InfiNorth

The live map and the official VIA Rail tracker show the trains as underway.

Due to freight service suspension, pretty much all the long-distance trains seem to be perfectly on time. If you ever wanted to take The Canadian on a day when it was on time, now is your only chance.

9466 (borrowed from Abbotsford/Mission) is temporarily out of service, transmission coolant leak at Shelbourne and McKenzie this morning.

I mean, right from the early days of the routemasters double-deckers have always had an uncanny stability despite their awkward size. I have a feeling that it's for similar reasons to why ferries have such shallow drafts - most of a the space is air (even when full), and when you have a giant diesel engine and gas tanks only a few inches above ground level that counteracts that awful lot of air up high. Even when it's jammed full, compared to say a double-decker truck the space is still very empty.

There's something coming towards Victoria, even if it's just a showpiece for the company redeveloping the roundhouse lands in Victoria: An SW8 Switcher was spotted in New Brunswick. It bears the markings of Bayview Place, which previously even had a boxcar in mock-CP livery inexplicably up an embankment. If anyone knows of when this will be arriving in Victoria (and how), I would love to know. It's being transported by CN, which means it's probably paralyzed somewhere in central Canada right now with the shutdown. Another post shows it passing through Belleville, ON, meaning it made it past the nightmare that is the blocked tracks out east. If this thing is actually going to be rolling into Victoria on its own wheels, I absolutely need to know when so I can get footage and photos of something more than a work truck running on E&N trackage. Quoted from the Facebook post by Rob Scrimgeour: I'm more excited than I should be for what is more likely than not just a bricked showpiece.

Kind of has an impact on the Park Car.

As an update, VIA Rail is continuing service on non-CN trackage on the Sudbury-White River service (CP) and The Pas-Churchill (HBR).

Drove past the Victoria depot today and caught a glimpse of an XN40 fired up with a bunch of staff on board parked outside the garage. Sign said "training bus," so I'm curious if it went out and about a bit. The only reason I noticed it was because of the white sign - that made me look closer and I realized it an XN40.

Train 6 from Prince George to Jasper is currently 8hr late. I watch the live map obsessively and I have never seen the Jasper-Prince Rupert train more than three hours late. Is there something major going on at the Yellowhead Pass?

Don't they have their fuel tanks on the roof?

Whereabouts did you see the XN40? I'd love to see them in operation soon, I'm quite excited as that's what we had in Kamloops... four years ago. And absolutely, I agree. The old D40LFs have the best seats of any bus, but I have a feeling that they were a maintenance nightmare for both cleaning and replacing, particularly the fuzzy ones. Nothing will ever beat sitting down on the explosive rainbow-coloured seats that you sink three inches into at the end of a long day.

I was hoping for a summary and personal views on this, since this a forum. Would you mind sharing specifics? I couldn't find anything about the massive gap in the line other than a failed discrimination lawsuit regarding its elevated construction. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Hey folks, I'm headed to Seattle in a couple of weeks and I was familiarizing myself with the transit. Everything seemed normal until I noticed the almost ten kilometre length of the LRT with no stations between Rainier and Tunkwila International Boulevard. I recognize that the area it passes through is purely suburban and industrial... but those both seem like the kind of areas that commuters would be wanting to access. Why is there no station there? Not even at Boeing field? Was there some political goof where that area of the city wouldn't pay for a station or something? What's the story?

When I first moved to Victoria five years ago, it was the last year or two of the terminal being open. When it was closed, it was announced that it would be a housing project. Apparently someone has decided to sit on the hottest piece of real estate in Victoria. That being said... consider how long that motel sat abandoned across from the Spaghetti Factory before it was finally redeveloped. There's something seriously wrong with the system if, in a city short of housing, they can't even redevelop lots that are as city-centre as city-centre gets.

What hurts most is that some of those routes (actually a lot of them) are rural-ish or suburban routes that are infrequent. Canceling trips on those routes decreases peoples' ability to rely on transit, which in turn will affect future ridership. Not a cool move. Also, yeah, considering that the shops on the island here are used to working on the old D40LFs, maybe they should make some short term compromises to ensure service is maintained while they're waiting for the new buses. Also, considering how many trips are being canceled lately, I'm pretty worried that the eight new buses aren't going to be enough to fix this... especially if they plan on doing any service increases on top of just managing to get these trips un-canceled. The fact that many of these trips also depart at a close time also suggests that they either they are really short of buses or really short of drivers. Which one is it this time?