Hello all ;
Here's a video depecting VIa Rail's speedsters along the corridor, the fiirt of it is a good ol' streamliner consist. Judging by the sound of the wheels in the joints, they seem to be scorchin' the ties (I'd say 90 to 100 Mph). anyway, one, after seeing this, cannot stop thing that in some aspects VIA seems to be a little 'behind' amtrak
We could get much more and faster VIA Rail service, following the election last week. The TorontoStar reports:
EXTRACT:
The head of Via Rail plans to convince the Liberal government that increases in ridership and revenue suggest a growing market for dedicated passenger rail, while worsening punctuality and longer trips reinforce the need.
CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano said the Crown Corporation will submit a $4 billion dedicated track plan for the busy Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa corridor to the new transport minister within months of the Nov. 4 announcement of the next federal cabinet.
The project — which has already attracted attention from potential investors at Canada’s big pension funds — would dramatically improve convenience and efficiency, he said. ....
The project would see the company build, acquire and restore tracks to increase the number of daily departures from each city to 15 from the current six. That could convince more commuters to make trips between 120 kilometres and 500 kilometres by train. Currently, eight in 10 trips in the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa triangle are made by car.
“We believe that service is so profitable — because it would go from about two million passengers per year to about seven million — that it could finance itself,” Desjardins-Siciliano said.
Via expects it will add 100,000 passengers in 2015, he said, crediting improved customer service and the addition of stops and cars to trains at busy times.
It is the first time since the 2008 financial crisis the money-losing company has seen a rise in both revenue and ridership.
Via’s passenger growth comes even as trains were punctual just 65 per cent of the time, falling from 86 per cent in 2010. The average trip length is also getting longer, the CEO said. A decade ago, travel time from Montreal to Toronto ran about four hours — now it takes more than five.
The problem, Desjardins-Siciliano said, is that Via passenger trains share tracks designed for and owned by freight train operators. As the amount of cargo shipped by rail rises, passenger trains experience more frequent delays.
Via trains, which can travel at speeds above 100 miles an hour, get stuck behind freight trains moving at less than half that speed. Aging and unstable infrastructure designed for the heavier, slower freight trains also inhibits high-speed travel.
Desjardins-Siciliano believes passenger rails would shave the commute between Montreal and Toronto to 3½ hours and the trip between Ottawa and Toronto to 2½ hours, saving more than an hour on each route. Via also estimates a dedicated passenger line would increase on-time performance to 95 per cent.
About $2 billion would be spent on infrastructure and signals, $1 billion on trains and stations and another $1 billion for electrification.
The new tracks could be operational in four to seven years, the CEO said, adding that the project would be profitable from day one and generate enough money to reduce Via’s overall deficit, creating a return for investors — whether they are public, private, or a combination of both.
“It should give comfort to the government that either it has the option to go to the market to get the money or that it could invest itself and keep all the return for itself,” Desjardins-Siciliano said.
He said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the Liberal government, which made transit investment one of its campaign pledges, will make the plan one of its infrastructure priorities.
Try timing the cars passing. I got roughly 80 mph for the last train. CN used to run the TurboTrains at 100 mph between Montreal and Toronto I believe and the LRC trains were allowed similar. I rode an LRC between London and Aldershot in the mid 1980s and it seem to remember timing a few miles close to 100.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
VIA was no slouch west of Toronto either. I recall riding the "International" from Chicago to Toronto in 1983. The train had Tempo coaches and an LRC locomotive and I got a few timings of around 80 MPH between Sarnia and London.
On my collection I've got a VIA schedule from 1998 or 99, where there's a non-stop train between Montreal and Toronto (actually it stopped at Dorval in both senses) that covers the distance (539 kilometres, by that time VIA only presented the distancees in the metric system, but the trains seem to operate with imperial measures) in 3h59, at a very respectable average speed of 135,31 Km/h (circa 84 Mph). Today, the best time is 4hrs 34 min (Tain 69, YYZ-YMQ) at an average speed of 118,03 Km/h (or circa 74 Mph). In the first case, the schedule was sort of relentless, and to keep such an high average speed, those trains had to roll at 100 Mph in very substantial parts of the trip. Anyway, nowadays freight 'congestion and interference' may have dictate a less healthier pace at least in the Toronto to Montreal part of the corridor (since the line is form CN, I guess they dictate the rules). Maybe the solution envisaged by VIA (it seems to be the same 'more multiple track sections in some places' of 'yesteryear', and it makes sense), possible with higher speeds in the vicinity of 110 or 125 Mph (track alignment seems to be quite straight) will be a good one. Outside the corridor, the rule seems to be the 'venerable' 80 Mph limit from the times of steam train operation. That's what my 'european' eyes seem to detect
Yes, Mario, the railroads still have mileposts, and the signal numbers are still based on the mileposts. Back in '97, my wife and I were going north from Victoria, and I asked a trainman if miles were still used, and he told me that they were.
However, for public consumption, the public timetables show distances in kilometers, since Canada uses the metric system.
Johnny
Deggesty Yes, Mario, the railroads still have mileposts, and the signal numbers are still based on the mileposts. Back in '97, my wife and I were going north from Victoria, and I asked a trainman if miles were still used, and he told me that they were. However, for public consumption, the public timetables show distances in kilometers, since Canada uses the metric system.
VIA no longesr quotes distances in their public schedules.
As for the 'imperial' system in the 'operational side', since CN has a substantial amount of mileage in the US and their operating rules are not much different from the ones in the US, I beleive that's the reason canadian trains still run with imperial measures
Mario_v I beleive that's the reason canadian trains still run with imperial measures
Some Imperial measures are different from US measures, The most significant one is the gallon. 1 US = 0.832674 Imperial (UK, formerly Canada and some other Commonwealth countries).
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
It would have been a massive undertaking to remove all mileposts and insert new km posts. And no real benefits. Only the Capital Railway O-Train Trillium line (5 stations, approx 5 miles) in Canada uses km and kph. And its 3 Talent and now 6 Coradia equipment is from Germany.
Ottawan It would have been a massive undertaking to remove all mileposts and insert new km posts. And no real benefits. Only the Capital Railway O-Train Trillium line (5 stations, approx 5 miles) in Canada uses km and kph. And its 3 Talent and now 6 Coradia equipment is from Germany.
Basically that conversion would imply a ne 'remesurement' of total track distances. Also cpnversion from Mph to Kph limits couldn't be direct, because it wouldn't be logic to have trains moving at 144,8 kph (90 Mph) or 128 Kph (80 Mph). The O-train case seems to be a special one, since all rolling stock is european
VIA is not only behind Amtrak (Acela), it's behind VIA... the Corridor trains between Toronto and Montreal average an hour slower than they were in the 1990's, due primarily to the P42's having a higher centre of gravity than the Bombardier LRC locomotives they replaced. High time for a full-scale modernization at VIA.
What I've never cared for on VIA's shoter distgance trains is the type of on-board amenities. I remember well the buffet-lounge cars that they and CN before that had on corridor trains. Not exactly like a full diner but infinitely better than the presnt at your seat trolley service and also better than Amcafes.
[quote user="Deggesty"]
Actually, Via Rail's public timetables no longer show distances at all, either in miles or kilometres. They stopped doing that a few years ago, probably to prevent travellers from calculating how slow the trains really are. However both CN and CP still use miles for operating purposes, since both have extensive trackage in the USA. For similar reasons, Canadian football fields still are measured in yards rather than metres, and of course the Rogers Centre, home field of the Toronto Blue Jays, uses feet.
Nobody seems to want to update this post so here goes; All VIA trains are limited to 85 mph, for a variety of reasons. The LRC tilt systems have not been used for some time because of mechanical problems and when the cars were rebuilt the tilt was removed. Hep 1 and 2 cars were always limited to 85mph. If a baggage car was in a LRC consist ergo 85 mph.
So now all trains regardless of engine type or consists are limited to 85mph. All engines have GPS and the trackside defect detectors have mph equipment so any over speeding is easily detected and engineers must stay below 85 or be written up.
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