[Urban Sky]

Yes they will go away eventually, but that is clearly not happening imminently. In the meantime, if Via has any respect for its customers, it will make adjustments to minimize the impacts of the ridiculous speed restrictions. The financial compensation they might win from CN in a court case by demonstrating their drop in OTP will not come anywhere close to recovering the loss in revenue caused by destroying what little confidence the public still had in Via's ability to provide service.

Given that they seem to need to „slaughter“ a full 5-car trainset to extend another 5-car trainset to a 7-car train, I don‘t see how they could possibly create more than 3 such sets. And a CN which already seems rather malicious could easily increase the minimum axle count further, restarting the same game.

The only real lever VIA controls is to extend it‘s journey times, which hard-codes a certain cycling plans and poses severe risks that CN would deny them to return to the old travel times.

It‘s easy to declare that VIA should resolve the situation, but much more difficult to actually identify a strategy which makes VIA‘s passengers better off in the short, medium and long run. Only the spineless paperpushers at TC can resolve this situation, by finally proving that there is such thing as a public safety regulator in the Canadian railroad sector. But we already know since Lac-Megantic that such thing does not exist and the industry effectively regulates itself…

 

[crs1026]

Clearly, if the only remedy is to wait three years and hope for a favourable ruling from the courts, CN has won.

The issue becomes one of damage control.

Buying 64 more coaches to fill out all 32 sets to 7 cars seems unlikely.

Shunt activators are still under development, I presume?

I wonder if VIA can find even a dozen non-venture shells that can be inserted in consists without carrying passengers, and how much it would cost to install compatible couplers and jumpers, to round consists up to 7 cars without stealing from other venture sets. Might not be pretty, but unless the braking or banking is absolutely incompatible (I have a hard time believing that would be the case) these might be operable even at 80 mph without the slow 45mph restriction.

And yes reduce a few consists to three cars, and use them where the schedule permits, to round up some Venture sets to 7 passenger carrying coaches. Some runs will benefit from the added seats, it's a complication for fleet rotation - but this is damage control..

And hope the next government has more backbone.

- Paul

 

[reaperexpress]

Given that they seem to need to „slaughter“ a full 5-car trainset to extend another 5-car trainset to a 7-car train, I don‘t see how they could possibly create more than 3 such sets.

The question at hand is whether two or three 7-car Siemens sets should be assembled for the trips that are 7 cars anyway.

To expand a 5-car set to a 7-car set, Via needs one additional economy car and one business car. That means that three 5-car sets can be reorganized to create two 7-car sets, with one cab car and one locomotive left over.

Meanwhile the two existing 7-car sets can be reorganized into three 4- or 5-car sets with the addition of a locomotive. My understanding is that the LRC and Ren coaches are being retired more urgently than the P42 locomotives, so it should be possible to temporarily delay the retirement of one P42 locomotive until the CN restrictions are resolved.

So yes, assembling two 7-car Siemens sets would reduce the number of Siemens sets by 1. And it might enable the number of legacy sets to be increased by 1. Which overall I would consider to be an improvement since it would enable all 5 sets involved to be immune to CN's restrictions rather than just 2 of the sets currently.

And a CN which already seems rather malicious could easily increase the minimum axle count further, restarting the same game.

We have not seen any evidence that CN introduced the speed restrictions with the specific intent to delay Via. All the evidence provided suggested that the restrictions were introduced due to incompetence among CN management in the form of unfamiliarity with Via operations and unfamiliarity with the need to conduct a risk assessment before implementing a network-wide policy that affects operator workloads. There is no reason to believe that CN would increase the minimum number of axles in response to Via assembling a couple sets that conform to CN's request for 32 axles. It's worth noting that Via already operates two daily trips with 48 axles (50/60 and 52/62), yet CN has not increased their minimum to 48 axles.

The only real lever VIA controls is to extend it‘s journey times, which hard-codes a certain cycling plans and poses severe risks that CN would deny them to return to the old travel times.

It‘s easy to declare that VIA should resolve the situation, but much more difficult to actually identify a strategy which makes VIA‘s passemgers better off in the short, medium and long run. Only the spineless paperpushers at TC can resolve this situation, by finally proving that there is such thing as a public safety regulator in the Canadian railroad sector. But we already know since Lac-Megantic that such thing does not exist and the industry effectively regulates itself…

I never claimed that assembling two or three 7-car Siemens sets would "resolve the situation", I claimed that it would reduce the impacts. Do you disagree that using Siemens sets on the only equipment rotations that would allow Siemens sets to avoid the CN speed restrictions would reduce the impacts of the speed restrictions?

 

[Urban Sky]

To expand a 5-car set to a 7-car set, Via needs one additional economy car and one business car. That means that three 5-car sets can be reorganized to create two 7-car sets, with one cab car and one locomotive left over.

Meanwhile the two existing 7-car sets can be reorganized into three 4- or 5-car sets with the addition of a locomotive. My understanding is that the LRC and Ren coaches are being retired more urgently than the P42 locomotives, so it should be possible to temporarily delay the retirement of one P42 locomotive until the CN restrictions are resolved.

So yes, assembling two 7-car Siemens sets would reduce the number of Siemens sets by 1. And it might enable the number of legacy sets to be increased by 1. Which overall I would consider to be an improvement since it would enable all 5 sets involved to be immune to CN's restrictions rather than just 2 of the sets currently.

My understanding is that car type „Business 1-A“ (26XX) doesn‘t have a regular diaphragm at the locomotive-facing end and can therefore only be attached to a locomotive. I tried to find a clear photo, but all I could find is whatever this screenshot of a Youtube-video shows at 17:35 minutes:

This would only leave 3 of the 5 cars which can be reused as intermediary cars, so you would need to slaughter 2 trainsets for every 3 extended trainsets - which would then have not just different car layouts but even a different number of Business Class seats cars.

Also, I believe that the contract with Siemens only allows certain configurations, presumably the one which got tested (Note how the additional Business Class car is 27XX and not 26XX):

2311
2811
2911
2906*
2706* business class
2711 business class
2611 business class
2211

Given that Siemens is guaranteeing a certain level of reliability and availability, it would most likely insist on very extensive testing before accepting any deviating configuration which was not explicitly mentioned in the contract.

It really might not be as easy and straightforward as it appears from the sidelines…

 

[nfitz]

Buying 64 more coaches to fill out all 32 sets to 7 cars seems unlikely.

They should certainly be doing a capital funding request to the ministry for this - if only driving home the issue.

And/or buy the things, and sue CN for the cost.

And hope the next government has more backbone.

I guess we'll see. Chrystia Freeland is certainly known for backbone - so there's a chance!

 

[dowlingm]

I never claimed that assembling two or three 7-car Siemens sets would "resolve the situation", I claimed that it would reduce the impacts. Do you disagree that using Siemens sets on the only equipment rotations that would allow Siemens sets to avoid the CN speed restrictions would reduce the impacts of the speed restrictions?

If it’s true that VIA is not putting additional Siemens trainsets in service for now, it makes no sense to me that VIA would not create sufficient trainsets of those already accepted to at minimum cover the existing 32-axle services at all times, but if they can form even more (especially if also waiting for windshields on end vehicles anyway) then adopt the Ryanair approach - flood Reservia with cheap seats to fill trains.

But this is an organization that this week, apparently, sent a test train (trainset 03, which had been parked for some time) on a test trip from Montreal to Alexandria but then had to send it all the way to Ottawa at god knows what cost in crew hours, because enough diesel hadn’t been loaded by the yard to turn it back to Montreal. Not exactly giving confidence of solid decision making. https://groups.io/g/Canadian-Passenger-Rail/message/101423

 

[Bordercollie]

If it’s true that VIA is not putting additional Siemens trainsets in service for now, it makes no sense to me that VIA would not create sufficient trainsets of those already accepted to at minimum cover the existing 32-axle services at all times, but if they can form even more (especially if also waiting for windshields on end vehicles anyway) then adopt the Ryanair approach - flood Reservia with cheap seats to fill trains.

But this is an organization that this week, apparently, sent a test train (trainset 03, which had been parked for some time) on a test trip from Montreal to Alexandria but then had to send it all the way to Ottawa at god knows what cost in crew hours, because enough diesel hadn’t been loaded by the yard to turn it back to Montreal. Not exactly giving confidence of solid decision making. https://groups.io/g/Canadian-Passenger-Rail/message/101423

They couldn't get a fueling truck to meet them in Alexandria?

They can utilize the cab cars in additional trains they just need to couple them infront of other cab cars. Or have two locomotives in one train.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

We need to blow up these legacy organizations and strip CN their legacy legal rights from a century ago.

AoD

 

[Urban Sky]

They can utilize the cab cars in additional trains they just need to couple them infront of other cab cars. Or have two locomotives in one train.

Not exactly sure what you are proposing here, but the cab cars have regular American couplers on the cab side and semi-permanent couplers on the other, so the only way to couple them is front-to-front or back-to-back…

 

[Bordercollie]

Not exactly sure what you are proposing here, but the cab cars have regular American couplers on the cab side and semi-permanent couplers on the other, so the only way to couple them is front-to-front or back-to-back…

There is a video on YouTube where brightline swapped out an AAR coupler for a permanent one in half a day so if there is a will there is a way.

 

[Urban Sky]

There is a video on YouTube where brightline swapped out an AAR coupler for a permanent one in half a day so if there is a will there is a way.

I don‘t know the specifics about Brightline‘s contract with Siemens, but VIA‘s contract with Siemens includes maintenance&parts and guarantees about certaib minimum availability levels and that requires very specific and strict contractual terms defining what VIA may or may not do with the fleet. It‘s like you are free to open up your iPhone and play around with (or swap) its components, but if you decide to do so you shouldn‘t expect Apple to any longer accept any liability or provide any warranty or free support…

 

[Bordercollie]

I don‘t know the specifics about Brightline‘s contract with Siemens, but VIA‘s contract with Siemens includes maintenance&parts and guarantees about certaib minimum availability levels and that requires very specific and strict contractual terms defining what VIA may or may not do with the fleet. It‘s like you are free to open up your iPhone and play around with (or swap) its components, but if you decide to do so you shouldn‘t expect Apple to any longer accept any liability or provide any warranty or free support…

I also would like to point out that VIA should have known this was going to be an issue if you look at CN's handling of Amtrak.
Since down south they also require 32 axle counts so why would it be any different?
This will also mean that the Northlander sets will be subject to the same speed restrictions.

 

[crs1026]

We need to blow up these legacy organizations and strip CN their legacy legal rights from a century ago.

AoD

Well, in fact it was the 1990’s when we blew up any legacy rights…. And we did it in exchange for selling shares and reaping a huge pile of money for the taxpayers.
Be careful what you ask for, it’s what you get applies here. We did this to ourselves.

- Paul

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Well, in fact it was the 1990’s when we blew up any legacy rights…. And we did it in exchange for selling shares and reaping a huge pile of money for the taxpayers.
Be careful what you ask for, it’s what you get applies here. We did this to ourselves.

- Paul

Yep I do remember this one - it was a mistake of all times.

AoD

 

[crs1026]

Yep I do remember this one - it was a mistake of all times.

AoD

Yes and no. Having one privatised railway and one nationalised railway was not sustainable. Privatising CN was not a bad move…. But letting both railways off the hook by relieving them of an enforceable obligation towards VIA was the mistake. Investors should never have been given an expectation that Canada will not intrude on their property rights in this respect.
On paper, the law would appear to have retained this obligation, but Ottawa seems determined not to enforce or defend it. I really don’t understand why.

-Paul