Copied from another discussion to here, because this is a better home for it to live at.
For the LD fleet: VIA has two "Long-Distance" fleets in reality. The Montreal to Halifax Ocean is normally assigned an all Renaissance-equipped route with three dedicated consists, but currently (and this has been the case over the past few winters) one of the consists has been taken out of service to rehab the rapidly aging interiors while upgrading the handicap access to meet new requirements. While this is happening, a stainless steel Budd consist is substituted. Outside this one route, all the other LD trains (Canadian, The Pas, Winnipeg-Churchill, Gaspe', Prince Rupert) use the vintage Budd-built stainless steel cars that are circa 1950's.
For the corridor fleet: they use all three classes of passenger car: Budd Stainless Steel, Bombardier Light, Rapid, Comfortable (LRC), and Alstrom Renaissance. It all depends on which train you pick time-wise in the schedule that generally dictates your class of railcar. For instance,Train #57 between Montreal and Toronto is an all Budd stainless steel consist (VIA calls this their HEP-II fleet, meaning the cars were originally steam heated but upgraded to Head End Power, then upgraded again so that the cars have MU cables to allow for either a cab-car or locomotives on both ends; they are identified by having both the blue stripe and a smaller reflective yellow stripe above the windows.) Meanwhile, Train #61, which departs on the same route one hour later is equipped with an LRC consist. Train #659, which departs Montreal at 4 PM, is a Renaissance-equipped train.
If you are curious, you can tell what each train will be equipped with by doing the following:
Go to VIA's website.
Using their booking widget, type in the city pair you want to travel between. I'll put in Montreal to Toronto, one way, for this example. Click search.
A new page will open, and on it will list all of your options for trains. I use Firefox for my browser, so when I hover my cursor over a link, on the bottom of my screen will pop up the URL address of the connecting web page. As such, if I hover my cursor over the underlined train number on VIA's scheduling page, I can look at the URL without actually opening the page. If your browser does not do this, the next step is to click on a train number, then look at the URL in the address bar after it loads.
Example: javascript
penClassInfo(3,'&t0=57&e0=HP2&s=0')
HP2 = Budd Stainless Steel cars.
LRC = Bombardier Light, Rapid, Comfortable cars.
REN = Alstrom Renaissance cars.
Hopefully that helps!!
For the LD fleet: VIA has two "Long-Distance" fleets in reality. The Montreal to Halifax Ocean is normally assigned an all Renaissance-equipped route with three dedicated consists, but currently (and this has been the case over the past few winters) one of the consists has been taken out of service to rehab the rapidly aging interiors while upgrading the handicap access to meet new requirements. While this is happening, a stainless steel Budd consist is substituted. Outside this one route, all the other LD trains (Canadian, The Pas, Winnipeg-Churchill, Gaspe', Prince Rupert) use the vintage Budd-built stainless steel cars that are circa 1950's.
For the corridor fleet: they use all three classes of passenger car: Budd Stainless Steel, Bombardier Light, Rapid, Comfortable (LRC), and Alstrom Renaissance. It all depends on which train you pick time-wise in the schedule that generally dictates your class of railcar. For instance,Train #57 between Montreal and Toronto is an all Budd stainless steel consist (VIA calls this their HEP-II fleet, meaning the cars were originally steam heated but upgraded to Head End Power, then upgraded again so that the cars have MU cables to allow for either a cab-car or locomotives on both ends; they are identified by having both the blue stripe and a smaller reflective yellow stripe above the windows.) Meanwhile, Train #61, which departs on the same route one hour later is equipped with an LRC consist. Train #659, which departs Montreal at 4 PM, is a Renaissance-equipped train.
If you are curious, you can tell what each train will be equipped with by doing the following:
Go to VIA's website.
Using their booking widget, type in the city pair you want to travel between. I'll put in Montreal to Toronto, one way, for this example. Click search.
A new page will open, and on it will list all of your options for trains. I use Firefox for my browser, so when I hover my cursor over a link, on the bottom of my screen will pop up the URL address of the connecting web page. As such, if I hover my cursor over the underlined train number on VIA's scheduling page, I can look at the URL without actually opening the page. If your browser does not do this, the next step is to click on a train number, then look at the URL in the address bar after it loads.
Example: javascript
penClassInfo(3,'&t0=57&e0=HP2&s=0')HP2 = Budd Stainless Steel cars.
LRC = Bombardier Light, Rapid, Comfortable cars.
REN = Alstrom Renaissance cars.
Hopefully that helps!!
