[nfitz]

CN doesn't have to get someone to lie. The numbers, huge buckets full of numbers of machine readable data, apparently, for all the affected crossings were submitted to Transport Canada literally months ago. CN has already had its experts submit affidavits, though not testify in Ontario because the case never made it to court there. The Quebec case is plodding along and I've heard nothing about it.

Don't expect too much from CN. As Dan says, they have nothing. If nothing equals lies, then they have lies. Their qualified expert's best line? That he had no idea, around the day when Ventures began operating in Southwest Ontario, that Ventures had really been operating outside the MOQ triangle - until that day! But the longer Transport Canada dithers, the better CN's case looks and the longer the reductions stay in place. VIA is not spotless in this, their insistence at 45 mph from the whistle post is not always necessary and needlessly accedes to CN's goals of making VIA trains' OTP worse!

Why would it matter if an expert knew about whether they were operating Ventures or not. Normally expert witnesses are retained after a court case starts - unless perhaps you are a tobacco company.

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

If it's so clear then why does the court not throw it out? That would end the whole thing.

Well, it did get 'thrown out' of Ontario court. VIA and CN hadbeen before Federal Court since last November. In February, 2025 the court concluded that it did not have the jurisdiction to rule on the issue. This prompted VIA Rail to turn to the Quebec Superior Court, which has not yet ruled on the dispute. VIA and CN have been battling this issue in Federal Court since last November. Stay tuned. I don't know if Ontario or Quebec court judges would be qualified to go through machine readable data to grant VIA's request to rescind the reductions.

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

Why would it matter if an expert knew about whether they were operating Ventures or not. Normally expert witnesses are retained after a court case starts - unless perhaps you are a tobacco company.

'Qualified expert' was your term. It was actually Hoang Tran, CN Senior Director, Regulatory, System Safety and Passenger Operations, and he ought to have known. Hey, if in doubt Mr Tran, contact Mr Luce, CN Manager of Passenger Operations. Neither seemed to know.

ought to have known.

 

[nfitz]

Well, it did get 'thrown out' of Ontario court. VIA and CN hadbeen before Federal Court since last November.

Which Ontario Court was it thrown out of? And you are also saying the Federal Court said they didn't have jurisdiction? I'm surprised given that trans-provincial railways are clearly listed in the BNA act as federal. On the other hand, the Montreal to Quebec City trains are provincial.

'Qualified expert' was your term. It was actually Hoang Tran, CN Senior Director, Regulatory, System Safety and Passenger Operations, and he ought to have known.

Yes, it was the term I used in the post I made in response to Smallspy's comment in the discussion about testifying in court. Then you replied to my comment about the expert saying that CN's had already submitted affadivits. The more I read your post, I don't understand it. Are you saying that the affidavits are not by experts, but from the defendant's personal? You said "CN doesn't have to get someone to lie. The numbers, huge buckets full of numbers of machine readable data, apparently, for all the affected crossings were submitted to Transport Canada literally months ago." Are you saying that the data supports CN's claim?

Litigation is such a convoluted and illogical process - if a witness claims they can’t fly, the lawyers will ask if they ever jumped off a bridge to see if they actually could.
Call me perverse, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some legal mind decided that VIA’s case would be stronger if they actually ran the longer trains, so the loss of revenue due to empty seats and the inability to cover the rotation due to a less flexible deployment of Ventures becomes a provable fact backed up by experience and numbers, and not just a hypothetical but unproven postulation by an expert witness.

Yes, I agree with you, generally. But when an expert who has been qualified by the court tells the court that there could be a significant mass casualty event if they rule against CN - then I'd be completely shocked if the court would rule in VIA's favour; even if the judge was 99% sure the expert was wrong. I see no way out of that, unless the plaintiff seeks to disqualify the expert on appeal.

 

[micheal_can]

Litigation is such a convoluted and illogical process - if a witness claims they can’t fly, the lawyers will ask if they ever jumped off a bridge to see if they actually could.
Call me perverse, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some legal mind decided that VIA’s case would be stronger if they actually ran the longer trains, so the loss of revenue due to empty seats and the inability to cover the rotation due to a less flexible deployment of Ventures becomes a provable fact backed up by experience and numbers, and not just a hypothetical but unproven postulation by an expert witness.

- Paul

It sounds like one of those cases of ruling everything out.So, Vi has no other choice but to either have their schedule affected, or have longer trains. I am wondering if Via is running those longer trains and the detectors have the same reactions, what then?

 

[evandyk]

The federal court didn’t have jurisdiction because Via Rail filed an application for judicial review. An application for judicial review is a procedure for reviewing government action, but the action Via wanted reviewed was done by CN, which is clearly not government.

But an action for breach of an agreement between two parties is a matter for the provincial courts, even if those parties are federally regulated railways.

 

[Trackside_Treasure]

Which Ontario Court was it thrown out of? And you are also saying the Federal Court said they didn't have jurisdiction? I'm surprised given that trans-provincial railways are clearly listed in the BNA act as federal. On the other hand, the Montreal to Quebec City trains are provincial.


Yes, it was the term I used in the post I made in response to Smallspy's comment in the discussion about testifying in court. Then you replied to my comment about the expert saying that CN's had already submitted affadivits. The more I read your post, I don't understand it. Are you saying that the affidavits are not by experts, but from the defendant's personal? You said "CN doesn't have to get someone to lie. The numbers, huge buckets full of numbers of machine readable data, apparently, for all the affected crossings were submitted to Transport Canada literally months ago." Are you saying that the data supports CN's claim?


Yes, I agree with you, generally. But when an expert who has been qualified by the court tells the court that there could be a significant mass casualty event if they rule against CN - then I'd be completely shocked if the court would rule in VIA's favour; even if the judge was 99% sure the expert was wrong. I see no way out of that, unless the plaintiff seeks to disqualify the expert on appeal.

VIA's application for judicial review by the Federal Court in Ontario.
CN was required by TC to submit the data. In the Federal Court in Ontario case, CN was granted confidentiality for that data. That data was not made public as a result. VIA has gained some access to it since then. I do think that if CN's data supported CN's claim, they would not move to make it confidential.
Again, CN's expert was not an expert. He was a senior CN employee, closely toeing CN's party line based on US precedents, without any data in Canada except for a few short warnings on the Drummondville Sub.

 

[Urban Sky]

'Qualified expert' was your term. It was actually Hoang Tran, CN Senior Director, Regulatory, System Safety and Passenger Operations, and he ought to have known.

Indeed, if there is one person at CN who should know then it would be the guy with this job title and who previously worked with the same people who still assign and deploy VIA’s fleet:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hoang-tran-5b6aa086?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

 

[smallspy]

If CN gets a qualified expert to "lie", the court will have little choice.

I'd expect multiple levels of appeals lasting until the 2030s by CN if they lose - up to the Supreme Court.

Transport Canada needs to grow, and order CN to upgrade every level crossing quickly. Even if VIA wins the first round, I don't see an end to this.

Some of the things that they are claiming are so easily dispelled as to be laughable.

"The Siemens trains are shorter than the trains they are replacing." Really? We all must have been imagining all of those 3- and 4-car LRC and HEP trains then.
"The Siemens trains are lighter." Not according to Siemens documentation. Which CN also received prior to testing and ensuring that the trains are capable of running at the enhanced passenger train speeds.
"We didn't know that they were running the trains yet." I have friends at CN who notified me of the first runs in service, and some of them are high enough up that they would be reporting to people at the same level as Mr. Tran or higher.

Unfortunately, Transport Canada is not likely to do much here on their on volition - they've long been in the pockets of CN and CP. What needs to happen is that the Minister has to step in and get them moving.

Dan

 

[cplchanb]

Some of the things that they are claiming are so easily dispelled as to be laughable.

"The Siemens trains are shorter than the trains they are replacing." Really? We all must have been imagining all of those 3- and 4-car LRC and HEP trains then.
"The Siemens trains are lighter." Not according to Siemens documentation. Which CN also received prior to testing and ensuring that the trains are capable of running at the enhanced passenger train speeds.
"We didn't know that they were running the trains yet." I have friends at CN who notified me of the first runs in service, and some of them are high enough up that they would be reporting to people at the same level as Mr. Tran or higher.

Unfortunately, Transport Canada is not likely to do much here on their on volition - they've long been in the pockets of CN and CP. What needs to happen is that the Minister has to step in and get them moving.

Dan

TC has long been a bureaucratic cesspool of incompetency. not a surprise here.

 

[Bordercollie]

So by extending the trains you avoid the issue but need more cars to fill the idle locomotives.

And do you keep the legacy fleet around until new cars are ordered and delivered in 5 years if this is not resolved?

 

[micheal_can]

So by extending the trains you avoid the issue but need more cars to fill the idle locomotives.

And do you keep the legacy fleet around until new cars are ordered and delivered in 5 years if this is not resolved?

The choice is cut routes or run the legacy service. My guess is that we will not see the legacy service retired till they can have all routes running with the new sets, unless there becomes a point that there are not enough cars to safely make up the needed trains.

 

[robmausser]

So by extending the trains you avoid the issue but need more cars to fill the idle locomotives.

And do you keep the legacy fleet around until new cars are ordered and delivered in 5 years if this is not resolved?

There are enough Budds and F40PH-2's on the corridor to merge the existing Ventures into 8 car trains and keep service running while new trains are ordered iirc. They can last another 5 years.

Merging the existing 6 car Ventures in 8 cars will give 22 trains instead of 32.

That means we need 10 Budd trainsets. They can be short in length, as ridership will spill onto the larger Venture trains.

The P42s and LRC's days are numbered however.

 

[cplchanb]

There are enough Budds and F40PH-2's on the corridor to merge the existing Ventures into 8 car trains and keep service running while new trains are ordered iirc. They can last another 5 years.

Merging the existing 6 car Ventures in 8 cars will give 22 trains instead of 32.

That means we need 10 Budd trainsets. They can be short in length, as ridership will spill onto the larger Venture trains.

The P42s and LRC's days are numbered however.

Well they better merge the sets quickly. They are hemeraging ridership due to the catastrophic travel delays

 

[reaperexpress]

As I recall from the equipment cycling charts that were posted here previously (can't find them at the moment), Via was already operating some 7-car LRC sets on Toronto-Montreal services, so it makes sense to switch those to 7-car Venture sets and redeploy those LRCs on shorter trains where they can save a Siemens set from being affected by the speed restrictions.

On Toronto-Ottawa, running 7-car trains would probably necessitate reducing the number of departures given the finite equipment available. Hopefully the 7-car sets get assigned to trips that make few stops, since those sets have a worse power-to-weight ratio.

Merging the existing 6 car Ventures in 8 cars will give 22 trains instead of 32.

The existing Venture sets have 5 cars (2 business, 3 economy) and they are lengthening some of them to 7 cars (3 business, 4 economy).