[reaperexpress]

Why are so many people obsessed with the Montreal-Toronto travel times? I don't know about the actual number of passengers but before COVID VIA was only running 6 trains a day between Montreal and Toronto but 10 trains a day between Ottawa and Toronto, so assuming the trains are the same size and equally full, that means Ottawa-Toronto had close to double the passenger volume (1⅔ times to be exact). The travel time on that route will drop from approximately 4 hours and 30 minutes to as low as 3 hours and 15 minutes. Montreal-Ottawa also had 6 trains a day (though I believe the trains were shorter), so that route also had significant traffic and its travel time will drop from 1:58 to 1:33.

Yes, if they achieve their stated travel times, they will certainly be quite respectable improvements over the current Toronto-Ottawa times. But that certainly not a given: VIA's statement was "reducing travel times from Ottawa to Toronto to as low as 3 hours and 15 minutes ". My point (and a couple others here) has been that in the event that it appears that their current strategy would not reliably achieve that travel time in practice, the scope of the project should be expanded to include bits and pieces of new high-speed infrastructure, rather than scaling back or eliminating the goal of improving travel times.

By the way, as I pointed out before, the current travel time isn't 4 hours and 30 minutes, it's 4 hours flat and has been as low as 3:48 in the recent past.

There is also something to be said about the frequency of the service. Going from 6 to 15 trains a day means you will have to wait significantly less time for a train.

Yes there is something to be said, but not much. With a long-distance intercity trip such as Toronto-Montreal, increasing the frequency actually has no effect on how long people wait for a train, because they don't just randomly show up at Union and hop on the next train to Montreal. Given that the trip takes nearly 5 hours, people have likely made plans in advance to stay in Montréal for at least a few days. They have booked a specific train in advance, and will show up at the station accordingly.

The benefit of frequency in an intercity market is rather that there is a greater chance that a train arrives around the time you want to arrive. People staying at the destination city for at least a few days will tend not to be particularly picky about the exact minute they arrive there. Six trains per day is already approaching the resolution with which people plan such long-distance trips: e.g. "arrive in the early afternoon" vs "arrive in the late afternoon" etc. Adding more departures would be nice, but it's certainly not a game-changer. The real game changer would be to start chipping away at those 5 hours in the train.

Take for example the following two hypothetical schedules:

If you want to specifically arrive in Montreal at 13:00, you can't do so in the left schedule, and instead need to arrive an hour earlier. But even in that case you're still no worse off since you end up departing at the same time anyway in either schedule (08:00).

Travellers are always better off with the left schedule than the right one, regardless of when they want to arrive.

The right schedule costs also more than twice as much to operate. It has twice as many trips, and the operating cost per trip is higher because each train + crew can't do as many trips in a day.

This is why I and some others are so serious about the need for travel time improvements as part of HFR, not just reliability and frequency improvements.

 

[ManyQuestions]

The benefit of frequency in an intercity market is rather that there is a greater chance that a train arrives around the time you want to arrive. People staying at the destination city for at least a few days will tend not to be particularly picky about the exact minute they arrive there. Six trains per day is already approaching the resolution with which people plan such long-distance trips: e.g. "arrive in the early afternoon" vs "arrive in the late afternoon" etc. Adding more departures would be nice, but it's certainly not a game-changer. The real game changer would be to start chipping away at those 5 hours in the train.

While six trains per day per direction is certainly approaching an ideal frequency for a 5 hour journey, it remains far less than ideal for a 2 hour journey such as Ottawa-Montreal. I fully agree that speed improvements are likely vital to increasing the popularity of the train over journeys from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal; however, based on my experience, increasing frequencies to reach your proposed semi-hourly service pattern would also critical.

Personally, I transitioned from mostly riding VIA to mostly driving and taking the bus between Ottawa and Montreal due to the low frequency and low ticket flexibility on VIA. I had been much more accepting of the wide gaps in the morning schedules when I was able to to choose any train at the last minute using the former unlimited student pass, but the loss of flexibility caused by the suspension of this pass combined with the lack of trains scheduled at convenient times to ultimately push me away from traveling by rail.

 

[reaperexpress]

While six trains per day per direction is certainly approaching an ideal frequency for a 5 hour journey, it remains far less than ideal for a 2 hour journey such as Ottawa-Montreal. I fully agree that speed improvements are likely vital to increasing the popularity of the train over journeys from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal; however, based on my experience, increasing frequencies to reach your proposed semi-hourly service pattern would also critical.

Personally, I transitioned from mostly riding VIA to mostly driving and taking the bus between Ottawa and Montreal due to the low frequency and low ticket flexibility on VIA. I had been much more accepting of the wide gaps in the morning schedules when I was able to to choose any train at the last minute using the former unlimited student pass, but the loss of flexibility caused by the suspension of this pass combined with the lack of trains scheduled at convenient times to ultimately push me away from traveling by rail.

Six trains per day is approaching the resolution of typical long distance travel plans but I agree that it's not quite there yet. Adding a couple daily round trips would certainly be noticeable. But beyond that the returns start to diminish quite quickly with travel times as long as 4-5 hours.
Toronto-Ottawa is indeed shorter and frequency does therefore play a slightly bigger role there.

 

[afransen]

Because Montreal-Toronto is the route pair with the greatest amount of air passenger volume annually. If you go by the last time Statcan actually released route pair volume data (in 1998), about ~10% of all domestic passenger volume was Montreal-Toronto. A naive calculation which takes that route share and multiplies by current domestic air travel, which in 2018 was about 90 million annual passengers, gives a route pair volume of ~9 million annual passengers. Going from a 5 hour train trip to a 4h40min train trip doesn't move the needle to win over that market share.

3 hours would be ideal but 4 hours would probably be enough to convert people who don't like flying. Also, being able to buy a train ticket on more of a whim than most people fly might pick up more of the last minute travel crowd (business or weekend trips).

 

[ARG1]

Six trains per day is approaching the resolution of typical long distance travel plans but I agree that it's not quite there yet. Adding a couple daily round trips would certainly be noticeable. But beyond that the returns start to diminish quite quickly with travel times as long as 4-5 hours.
Toronto-Ottawa is indeed shorter and frequency does therefore play a slightly bigger role there.

You also have to factor stuff like major events that affect travel, namely reading week when university students return home. As someone who currently goes to uni in Ottawa, you basically have to order Via tickets a good 4 weeks ahead of time just so there is space on the train because they sell out fast, and in turn you're likely going to use an alternative like Greyhound, which not only is it far more expensive, its also far less enjoyable than the train. Unfortunately, there is no way in hell VIA HFR is completed by the time I graduate, but if VIA HFR existed today, the impact it would have especially during reading week is insane.

 

[kEiThZ]

3 hours would be ideal but 4 hours would probably be enough to convert people who don't like flying. Also, being able to buy a train ticket on more of a whim than most people fly might pick up more of the last minute travel crowd (business or weekend trips).

This has been my argued for target.

4 hrs Toronto-Montreal makes the route genuinely competitive with driving and bussing and takes price a bit out of the equation. Heck, just shaving 15 mins off, to get it to 4.5 hrs would help them a lot. Travel times would be closer to Toronto-Ottawa today. At 4 hrs, we'd see Toronto-Montreal have notably more demand than Toronto-Ottawa today.

It also means a sub-3 hr Toronto-Ottawa trip. Probably 2:45 hrs. That makes HFR competitive with air for a lot of travelers on this segment.

And makes Ottawa-Montreal closer to 1:15 hrs. Which becomes Ottawa-Montreal commutable.

No idea what their analysis looks like. But a CAIV Analysis would consider the cost-speed tradeoff with respect to net benefit and induced demand. I suspect Toronto-Montreal all-stop service running up to 4:15 hrs would be sellable. 4:45 is too close to 5 hrs psychologically.

 

[kEiThZ]

Travellers are always better off with the left schedule

The operator benefits from a faster block time too. Cut the time from 5 hrs to 4 hrs and you can theoretically boost asset utilization and crew productivity by 20%. Same train could fit in 4 Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal trips vs. 3 runs per day, with just that 1 hr savings. Crews could do an out- and-back and not have to remain overnight. Etc.

 

[ManyQuestions]

3 hours would be ideal but 4 hours would probably be enough to convert people who don't like flying. Also, being able to buy a train ticket on more of a whim than most people fly might pick up more of the last minute travel crowd (business or weekend trips).

I fully agree that ease of purchasing last minute tickets would improve ridership among the last minute crowd. This seems like it would be especially important because of the likely low fraction of pre-planned holidays versus business and weekend leisure/family visit trips.

 

[ManyQuestions]

makes Ottawa-Montreal closer to 1:15 hrs. Which becomes Ottawa-Montreal commutable.

Does anybody have any idea what improvements are supposed to be made to bring Ottawa-Montreal to the projected times? The current travel time between Ottawa and Coteau over VIA-owned tracks is already close to that and there seems to be no plans to construct any new lines within Montreal. Straightening the line between Casselman and Saint-Polycarpe? Rerouting via the CP lines between Saint-Polycarpe and Dorval? It seems as though both of these would be needed along with the elimination of the 3-point turn on departure from Montreal to approach this target and that it would take much more than 100 million dollars to make it happen.

 

[Urban Sky]

It may not be an apples to apples comparison, but which end point would seem to have more market potential for a train service from Toronto?

What’s wrong with wanting the trip to Montreal to be as marketable as the Ottawa service?

Even the largest marketability towards the passenger doesn't get you far if the price tag makes the project unmarketable to governments and other investors...

Does anybody have any idea what improvements are supposed to be made to bring Ottawa-Montreal to the projected times? The current travel time between Ottawa and Coteau over VIA-owned tracks is already close to that and there seems to be no plans to construct any new lines within Montreal. Straightening the line between Casselman and Saint-Polycarpe? Rerouting via the CP lines between Saint-Polycarpe and Dorval? It seems as though both of these would be needed along with the elimination of the 3-point turn on departure from Montreal to approach this target and that it would take much more than 100 million dollars to make it happen.

The fastest scheduled travel time between Ottawa and Montreal was already 1:35 a few years back (see train 36 in the May 2004 schedule). What makes you doubt that 1:33 could be achieved after investing $91.5 million in that segment?

 

[crs1026]

Even the largest marketability towards the passenger doesn't get you far if the price tag makes the project unmarketable to governments and other investors...

Quite true, and that's why VIA is doing what it is doing given the constraints it faces.

The Ottawa-Toronto route has the best potential for return in the short term, given the availability of the Havelock line and the apparent non-availability of any other line, and given the rules of investor "marketability" as Ottawa has set them up.

That doesn't mean that the rules have been set to identify the optimum value proposition for the country. By going through Ottawa, with speed constraints to the west, we are paying a huge opportunity cost. As others noted, the Montreal-Toronto travel segment is a significant market opportunity, whether HFR positions VIA to play in it or not.

With federal spending now in hyperspace given COVID, the test that VIA is being held to has become irrelevant in just a few short months. I'm not suggesting that we throw all fiscal caution to the wind, but we are now arguing about a very small amount of money in the scheme of things.

VIA cannot make public policy, and is wise not to bite the master's hand. There's nothing VIA can do, except keep plugging, and make the most of whatever envelope they raise.

I appreciate the hard work that's going into HFR, and I can't wait to see it built...but....it's far less than sound public policy ought to have delivered.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

I completed my admittedly amateurish but hopefully interesting look at the Havelock route curves and speeds.

The good news is, the result was far more positive than I would have predicted. My notional end to end time, not providing for time in meets, stations, contingency, etc was 3 hours 37 minutes. If one adds dwell time and some padding, one can certainly have confidence that the timing is not going to be worse than today. An overall speed of 69.5 mph is not too shabby.

My calc came in some distance above the cited 3 hours 15 minutes, however. This is not surprising because a) my assumptions were deliberately conservative and b) it's a pretty crude spreadsheet.

The big things I learned are
a) The number of curves, and the small number of seconds gained by straightening any one curve, suggest that only a few judicious tweaks to the trackage may be affordable and justifiable
b) I made only a partial effort to include what I will call "futile sprints"... that is, assuming that trains would accelerate wherever possible between curves to whatever peak speed could be attained before braking to comply with the next curve. That only seemed to glean seconds per short tangent segment, and not minutes.
c) If the sprinting is the solution, tilting trains don't help with that.
d) The assumptions around banking and curve speed may be what differentiates this calculation from the "real" story

Here is the high level of my data. Rather than debating the fine points, it might be worth just looking at the timing for individual segments and see if my times differ from others' opinions consistently across all parts of the route - which would suggest my assumptions are simply off base - or am I most off in any particular portion of the route.

- Paul

 

[ManyQuestions]

The fastest scheduled travel time between Ottawa and Montreal was already 1:35 a few years back (see train 36 in the May 2004 schedule). What makes you doubt that 1:33 could be achieved after investing $91.5 million in that segment?

Thanks for pointing this out. I had thought that I read an old VIA HFR document that indicated a target of 1:10. I cannot find it after a quick search so I must have either recalled information incorrectly. Furthermore, the amount of early arrivals I've experienced on that segment suggests that there would be significant benefit from simply reducing congestion and that this would be greater than maximum speed increases. However, I'm still curious about the viability of constructing a new more direct line along the CP right of way between the diamond north of Saint-Polycarpe and Vaudreuil. I guess I'll need to do some research when I have time....

Edit: I think I obtained the estimate of a 1:10 Ottawa-Montreal time by subtracting 3:15 from 4:30 given that those were the two times listed on the HFR site despite the latter being the current Ottawa-Toronto time and not the proposed Montreal-Toronto time...

 

[kEiThZ]

I completed my admittedly amateurish but hopefully interesting look at the Havelock route curves and speeds.

The good news is, the result was far more positive than I would have predicted. My notional end to end time, not providing for time in meets, stations, contingency, etc was 3 hours 37 minutes. If one adds dwell time and some padding, one can certainly have confidence that the timing is not going to be worse than today. An overall speed of 69.5 mph is not too shabby.

My calc came in some distance above the cited 3 hours 15 minutes, however. This is not surprising because a) my assumptions were deliberately conservative and b) it's a pretty crude spreadsheet.

Bravo! Good work.

Kinda goes to show how much of a barebones proposal this is. They really aren't doing anything to cut travel times. Just building functional track and relying on the lack of congestion to make it attractive. Personally I think they should forego electrification and spend the $2B electrification would cost on a better corridor that cuts 10-20 mins from Ottawa-Montreal and 15-30 mins from Toronto-Ottawa.

 

[roger1818]

It's natural to wonder about a connection between the first and second largest cities in Canada.

There is a difference between wondering about something and obsessing over it.

Also, the rail demand is low because the service sucks (relatively). It's not all that competitive with a car and costs a ton. Compare air and bus travel between Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montreal and you'll get a very different picture of demand.

Except whatever comparison about travel times and distance between driving and taking the train on the Montreal-Toronto route, you can say the same about Ottawa-Toronto (if anything, Ottawa-Toronto is worse).

VIA does well on Toronto-Ottawa because a fifth of the trip is on track that VIA owns.

It is actually closer to 1/4, but even still, while helpful, it isn't a game changer as 3/4 of the travel is still on CN's mainline. If you think VIA owning "a fifth" of the track is making such a huge difference, what do you think owning near 100% of it will have?

Will be interesting to see how much a higher frequency and marginally shorter travel time (4:45 vs 5:04 average today) will improve demand on the Toronto-Montreal segment.

The higher frequency (as well as improved reliability) will be the key. As Yves Desjardins-Siciliano said in the in the Winter 2016 issue of Interchange:

For example, from 2000 to 2011, VIA Rail ran five trains a day between Ottawa and Toronto. During that 11-year period, ridership increased by 25 per cent – or approximately 2 per cent each year. In 2012, it added two frequencies and the next two years saw a jump in ridership of 36 per cent.

So increasing frequency can have a dramatic effect on ridership.

Population of Ottawa : 812,000
Population of Montreal : 1,600,000

It may not be an apples to apples comparison, but which end point would seem to have more market potential for a train service from Toronto?

Population is one factor, but there are others that also have a significant effect on demand. Some other factors are:

• While both Ottawa and Montreal are bilingual, Ottawa is more English (same as Toronto) but Montreal is more French,
• Ottawa is the National Capital, making it a more significant destination,
• Toronto is Ottawa's provincial capital, but not Montreal's (making Toronto a more significant destination from Ottawa than from Montreal),
• Ottawa is about 20% closer than Montreal is to Toronto, making land based travel more competitive.

What’s wrong with wanting the trip to Montreal to be as marketable as the Ottawa service?

There is nothing wrong with desiring it, but as I said, why obsess over it?

The metro area comparisons are even more drastic.

While I agree (and would argue that metro populations are more appropriate to use) as I said above, there is more to the issue than just population.

Because Montreal-Toronto is the route pair with the greatest amount of air passenger volume annually. If you go by the last time Statcan actually released route pair volume data (in 1998), about ~10% of all domestic passenger volume was Montreal-Toronto. A naive calculation which takes that route share and multiplies by current domestic air travel, which in 2018 was about 90 million annual passengers, gives a route pair volume of ~9 million annual passengers. Going from a 5 hour train trip to a 4h40min train trip doesn't move the needle to win over that market share.

I assume you mean this report? That is only looking at air travel, which is a small minority of travel in the TOM corridor. In the same issue of Interchange, Yves Desjardins-Siciliano said:

Today, 87 per cent of travel between Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal is by car, six per cent is by plane and five per cent is by train. Desjardins-Siciliano thinks a dedicated passenger-rail track between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal is the only way to increase the rail’s share over the car.

Also, your "naive calculation" is off by an order of magnitude. The report I found says only "1.2 million passengers travelled between Toronto and Montreal" by air in 1997. I expect that is origin-destination pairs, and ignores those connecting to other flights. Regardless, it is likely better for VIA to try and compete with the 87% who drive rather than the 6 percent who fly between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.