something like this without the rolling stock. Mind you, There is no reason that the Budds couldn't be used. They likely have enough to run 3 trips a week. It would suck to sit up all night if they did use them, but at least it would be something, The distance from Sudbury to Winnipeg seems to be about 26 hours along the CN route.

There is no way you can get a union to agree to have its members work on board a train for 24+ hours without offering them sleeping accommodations which are completely absent on the RDCs! Therefore, running an RDC over such long distances requires an overnight stop (like the Skeena at Prince George) at a rail station with a Hotel within walking station (good luck finding one anywhere near the midpoint between Capreol and Winnipeg!) and operating with a second consist (as you won't be even able to run two round-trips with just one consist), which escalates the cost to operate (and to travel on board!) such a service...

 

[roger1818]

There is no way you can get a union to agree to have its employees work on board a train for 24+ hours without offering them sleeping accommodations which are completely absent on the RDCs! Therefore, running an RDC over such long distances requires an overnight stop (like the Skeena at Prince George) at a rail station with a Hotel within walking station (good luck finding one anywhere near the midpoint between Capreol and Winnipeg!) and operating with a second consist (as you won't be even able to run two round-trios with just one consist), which escalates the cost to operate (and to travel on board!) such a service...

Good point. Not to mention that VIA only has a grand total of 5 Budd RDCs, so hardly the “enough to run 3 trips a week” that micheal_can claims, on a trip that would take over 24 hours each way.

The reality is VIA will have troubles maintaining existing service, let alone think about offering any new services outside of the corridor, without funding for new long distance and regional trainsets. The government will think long and hard about if they want to pay that much money on infrastructure to maintain those services with no hope of them ever turning a profit.

 

[trebello]

It sounds like it's rather impractical from a cost and logistics standpoint to run service between Winnipeg and Sudbury Jct. on the CN line using Budd cars, based on the information in the previous posts (especially without a good location for an overnight stop). Does the entire line from Winnipeg to Sudbury Jct. have mandated remote service? Not that I think it would be practical to run on a sorter section (e.g. just to Sioux Lookout), but I couldn't find anywhere that listed what segment of the transcontinental service is a mandated/remote service and I'm curious (especially since this is the only remote service that hasn't been running at least once a week during the past few months with covid).

From what I understand, thus far VIA has made the sensible decision to not trade off better views and better reliability (assuming there would be better reliability or the whole point of switching lines is moot) for transcontinental passengers against discontinuing or truncating service for remote communities along the CN line. So back to my original question, is VIA's main option for making service on The Canadian more sustainable, limited to continued schedule adjustments? The schedule adjustments actually seemed to have worked well so far based on the charts provided in previous posts, and if it wasn't for the language in the corporate plan (and a few sensationalist headlines elsewhere) I would have just assumed VIA's plan was to modify their service outside of The Corridor as little as possible.

 

[Bordercollie]

For that kind of distance you would need a dining car and a sleeper coach. You could ask Siemens to make a Sleeper version using the Venture coach platform.

 

[roger1818]

It sounds like it's rather impractical from a cost and logistics standpoint to run service between Winnipeg and Sudbury Jct. on the CN line using Budd cars, based on the information in the previous posts (especially without a good location for an overnight stop). Does the entire line from Winnipeg to Sudbury Jct. have mandated remote service? Not that I think it would be practical to run on a sorter section (e.g. just to Sioux Lookout), but I couldn't find anywhere that listed what segment of the transcontinental service is a mandated/remote service and I'm curious (especially since this is the only remote service that hasn't been running at least once a week during the past few months with covid).

I don't think there is an official list of what the mandatory services are. AFAIK, it is more like they must continue to provide the services that they are "currently" providing and any abandoning of service requires crown approval. Obviously VIA has the flexibility to temporary suspend service due to situations outside of their control. Interestingly both the Victoria-Courtney and Montreal-Gaspe routes are both still listed as suspended and have not been officially abandoned.

Obviously the government is reluctant to abandon any service for fear that it will cost them in the next election. As a result, they would rather see VIA die a death of a thousand paper cuts than pull off the Band-Aid (to mix my metaphors) and fix the problems.

From what I understand, thus far VIA has made the sensible decision to not trade off better views and better reliability (assuming there would be better reliability or the whole point of switching lines is moot) for transcontinental passengers against discontinuing or truncating service for remote communities along the CN line. So back to my original question, is VIA's main option for making service on The Canadian more sustainable, limited to continued schedule adjustments? The schedule adjustments actually seemed to have worked well so far based on the charts provided in previous posts, and if it wasn't for the language in the corporate plan (and a few sensationalist headlines elsewhere) I would have just assumed VIA's plan was to modify their service outside of The Corridor as little as possible.

Without intervention from the federal government, that is about all they can do unfortunately. Given that VIA had to ask the federal government for money to do a proper feasibility study for HFR, I expect they don't have enough money to do much more than a back of the napkin study on how to fix the long distance and regional services. They do know that the HEP and Renaissance cars are rapidly reaching the end of their life. As for on time performance, they have fixed it for now, but how long will it last with increasing freight volume is anyone's guess.

Also, the longer schedule is fine for those wanting the train experience as they get more time on the train but it makes the train less attractive as a mode of transportation and it can actually hurt VIA's reputation nationwide. It also results in increased costs as the longer trip is, the more labour costs and the less utilization they can get out of their fleet is, meaning they need to buy and maintain a larger fleet to provide the same service.

For that kind of distance you would need a dining car and a sleeper coach. You could ask Siemens to make a Sleeper version using the Venture coach platform.

It might seem easy, but they would need a large order to cover the NRE costs of designing a sleeper variant. If VIA is replacing the rest of its fleet, that might be feasible, but not as a onesie-twosie order.

Another option would be to ask CAF to build some Viewliner IIs (they only just finished building the last one in August). They have already been designed and were recently built, so they could order a small number as is, or with a few minor tweaks (not major changes without a significant order).

 

[ShonTron]

Sudbury and Thunder Bay are the only northern points where the two lines interconnect.

As other folks, much more knowledgeable than I, have mentioned, there would no doubt be track and scheduling issues. Wayside facilities are probably pretty minimal since a lot of the flag stops (and even some of the scheduled stops) have a kiosk, at best. The cost compared to Sudbury-White River would be significantly higher simply due to distance.

Though CN still has mainline track into Thunder Bay, it only has the old Canadian Northern line through Fort Frances and northwestern Minnesota left. It abandoned the route through Nipigon and Geraldton twenty years ago, and the route between Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay at least ten years ago.

Passenger train interchanges between CN & CP tracks anywhere between Sudbury and Winnipeg just won’t happen.

 

[crs1026]

^Once the Challengers start arriving, there might be enough leftover HEP equipment in the fleet to cough up two baggage + coach sets and run the CN train similar to the Skeena, as suggested above.

I would not assume that every traveller of such a service needs to reach the far end of the line. So if the route is broken in the middle, with no layover amenities, some of the territory would be served from Winnipeg and some from Capreol, and that might be all the ridership needs.

But that is hypothetical. The question is whether the line needs to be served at all.

Personally, I doubt it. I know CN workers up that way, and while they face some commuting challenges, the communities along the railway have other means to reach civilization, and those commuting challenges (multi-hour drives along rough roads) are generic to all of the communities north of the TCH. The railway workforce has gravitated to a few spots, and the rest is bush, and the hamlets on the railway are outnumbered by hamlets with no transportation at all. There is nothing differentiating the on-line hamlets and there is little development enabled by giving them a service that off-rail hamlets don’t enjoy. (I’m drifting into “policy” here, but that shows that the two threads are best allowed some overlap)

I can’t imagine VIA underwriting the engineering and maufacturing effort to design and build a new overnight train for the remote market, to the exclusion of the long distance trains. The only way we will ever see new long distance trains procured for remote service is with the economy of scale of a larger production run. The pols seem happy to feed VIA enough money to nurse the existing equipment along, but that can’t continue forever. Having said that, pols being what they are, and lacking a commitment to any sort of national vision for either the long distance service or supporting remote communities (again, a policy digression) the decision probably won’t be taken seriously until the equipment becomes unfixable.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

Interestingly both the Victoria-Courtney and Montreal-Gaspe routes are both still listed as suspended and have not been officially abandoned.

Obviously the government is reluctant to abandon any service for fear that it will cost them in the next election. As a result, they would rather see VIA die a death of a thousand paper cuts than pull off the Band-Aid (to mix my metaphors) and fix the problems.

I do wonder if that's what is keeping the Canadian on the CN line, in spite of (hypothetically) having documented a better business case for using CP.

Status quo - nobody is unhappy, but VIA eats extra cost and provides a less than optimal rider experience

Change plan - VIA has a healthier and more marketable long distance train service, but some citizens are unhappy and communities are protesting their loss of service (which they may not really use)

As a voter (not living in Thunder Bay), I might even accept the status quo in spite of my enthusiasm for VIA, if that decision were reached transparently and if pols took accountability for that, so that it is not held against VIA. If I were a Thunder Bay voter, I would want transparency to understand what I'm foregoing in the interest of folks further north. It's so hard to talk about VIA without drifting into the politics.

- Paul