Miles rides VIA from London to Windsor

[Dayliner381]

I thought VIA Rail owned the 35 mile portion of the Chatham Subdivision from Bloomfield (near Chatham) to Lacasse (approaching Windsor). When did the ownership revert back to CN?

 

[jiml]

I thought VIA Rail owned the 35 mile portion of the Chatham Subdivision from Bloomfield (near Chatham) to Lacasse (approaching Windsor).

That is correct, with the bulk of the route west of London still CN. I'm unclear whether VIA also holds the station trackage or whether that is Essex Terminal.

 

[Urban Sky]

What is telling about VIA services west of Toronto is that the upgraded new "corridor" for HFR, as has been proposed, terminates in Toronto and serves only points east of Toronto. That is where the money and political clout is. Southwestern Ontario has always been the poor stepchild and VIA (federal) would gladly cede it to the province of Ontario.

The entire point of HFR (when it was conceived as an idea and first presented to the public almost a decade ago) was to define a project, which was small enough to not completely overwhelm the financial apetite of its federal masters yet large enough to be a gamechanger which demonstrates what is possible if given the infrastructure and track access it needs to provide a competitive service. This naturally excluded everything East of Montreal or West of Toronto, unless any potential investor (public or private) would insist on their inclusion.

When Quebec business and political leaders started to lobby the federal government to include Montreal-Quebec, VIA consequently increased the scope, even if the subsequent confiscation of the Mont-Royal tunnel by the CDPQi-schemers made any such extension economically unviable, but given that that segment was only peripheral to the viability of the HFR concept, this would be the problem of its investors, not VIA itself.

At the same time, the predominant response in Ontario to HFR was rather hostile (especially the more Southwest you went), as it was perceived as somehow a competition to Wynne’s insincere HSR election stunt. Nevertheless, VIA identified SWO as one of the most underserved Corridor market (after MTRL-OTTW and MTRL-TRTO with their only 6 frequencies per day) and devised plans to run additional frequencies there, but these plans collapsed when it was severely outbid when it tried to buy back some RDCs, to expand its overstreched Corridor fleet.

Ironically, we have one province which lobbied relentlessly for having HFR expanded deeper into its territory, while making such expansion all but economically infeasible, whereas the other showed VIA the cold and uninterested shoulder, while pumping billions into a vision which will make a semi-fast and reasonably frequent intercity rail service deeper into its territory much more feasible.

Whichever extensions get build (i.e. either one, or the other, both or none), I don’t see how this decision would have more to do with the preferences of VIA or its federal masters than with the amount of support and supporting works it receives from the two provinces in question…

That is correct, with the bulk of the route west of London still CN. I'm unclear whether VIA also holds the station trackage or whether that is Essex Terminal.

As per VIA’s triennial plan, it now owns the Chatham Sub from Bloomfield (near its namegiving city) all the way up to the end of tracks behind Windsor Station (and has of course no intentions to discontinue any of the trackage it has been able acquire from its host railroads):

 

[MARC Rider]

VIA trains on its corridor in Eastern Ontario can be seen at speeds of 90-100 MPH, where half that is more realistic between London and Windsor.

Didn't Miles report in his video that the train on his trip to Windsor hit 90 mph at times? The route seems pretty straight and flat, so I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do so.

 

[Eric S]

There was some movement toward a Detroit - Windsor Thruway bus connection in 2017 (NARP's News from the Front Lines: Update on the Amtrak – VIA Connection at Detroit-Windsor | Rail Passengers Association | Washington, DC) but not sure about anything since then.