In the December 1985 Pacific Rail News (no longer published), the VIA column noted that this RDC run was permanently terminated September 6, 1985, due largely to the frequency of grade crossing collisions.
Has anything like this occurred elsewhere in the US or Canada? I know some passenger routes stop running due to funding shortfalls, but I have never heard being "collision-prone" as a reason.
During the late 1970's when CP Rqil was still operating this service they upgraded with spiffed up RDC's. They used RDC 2 and RDC 1s with the interiors fancied up somewhat and added stewardesses from CP Air working out of the RDC 2 where they had baar ingredients etc to serve drinks. The service was speeded up over the RDCs that were then in service. There was no premium fare for this service although I do believe the RDC 2 had some type of premium seating in part of the car.
Customer response was favorable remembering the day I rode it there was one RDC 2 and two RDC1s comprising the train. One of the things I noticed besides the Stewardess that day was the number of rural crossings that either had just a stop sign or a single crossbuck. For part of the route the train parallels a highway as I recall and we were passing most of the motorists. Some of these rural crossings were quite close to the roadway and if trucks were waiting for an opening in the highway traffic they would have been blocking the crossing. The trip was well patronized on the day I traveled and CP Rail did serve some sort of box lunch from what I guessed was some sort of refrigeration unit in the baggage area of the RDC2.
I did not realize Via Rail later discontinued this run due to safety concerns.
Al - in - Stockton
passengerfan wrote: I did not realize Via Rail later discontinued this run due to safety concerns.
I would say the grade crossing collisions were one of the reasons. I'm not sure if it was the most important one.
Here on Vancouver Island our VIA Rail Budd Cars have quite a few tangles with traffic even at the lower speed this run runs at. Back in 1993, two RDCs were almost destroyed, one hitting a logging truck (6135, repaired) and the other a fuel truck (6134, retired).
Don't forget 6148's recent run-in's with gravel trucks in Chemainus, or the tree that 6133 hit a few years back. Or the string of boxcars that RDC-3 9024 hit near Union Bay in the 1960's.(for pictures see: http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?board=Vancouver;action=display;num=1205854945
The crossing accidents was the reason I heard that VIA cut the Edmonton-Calgary run. They didn't call it the "Flying Coffin" for nothing. 90 MPH will do a lot more damage to the RDC than the 25 and 40 MPH speeds that the Malahat runs at.
Shorter trains with higher speeds should have noisier horns.
I remember how frequent the accidents were on that line.
Two of my cousins were on board together during 2 different accidents in the early 80's.
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