nfitz
Superstar
Their image on Page 10, implies they are keeping the new colour scheme under wraps.
But reality is that they haven't finished painting (or adding decals), from this photo someone took today. Literally a cover-up!
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- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
But reality is that they haven't finished painting (or adding decals), from this photo someone took today. Literally a cover-up!
crs1026
Superstar
But reality is that they haven't finished painting (or adding decals), from this photo someone took today. Literally a cover-up!
VIA may or may not care. More likely, they are under orders. I wonder if anyone has explained to the Minister's office, or the PMO, about the rail enthusiast photography grapevine thing. It's a long way from California to Ottawa.
Kind of like when the auto makers are road testing new models.... if anyone has any illusions that the paint scheme will stay secret until the train makes it to the photo op in Ottawa.....;-)
Or maybe the wraps will come later, maybe even after testing - lots of locos run around in primer until there is time and space in the paint shop.
- Paul
roger1818
Senior Member
As it says on pg.7 of the document you linked to:
The vinyl wrap likely isn't critical for testing, and they will probably want them looking fresh at the start of revenue service in Q3 2022. After winter 2021/22 testing is complete, they will likely do a grand reveal with the new livery (possibly with trainset #3). If I had to guess, trainsets #1-3 will be wrapped at MMC and trainsets #4-32 will be delivered wrapped.
Who knows, for testing they might add a camouflage wrap, similar to the auto industry, though probably not (the black and grey is likely good enough).
SFO-YYZ
Active Member
Honestly, I'd be happy to just take the black and grey. That look alone is already a huge upgrade over the existing fleet. It looks simple and sleek.
crs1026
Superstar
Some years back I watched from the Islington Ave bridge as a brand new GO MP40 was fired up for the first time after delivery. Something wasn't right, and the unit disgorged multiple gallons of fuel and oil out the exhaust stack - all over its fresh paint.
Better to save the wraps for after those initial "burps".
- Paul
robmausser
Senior Member
while I do reallly like the new VIA livery, I agree and Im so glad we got the special nose cone, as the Amtrak ones look like a botched nose job.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Agreed. I said this before too. Was really hoping they got something like or closer to Brightline. Glad to see this nose. It's stupid and petty but when you're trying to convince a public with little experience of riding trains in Canada, every little bit helps.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I think it's because of the plow and coupler. VIA has to use these way more than the rest.
crs1026
Superstar
From the same source as the VIA update deck - here is an interesting presentation about the rollout of the Chargers in the Midwest.
The point of note is that after initial rollout, multiple grade crossing incidents were encountered that led to damage which challenged the repair capabilities of the manufacturer and operators of the locomotives.
This is good learning for VIA - The nose is where the most damage from grade crossing mishaps and winter drift-busting will happen....hopefully the lessons already learned have been applied to the VIA version.
- Paul
The point of note is that after initial rollout, multiple grade crossing incidents were encountered that led to damage which challenged the repair capabilities of the manufacturer and operators of the locomotives.
This is good learning for VIA - The nose is where the most damage from grade crossing mishaps and winter drift-busting will happen....hopefully the lessons already learned have been applied to the VIA version.
- Paul
roger1818
Senior Member
Agreed. Brightline almost never needs to couple trains together, so they put a cowling over the coupler. VIA has several trains that operate as split service and even a coupled deadhead (an empty trainset coupled to the back of a scheduled train).
Interesting. Brightline also had several grade crossing incidents. I wonder if they had similar issues or if Amtrak's blunt nose is more prone to major damage than Brightline's streamlined nose?
It also sounds like another issue is Amtrak initially decided to take on repairing the chargers, but then decided not to do major repairs and decided to outsource it to Siemens, who, not expecting this work, decided to outsource it to a third party. I beleive VIA has contracted Siemens to do the maintenance, so hopefully this won't be as big an issue.
Also, hopefully we won't have as many grade crossing incidents.
Allandale25
Senior Member
The HFR fan in me notes the dotted line for the potential HFR route between Toronto-Smiths Falls.
roger1818
Senior Member
I noticed that. I also noticed that there is no dotted line on the north shore between Montreal and Quebec.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
My apologies for the lack of responsiveness lately, but I'm on paternity leave currenty and therefore have slightly different priorities at the moment...
Once you reflect on the geographic scope of what might be called "Urban Toronto" (presumably the GTHA?), there is hardly any VIA service which would fit the description - maybe the Maple Leaf to Niagara Falls (though that continues as an Amtrak-train to NYC), but already the Toronto-London trains 80/81/82/83/85/88 would be kind of a stretch, which makes you wonder what "VIA Rail" discussions actually do fit into this thread on Urban Toronto. As it happens, SkyriseCities (i.e. the parent forum of Urban Toronto) has a "Transportation and Infrastructure" section for its Canada page, but it has yet to see a single thread:
***
Don't get me wrong: I would love to analyze the service concept @micheal_can has presented here a few dozen pages ago [edit: he actually shared it on Skyscraper Page, not here] and to demonstrate to him that his fleet requirements would easily exceed those of the current Corridor fleet renewal, before working out with him how we can scale down the ambition while identifying a few incremental steps of what could actually happen anytime soon (I could see ONR operating a daily Toronto-North Bay-Sudbury service, with full integration into ONR's bus network). However, as someone who has first-hand knowledge of what limits the actions VIA might pursue, I will not actively encourage any discussions in this thread which ignore or deny these limitations, because certain commenters here have demonstrated again and again their unwillingness or inability to distinguish between the things which we might be able to see VIA doing and those which are simply impossible for VIA to do (regardless of how much they might want to do them)...
That said, there can’t be any doubt that this thread is of course the most appropriate place for any discussion about the future of VIA's Lakeshore (or any other existing) services post-HFR! I'm just increasingly annoyed that you seem to be only willing to discuss VIA's ability to maintain meaningful service on the Kingston Sub against CN's own priorities as a hidden cost of HFR, when the need for additional infrastructure upgrades in the Kingston subdivision should be mitigated and not exacerbated by post-HFR Lakeshore service. Maybe you've softened your stance in the meanwhile, but that was my impression...
***
Just to be sure: I'm well aware of the potential for a connection between the Alexandria and Winchester Subdivisions at Moose Creek and Monkland, as it was a prominent feature in the maps about the VIA Fast and Ecotrain E-300 alignments I’ve shared here multiple times and which were the inspiration for a "Montreal-Ottawa Higher Speed Rail proposal" I outlined in my Bachelor Thesis:
Other than that, you seem to ignore that the higher your average speed, the higher the per-km construction costs of rail infrastructure and the less time you save with every km you shorten a train's route, which makes it increasingly difficult to justify that expense to only benefit a minority of trains serving this particular HSR corridor (i.e. only those trains which run around the bypassed city).
In any case, I challenge you to find any example of a city of a comparable size and importance as Ottawa being bypassed by a HSR line which is almost 100 km long and runs 40+ km away from the bypassed city and doesn't serve anything on its route. Have a look at Lyon (less than half the size of Ottawa and negligible political importance) and you might see that building a bypass around that city (while serving its airport on the way!) was much more compelling than bypassing Ottawa along the Winchester Subdivision will ever be:
That's it from me probably for another week, but I hope that I succeeded this time in not offending anyone...
Any project can fold anytime before it's funded (and even after that), but if a project which has received auxiliary funding in several consecutive federal budgets and received a recommendation for final approval by the federal parliament's transport committee is a "fantasy", then arguably every single streetcar, light rail or subway you ever rode in this country was a fantasy - until the project was funded and under construction...Perhaps we should move the fantasy HFR discussions to another thread!
I also wonder what business discussions about restoring daily train service to Sudbury, Western Canada or Vancouver Island have on Urban Toronto (and this thread in particular), but that's where certain commenters in this thread insist to have them...^^
Once you reflect on the geographic scope of what might be called "Urban Toronto" (presumably the GTHA?), there is hardly any VIA service which would fit the description - maybe the Maple Leaf to Niagara Falls (though that continues as an Amtrak-train to NYC), but already the Toronto-London trains 80/81/82/83/85/88 would be kind of a stretch, which makes you wonder what "VIA Rail" discussions actually do fit into this thread on Urban Toronto. As it happens, SkyriseCities (i.e. the parent forum of Urban Toronto) has a "Transportation and Infrastructure" section for its Canada page, but it has yet to see a single thread:
***
I was only sharing into @robmausser's sentiment that discussing things which are happening or will happen along side with things which are (currently, and for the foreseeable future) impossible to happen is exhausting and fruitless. This doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't have both types of discussions, but I believe that if we discuss in a thread dedicated to a particular railroad (be it VIA, Metrolinx or ONR), we need to be clear whether what we would like it to do is actually within its managerial discretion or not. And that's why having certain discussions resurfacing here every single month and needing to re-establish again and again (with a commenter who has blocked me!) that expanding and investing into its Corridor services over its non-Corridor networks is not a testament of indifference or even deliberate neglect of the proportion of Canadians which live outside the Corridor, but simply a consequence of VIA having a very narrow mandate within which it has to allocate its efforts and funding.
Don't get me wrong: I would love to analyze the service concept @micheal_can has presented here a few dozen pages ago [edit: he actually shared it on Skyscraper Page, not here] and to demonstrate to him that his fleet requirements would easily exceed those of the current Corridor fleet renewal, before working out with him how we can scale down the ambition while identifying a few incremental steps of what could actually happen anytime soon (I could see ONR operating a daily Toronto-North Bay-Sudbury service, with full integration into ONR's bus network). However, as someone who has first-hand knowledge of what limits the actions VIA might pursue, I will not actively encourage any discussions in this thread which ignore or deny these limitations, because certain commenters here have demonstrated again and again their unwillingness or inability to distinguish between the things which we might be able to see VIA doing and those which are simply impossible for VIA to do (regardless of how much they might want to do them)...
That said, there can’t be any doubt that this thread is of course the most appropriate place for any discussion about the future of VIA's Lakeshore (or any other existing) services post-HFR! I'm just increasingly annoyed that you seem to be only willing to discuss VIA's ability to maintain meaningful service on the Kingston Sub against CN's own priorities as a hidden cost of HFR, when the need for additional infrastructure upgrades in the Kingston subdivision should be mitigated and not exacerbated by post-HFR Lakeshore service. Maybe you've softened your stance in the meanwhile, but that was my impression...
***
Rather than shouting "Strawman argument! Strawman argument!", you might want to ask yourself how someone could have possibly gotten the (apparently wrong) impression that you were talking about Montreal-Ottawa trains taking the Alexandria Subdivision all the way west of De Beaujeu: If I may direct your attention at the map you've posted just above your initial mention of a bypass around Ottawa:
Just to be sure: I'm well aware of the potential for a connection between the Alexandria and Winchester Subdivisions at Moose Creek and Monkland, as it was a prominent feature in the maps about the VIA Fast and Ecotrain E-300 alignments I’ve shared here multiple times and which were the inspiration for a "Montreal-Ottawa Higher Speed Rail proposal" I outlined in my Bachelor Thesis:
Other than that, you seem to ignore that the higher your average speed, the higher the per-km construction costs of rail infrastructure and the less time you save with every km you shorten a train's route, which makes it increasingly difficult to justify that expense to only benefit a minority of trains serving this particular HSR corridor (i.e. only those trains which run around the bypassed city).
In any case, I challenge you to find any example of a city of a comparable size and importance as Ottawa being bypassed by a HSR line which is almost 100 km long and runs 40+ km away from the bypassed city and doesn't serve anything on its route. Have a look at Lyon (less than half the size of Ottawa and negligible political importance) and you might see that building a bypass around that city (while serving its airport on the way!) was much more compelling than bypassing Ottawa along the Winchester Subdivision will ever be:
That's it from me probably for another week, but I hope that I succeeded this time in not offending anyone...
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nfitz
Superstar
Why have you shown the abandoned ROW for the M&O Subdivision through Vankleek Hill as owned by CP Rail. Did VIA Rail dispose of it?
Urban Sky
Senior Member
I wasn’t aware back then that it is owned by VIA, but to the best of my knowledge, it was only acquired by VIA after it was abandoned by CP...