A gloomy assessment of VIA and The Ocean

[CHamilton]

From Facebook, a gloomy assessment of the future of VIA an The Ocean, and a cautionary tale about less-than-daily services:

National Dream Renewed
Via Rail…a public service sector bent on FAILURE

Just over a year ago the Maritimes’ last remaining passenger train saw its schedule cut by 50 percent, resulting in plummeting ridership. When VIA management announced the service cuts last year they predicted that a tri-weekly train would carry just as many passengers, as customers would simply adjust their plans to the new schedule. To that end, all fall Via Rail has hauled eighteen car passenger trains where 6 or 7 cars would suffice. Why ?

By developing a tremendous debt on the Ocean, it could and would be grounds for cancellation leaving Atlantic Canada with zero train service. With nearly one third of Atlantic Canadians without a driver’s license or being unable to secure insurance or afford insurance and still others who wish to not drive anymore, these people become isolated, isolated from anywhere in Canada. Many cannot afford to fly nor will that get them to their destination. Frequent service is essential to growing the traffic base in any passenger business, and that a tri-weekly operation simply cannot meet the public need. ...

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I wonder why so many seem so certain Amtrak isn't going anywhere even as we're often reminded how precarious funding of passenger rail can be, especially here in North America.

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

It this is something hauled off of Facebook I'd give more value to a Dead Cat.

 

[jis]

It this is something hauled off of Facebook I'd give more value to a Dead Cat.

I don't understand that reaction, so help me. It is an opinion of a person. It is not completely off the wall either. Yes the message is not one we want to hear. But it is not completely bizarre and implausible. Would hauling something of this sort off of New York Times given it more credibility as an opinion? Quite puzzled really ... :unsure:

 

[Blackwolf]

Quite honestly, and this is my very humble opinion, VIA is in business to put itself out of business. The Harper Government is guilty of a lot of shady things, and the number of casualties are rising with each passing week. Shocking to anyone who might not know, but my wife is a Canadian Citizen and cannot legally vote in any Canadian election. The reason? She's been out of that country for more than six months. This is a change in the Constitution of Canada, done in Parliament and without a citizen's vote, that was instituted under Harper's Conservative Government. To think of what nasty uproar such a change in the US Constitution would cause is right up there with the Emancipation Proclamation did in the 1860's...

Harper is on record as stating "You will not recognize Canada when I'm through."

Seems he meant every word, and the Maritimes are hardly considered important to the Conservatives. It's a wonder the Ocean has train service at all, really. Maybe by this time next year, they likely won't. :angry2:

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Quite honestly, and this is my very humble opinion, VIA is in business to put itself out of business. The Harper Government is guilty of a lot of shady things, and the number of casualties are rising with each passing week. Shocking to anyone who might not know, but my wife is a Canadian Citizen and cannot legally vote in any Canadian election. The reason? She's been out of that country for more than six months.

Are you aware of whatever catalyst brought the Harper Government into power in the first place?

I'm still not clear on why Canada is swinging so far to the right these days or why it hasn't swung back.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

VIA Rail is pretty much done for anyway, except the Corridor and some Essential Services. They're gonna turn into National Railways of Mexico sooner rather than later. They're driving fares sky-high and cutting trains all over the place. Ridership is just going to drop more and more.

The Ocean might not be doomed, but the prospects of VIA Rail running it in the long-term are veyr slim. I think the only way for the Ocean to survive is as a privately-owned cruise train.

 

[Anderson]

Quite honestly, and this is my very humble opinion, VIA is in business to put itself out of business. The Harper Government is guilty of a lot of shady things, and the number of casualties are rising with each passing week. Shocking to anyone who might not know, but my wife is a Canadian Citizen and cannot legally vote in any Canadian election. The reason? She's been out of that country for more than six months.

Are you aware of whatever catalyst brought the Harper Government into power in the first place?

I'm still not clear on why Canada is swinging so far to the right these days or why it hasn't swung back.

It was more a "default win"...I was expecting another minority government at the last election, but then the Liberals melted down out of the blue (no pun intended). And it's not like Harper's been doing great in the polls...but it's also not like he's got the best opposition in the world, either. Canada is just sorta lurching along at the moment, and not doing a very good job of it, either.

 

[Nathanael]

First-past-the-post, single-member districts is the root cause of Harper's "win".

The national-level Liberals have been falling apart for decades; they are perceived as not standing for anything, and this is correct, given that Harper managed to suborn enough of them to keep his government in power last time around.

In a country with a proportional-representation electoral system, this would have led to the sharp and quick rise of the NDP and perhaps other parties. But the electoral system works against that, and so the decrepit Liberals have been hanging on. Unfortunately, the winner when that happens is the Tories.

Watch out: we have similar dynamics in the US.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

When I look at VIA I see the path Amtrak could have taken several times over the years, the path they may still yet take. My intentions are to travel the heck out of Amtrak while we still have this amazing LD service. I know it isn't perfect but something tells me there's a good chance it won't be around when I'm fifty!

 

[railiner]

All this talk of doom and gloom of long distance rail in North America makes me wonder where in the world there are good example(s) that are alive and thriving?

And more importantly, why? What is going on right over there, compared to here?

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

All this talk of doom and gloom of long distance rail in North America makes me wonder where in the world there are good example(s) that are alive and thriving?

And more importantly, why? What is going on right over there, compared to here?

Pretty much nowhere. India is the only one that's still doing well. China lost lots of ridership to the airlines and the new toll highways, but salvaged it with new LD HSR. In Europe, LD trains are falling apart and getting axed all over the place. Australia has basically turned into what Canada could be, the LD trains are for tourists only and everything else is gone. In South America, total breakdown of the rail network. Africa ain't much better off. Russia is doing OK, but again, not overly great.

 

[Anderson]

I'd say that the global order of LD trains doing well is:
India

China

Russia

Japan

Europe

US
Canada/Australia

China turned things around with HSR, Russia's pouring money into their network and will probably always have LD trains because of a combination of geography (size and number of cities along the TSR combined with impending resource exploitation in Siberia) and climate (try running reliable air service in the Siberian winter). Japan has a set of overnight trains that have survived competition from the bullet trains.

The Europe/US order is the toughest call for me. We've got our issues, Europe has theirs, but most of Europe's long-distance trains that have failed did so because of competition from HSR breaking the routes up. The only major exception has been stuff down in the Balkans.

Edit: Another factor is the fact that Europeans are more used to making transfers, so there's not the need to run through trains in the same way. The tangle of national operators and whatnot doesn't help things, either.

 

[railiner]

Interesting....

So high speed rail, perhaps radiating from various major hubs, airline like, is the real future of rail service, and long distance just for the tourists?

Also curious about the comment on reliability in extreme cold....I would think it would be more of a challenge to maintain rail service, with the double whammy of broken rails and wires, as well as the trains. Airliner's are sort of 'in their element' while at least in the air in extreme cold......

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

The planes can easily fly over most of the poor weather but it's taking off and landing that's the problem. I assume that Russia will continue to expand and improve their poorly-developed domestic air network, but they will have to use special planes for the weather.

Russia also needs to build more highways, their muddy roads are terribly inefficient.

 

[cirdan]

VIA Rail is pretty much done for anyway, except the Corridor and some Essential Services. They're gonna turn into National Railways of Mexico sooner rather than later. They're driving fares sky-high and cutting trains all over the place. Ridership is just going to drop more and more.

Mentioning Mexico, I am surprised that the government could get away with cutting train services with so little protest. Does anybody have more information or insight? I would have thought in a country like Mexico with its long distances and still relatively significant numbers of people without a car, that a rail service on at least the major corridors would be a no brainer.

 

[cirdan]

The Europe/US order is the toughest call for me. We've got our issues, Europe has theirs, but most of Europe's long-distance trains that have failed did so because of competition from HSR breaking the routes up. The only major exception has been stuff down in the Balkans.

Another issue in Europe is that with significant money being put into HSR, there is pressure on the railroad administartions to get as many people to ride HSR as possible. This often means that parallel conventional train services are either abandoned altogether or made increasingly unattractive by (extreme) thinning out of frequencies and lengthening of schedules. In the case of local and short-hop services this is entirely understandable as internal competition benefits no-one. But sadly the logic does not change when it comes to overlapping LD services and sadly many entirely viable LD train routes have been chopped into segments with the sole purpose of artificially filling HSR trains. This would be the equivalent of Amtrak stopping the Silver Services in Washington DC to force Northward passengers onto a connecting Acela train.

 

[rrdude]

VIA Rail is pretty much done for anyway, except the Corridor and some Essential Services. They're gonna turn into National Railways of Mexico sooner rather than later. They're driving fares sky-high and cutting trains all over the place. Ridership is just going to drop more and more.

Mentioning Mexico, I am surprised that the government could get away with cutting train services with so little protest. Does anybody have more information or insight? I would have thought in a country like Mexico with its long distances and still relatively significant numbers of people without a car, that a rail service on at least the major corridors would be a no brainer.

Mexican Gov't figured buses and Jitney's woud pretty much take up the remaing traffic, and they did, and have. The loss is for those citizens who cud afford to pay more than 3rd class, because they wanted to travel via rail, (vs. bus). Now, no option at all, bus, or no go.

 

[jis]

VIA Rail is pretty much done for anyway, except the Corridor and some Essential Services. They're gonna turn into National Railways of Mexico sooner rather than later. They're driving fares sky-high and cutting trains all over the place. Ridership is just going to drop more and more.

Mentioning Mexico, I am surprised that the government could get away with cutting train services with so little protest. Does anybody have more information or insight? I would have thought in a country like Mexico with its long distances and still relatively significant numbers of people without a car, that a rail service on at least the major corridors would be a no brainer.

Just in case people are interested, Government of Mexico appears to be on the verge of reversing its position on passenger rail:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/08/us-mexico-trains-idUSBRE99712X20131008

 

[jis]

Another issue in Europe is that with significant money being put into HSR, there is pressure on the railroad administartions to get as many people to ride HSR as possible. This often means that parallel conventional train services are either abandoned altogether or made increasingly unattractive by (extreme) thinning out of frequencies and lengthening of schedules. In the case of local and short-hop services this is entirely understandable as internal competition benefits no-one. But sadly the logic does not change when it comes to overlapping LD services and sadly many entirely viable LD train routes have been chopped into segments with the sole purpose of artificially filling HSR trains. This would be the equivalent of Amtrak stopping the Silver Services in Washington DC to force Northward passengers onto a connecting Acela train.

But many parts of Europe still have a reasonably healthy overnight express sleeper and coach service. While not like the very LD trains in India, Russia and China, they are more akin to trains like the LSL and the Cap and even the Florida trains to some extent.

Actually in France they basically instituted the moral equivalent of PRIIA 209 way ahead of the US to palm of funding of classic lines and shorter distance service to the Departments that benefit from them leaving only international and high speed service as fully funded by the national TOC. Germany has done something similar. So in some sense US is just following in the footsteps of Europe as far as that goes. It is another matter that US does not have as robust support for passenger rail at the national level as in Europe and many Asian countries.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Just in case people are interested, Government of Mexico appears to be on the verge of reversing its position on passenger rail.

Wouldn't the reverse of privatization be nationalization? This seems to fall far short of anything like that. Right now Mexico needs to focus on figuring out how to keep America's "war on drugs" from tearing their country apart. Passenger rail seems like such a minor issue when you're still fighting 1930's style prohibition with thousands of militarized Al Capones.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Just in case people are interested, Government of Mexico appears to be on the verge of reversing its position on passenger rail.

Wouldn't the reverse of privatization be nationalization? This seems to fall far short of anything like that. Right now Mexico needs to focus on figuring out how to keep America's "war on drugs" from tearing their country apart. Passenger rail seems like such a minor issue when you're still fighting 1930's style prohibition with thousands of militarized Al Capones.

True this!!!

 

[Anderson]

Just in case people are interested, Government of Mexico appears to be on the verge of reversing its position on passenger rail.

Wouldn't the reverse of privatization be nationalization? This seems to fall far short of anything like that. Right now Mexico needs to focus on figuring out how to keep America's "war on drugs" from tearing their country apart. Passenger rail seems like such a minor issue when you're still fighting 1930's style prohibition with thousands of militarized Al Capones.

Considering that the passenger services in question are likely to be government-owned in some form (even if licensed out under a build-operate-maintain contract of some kind), it is a reversal.

The one hiccup is that of the three lines I've seen listed most recently:

-One is definitely a commuter operation around Mexico City...it's more in line with Metro North than the pre-privatization trains.

-One is a sort of hybrid, also operating out of Mexico City.

-The Yucatan one is definitely intercity, but it's also got a major tourist attractor as well, especially in phase two.