Bordercollie
Senior Member
The mayor has been advocating for more trains however being short on equipment they can't add any new services. If they do they should run those trains along the Dundas sub instead of through kitchener.
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- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
micheal_can
Senior Member
Would you suggest an equal amount along each sub? I noticed all trains to Windsor use it and only the Sarnia trains use the Guelph sub.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Is that why the connection (in London) get to Toronto faster than the direct route?
It's a rare thing to see the direct route costing significantly less than the connection.
crs1026
Superstar
No, they should fix the Guelph Sub for speeds equal or greater to those on the Dundas Sub, and keep VIA away from all that CN freight traffic at lower cost.
- Paul
robmausser
Senior Member
Agreed with Dundas sub. Back in the early 2000s I would take the train from Sarnia to Toronto and there were two trains a day: one through Kitchener that took 4.5 hours and one through Brantford/Hamilton that took 3 hours.
I was pissed they cancelled the latter one. If someone wants to go to Kitchener from Sarnia, let them transfer at London. Making the only train from Sarnia to Toronto almost 5 hours is nutso.
robmausser
Senior Member
This is an "if you build it they will come" scenario for sure.
The ridership is bad because the train is very long (5 hours!) and until recently would leave Sarnia at 6:10am, and arrive at like midnight (if you are on time).
Recently they moved the 6:10am time to 8:10am and apparently ridership is up. Its obvious there is demand but the train is so bad people will find other ways.
Trackside_Treasure
Active Member
It's kind of sad that there are now the vast majority - 29 of the 32 Venture trainsets that were supposed to cover the entire Corridor - on the property. However, only 12 sets are in the daily rotation right now. So they're short on equipment in use, not equipment available.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Can it be realistically reduced to under four hours? Is the issue freight traffic priorities or the condition of the tracks, or both?
Bordercollie
Senior Member
If it's not a track slot issue then why not have more trains go from Toronto London via the Guelph sub. The train doesn't have to go to sarnia. Then it can be back in Toronto to do another run to London before the end of the day.
Did they fix the windshield issues on the venture sets?
ShonTron
Moderator
There is very little freight on the northern route through Stratford and Kitchener so that is not the issue. For nearly 20 years, the railway was leased to the Goderich-Exeter shortline, and track quality decreased. (This is one of several ways shortline operators can be profitable on marginal branch lines. Reduced labour costs and operational standards save money, but it can also wipe out entire towns, like Lac-Megantic.)
CN reacquired the corridor, sold the eastern half to Metrolinx, and has left the western half to deteriorate. With only one daily VIA round trip and only a few freights a week, CN is happy with the arrangement. CN is also in a feud with VIA and the federal government; that is why it is being unreasonable with the new VIA train shunt issue.
robmausser
Senior Member
The issue on the current route is the track condition, and because there is only 1 track for most of the length. I think from London to Kitchener much of the track is 40kmh now.
Fixing the track to Class 5 rail would do wonders.
Another issue is simply that its a milk run and it stops at every little town along the way.
If they had a 2nd train they could run a more express schedule on one of them.
The third issue is that its simply not as straight of a line to Toronto like the Dundas sub. Although its not that much longer, it still adds time.
All those issues compounded add up.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
No it's not rare, that's how Via's fare system works. If your trip involves two legs, they just sum the ticket prices as if they were two completely separate journeys. So you pay the base price twice.
See for example a trip from Aldershot to Oshawa on a random Wednesday a month from now. It gives you options like this one on trains 76 and 46 with a 44 minute transfer in Toronto, which costs $40.
Which is the sum of the individual tickets on trains 76 and 48:
Surprisingly, even with a 44-minute transfer, the Via trip is significantly faster than the direct GO train, so some people might actually use Via for this station pair if the prices were less insane and Via service was at all reliable.
The two service alerts were that one of the elevators in Union station is out of service
For the same price as the 107 km trip from Aldershot to Oshawa, you could travel on train 48 for 290 km from Toronto to Gananoque:
Or travel on train 76 for 185 km from London to Toronto:
Sometimes the trip planner doesn't even let you transfer at all.
Port Hope, Trenton, Napanee and Gananoque are only served by Toronto-Ottawa trains while Cornwall is only served by Toronto-Montréal trains. So to get from one of those stations to Cornwall you would need to transfer in Kingston or Brockville. For example:
VIA 54 Toronto-Ottawa (daily)
18:39 Port Hope
19:15 Trenton Junction
19:50 Napanee
20:09 Kingston
VIA 668 Toronto-Montréal (weekdays)
20:25 Kingston
21:51 Cornwall
But if you try to actually book a train from any of those stations to Cornwall the website tells you it's impossible. Even if you consider a 16-minute transfer to be too short (despite both trains being on the same track and therefore affected by the same delays), there's another possible connection from train 42 to 66 with a 3h transfer in Kingston.
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Admiral Beez
Superstar
How expensive is it to fix the track? Is it still done by hand in a slow process like this...
I've seen vids in other countries where it's done quickly by machine. Even Amtrak's into the automation game.
smallspy
Senior Member
Smaller jobs are done by hand with with smaller machinery, such as front-end loaders and excavators and the like.
The large machines like Amtrak's are done for more elaborate on-going work, such as wholesale tie changeouts. These machines are highly specialized and hugely expensive to operate and maintain. In fact, CN used to have one and used it to great effect in the 1970s and 1980s - and when they were done with it, sold it. Parts of it live on in that Amtrak machine.
Dan
crs1026
Superstar
There is all sorts of highly mechanised technology available to do track work, and the tasks required to fix the London-Kitchener portion of the Guelph Sub are all very well understood and practiced regularly by the industry.
The obstacle is the logistics. Either one has to convince CN to squeeze the job into its major project schedule, which would require freeing up their workforce and equipment from a very full schedule of work elsewhere in the system, or hire a contractor who may not be able to finance the investment cost of leading edge, high productivity track equipment for a single 60 mile project. Having CN schedule the job would likely create a multi year lead time. But CN may not allow a contractor without their having control.
Rather than imagining a single pass using the newest equipment, the most likely scenario might be a more moderately equipped contractor doing the work in successive tasks..And a ramped-up maintenance contingent to handle the ongoing upkeep..
However, the limiting factor remains the pace of upgrades to the Halton Sub and the Metrolinx portion of the Guelph Sub, including the new Kitchener terminal. Until we know just how many trains ML and VIA will be able to push through after the dust settles, we are just imagining.
Sure wish CN, ML, and ViA, and two levels of government, saw this as a priority. A moderately upgraded Kitchener line could out perform the Dundas Sub in capacity, frequency and trip time, and possibly has an equal or better ridership catchment. But we don't know whether they are building to that scale.
- Paul
The obstacle is the logistics. Either one has to convince CN to squeeze the job into its major project schedule, which would require freeing up their workforce and equipment from a very full schedule of work elsewhere in the system, or hire a contractor who may not be able to finance the investment cost of leading edge, high productivity track equipment for a single 60 mile project. Having CN schedule the job would likely create a multi year lead time. But CN may not allow a contractor without their having control.
Rather than imagining a single pass using the newest equipment, the most likely scenario might be a more moderately equipped contractor doing the work in successive tasks..And a ramped-up maintenance contingent to handle the ongoing upkeep..
However, the limiting factor remains the pace of upgrades to the Halton Sub and the Metrolinx portion of the Guelph Sub, including the new Kitchener terminal. Until we know just how many trains ML and VIA will be able to push through after the dust settles, we are just imagining.
Sure wish CN, ML, and ViA, and two levels of government, saw this as a priority. A moderately upgraded Kitchener line could out perform the Dundas Sub in capacity, frequency and trip time, and possibly has an equal or better ridership catchment. But we don't know whether they are building to that scale.
- Paul