smallspy
Senior Member
Neither is GO Transit, and yet TC exercises its oversight on them as they are a passenger carrier.
Dan
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- Thread starter CDL.TO
- Start date
Dan
crs1026
Superstar
dowlingm
Senior Member
To me, that makes perfect sense - notwithstanding provinces normally jealously guarding the rights they got at Confederation, it makes more sense to contract in federal resources . Ontario does not have a lot of purely isolated operations where there is no interaction with federally regulated railways and/or railroads. The only one that comes to mind readily is Polar Bear Express.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
Announcement on Monday in Timmins, assume it is Northlander-related.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I respectfully disagree. It is possible that the ONR has an agreement with TC and/or the TSB, and it has adopted the CROR and other operating procedures as a matter of policy, but I can find nothing that indicates that TC has legislated oversight of it. All of the related statutes; Railway Safety Act, Canada Transportation Act and the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act use the same phrase of "under the legislative authority of Parliament" to define their scope and, under Sec. 92(10(a) of the Charter, a railway not extending beyond the limits of a province is exclusively within the jurisdiction of the province.
I can find no carve-outs that place it under federal jurisdiction.
I notice a particular TSB statement from Paul's link referring to Metrolinx:
As always, I stand to be corrected.
crs1026
Superstar
To make it a little murkier, here is a section from a TSB Accident Investigation which describes ONTC's safety governance setup, and demonstrates that TC does at times intrude into ONTC matters.
The summary would be - while ONTC may not be legally bound by all aspects of TC regulation, it has stated its intention to meet or exceed the standards applied federally.
If TC were asked, I suspect they would likely maintain their position that passenger operation over unsignalled territory does not meet prevailing safety standards. And in rebuttal, one would likely point to similar operations in Manitoba, Northern Quebec, and New Brunswick where VIA operates in unsignalled territory on lines where traffic is light and the cost of installing and maintaining signals is significant.
The business case for the Northlander might be somewhat different, but on a fundamental level, one would ask why Ontario is adding this service to its network, at considerable capital investment, but not implementing signalling, especially where most needed.
- Paul
The summary would be - while ONTC may not be legally bound by all aspects of TC regulation, it has stated its intention to meet or exceed the standards applied federally.
If TC were asked, I suspect they would likely maintain their position that passenger operation over unsignalled territory does not meet prevailing safety standards. And in rebuttal, one would likely point to similar operations in Manitoba, Northern Quebec, and New Brunswick where VIA operates in unsignalled territory on lines where traffic is light and the cost of installing and maintaining signals is significant.
The business case for the Northlander might be somewhat different, but on a fundamental level, one would ask why Ontario is adding this service to its network, at considerable capital investment, but not implementing signalling, especially where most needed.
- Paul
micheal_can
Senior Member
.There is a difference between an operator and an owner. GO does not own any tracks whatsoever. GO operates on Metrolinx, CN and CPKC tracks. GO must follow the rules and regulations set out for operations on those networks.
The PBX is a named train, not a railway, and is operated by ONR. This will be no different than the Northlander north of North Bay once it is up and running.
This is a very good explanation of who governs what. Prior to the ONTC Act of 1990, there may have been a point where it was not required to follow TC standards. This would have been likely the time of the old T&NO days and before CN started to abandon lines. The history of this rail line is not as simple as what a lot of people seem to think. It is that history that makes answering jurisdiction questions a little tougher. TBH, before you posted this,I had thought it was TSSA or some other provincial body that covers the line in ON and TC covered the subdivision connecting the 2 provinces.
dowlingm
Senior Member
The point you missed is that Northlander will interoperate on federal railways (CN) and with federal trains (CN, VIA). PBX does not.
smallspy
Senior Member
lenaitch
Senior Member
Which is as I mentioned. Voluntary adoption vs mandatory compliance. I could find only one TSB report surrounding an ONR incident, in the 1990s, involving a freight derailment with environmental spill but no injuries. The PBX had a derailment, with minor injuries, in 2018 that the TSB did not investigate. Go figure.
I can only suspect that they have confidence that their traffic is so low, particularly overnight, to allow for conflict-free passage. Of course, they have no control over what CN installs on their Newmarket sub unless they were willing to pay for it.
GO Transit is an operating division of Metrolinx. To be completely technical, the 'owner' of Metrolinx or ONR trackage is the Province of Ontario since they are both Crown agencies ('H.M. in the Right of the Province of Ontario').
The actual 'very good explanation' is the Constitution. Here is the list of federally regulated railways. Don't be distracted by the "1990" reference. All Ontario statutes are re-consolidated every ten years. The ONTC Act has been around for many decades (I traced it back to RSO 1960 then gave up). It is a continuation of the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway Act dating back to 1902.
It makes sense that the ONR adopt federal operating rules since freight operations venture into Quebec via the Nipissing Central Railway internal federal shortline (Kirkland Lake Subdivision) and, at some point in the future, will be operating on CN.
micheal_can
Senior Member
They are not the same entity. The best example is Metrolinx is what ONTC is and GO is what PBX is. In fact, ONTC is not ONR They are used interchangeably, but are different.
smallspy
Senior Member
You, of all of the people on here, are not the arbitrator of what is right and wrong with the railways. Your vast ignorance here shows few limits.
Please do some reading. Until you do that, go away.
Dan
lenaitch
Senior Member
In fact, the ONR is an operating division of the ONTC. The ONTC Act says so in Section 7. It is operated as one of its internal divisions, which include bus and repair/refurbishment (and formerly Ontera and the Owen Sound Transportation Company).
If the ONR is not part of the ONTC, please point us to the statute that establishes the ONR as a separate Crown agency. For that matter, do the same for GO Transit. I'll wait.
micheal_can
Senior Member
You just said what I have been saying.
Saying GO owns tracks is not anymore correct than saying you are riding a Metrolinx train. Just like the bus is not ONTC. That would be like saying all Chevrolets are GMCs. Yes one is under the umbrella of the other, but saying one is the other is not correct. Unless you drive a GMC Corvette....
Northern Light
Superstar
Here you go:
Construction underway on Timmins Station:
Ontario Newsroom
news.ontario.ca
From the above: