LRC3

CN must be heavy donors to political parties - we should already have legislation prioritizing VIA on CN infrastructure particularly when we have paid to expand that infrastructure specifically for VIA.

Looks like pretty much no new big projects in the budget. Unless I missed it, nothing this year for VIA's lofty proposal to rebuild the O&Q. If adding track capacity for VIA ever happens, I'd think it would be more sensible to add it to the Kingston Sub route. Through the previous government, we have already invested public money to build dozens of km of 3rd track mainline on the Kingston sub specifically for increasing capacity for VIA, and improvements and modernizations at Coburg, Belleville and Oshawa stations. Wouldn't it make more sense then to keep the momentum and continue efforts to complete the 3rd track and add a 4th where needed? Then expropriate track 3&4 to VIA, upgrade some of the other stations and be done with it... I'm sure its not as simple as that, but surely it doesn't need to be as complicated as building an entirely new rail line and all ancillary station infrastructure, through a less densely populated region, over an abandoned ROW that, at a glance, has numerous sharp curves and may not be able to sustain the 100mph running needed to meet the proposed trip schedules.

The interior upgrades of the 33 hep2 cars is a smart move for product consistency. The coaches got some work done in the last decade but the VIA1 cars were getting extremely long in the tooth and this investment is well deserved since the replacement fleet isn't even ordered yet. I look forward to the results!

Assuming the main reasoning would actually be that these Ottawa - Quebec runs shall always involve Central Station in Montreal which is on a stub off the mainline. The simple equipment run-through they do in Ottawa or Toronto isn't possible with the configuration in Montreal. With double ended trains, VIA can avoid wyeing enroute which arguably takes up even more precious time - that of paid passengers.

Then from where do Porter, Air Canada, Megabus, Greyhound draw the client base that purchase departures after 6pm, and arrivals after 10pm? Theres several flights and bus departures in this time frame, and VIA seems to be unable to market a single train after 5? I don't think the platform height has that much of an impact on dwell times. If they can board the entire train load at the terminal in Montreal in 15 minutes (I've seen them do this with late arriving equipment), why would they be more than 5 minutes to exchange a fraction of the passengers at an outlying stop... I've noticed these stops accumulate alot of trip time too and it doesn't make sense. They do indeed have alot of padding in the schedule, averaging 20-40 minutes longer trip times on all the Toronto/Montreal runs now than a decade ago. CN changed the way they operate in that time frame. Freight trains got longer than some of the sidings could accomodate and mechanicals started happening more often. Congestion became more problematic and VIA trains started running delayed too often, resulting in too much money going out as VIA reimburses 50% of the ticket on a delay over an hour... So they stretched the schedules to stay more on time. I expect the big improvements being promised in the Capital Improvement Program will largely bring the corridor trip times back closer to what they used to schedule in the 90s, but other than a couple new express trains, not to a new level.

I wonder how much of this has to do with its slow schedule and many stops. If VIA could manage around 4 hours on an express schedule like they had for 66/67 in the 90's timetables, a 7pm departure with 11 pm arrival would be attractive for sure. Maybe not 5pm crowds, but surely enough to fill the VIA1-Coach-Coach minimum corridor consist...Their competitors offer options on this route later into the night for sure. The airlines and buses all have arrivals into Montreal/Toronto from each other well after midnight...

A quick look through the expansive photo albums on the official website shows that the cars came from METRA in Chicago so they were gallery cars. The interiors got redesigned and extensively renovated. The mezzanine level was completely removed, the lower level windows increased in height to provide better views of the scenery, and commuter seating replaced with seats that look like a hybrid between a long distance train seat and a restaurant "banquette". New or refurbished wall panelling, totally revised lighting, dining tables installed etc.

I see the train fairly regularly and haven't seen it run with Budd at all this summer. Yes, a park car, but only the 1 car at the tail end. Not counting the Budd consist of the Chaleur when they leave Montreal combined.

I noticed that VIA revised the Ottawa train numbers to unused pairs in the 50 series. They market these as Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto now. First trains out of Ottawa and last trains into Ottawa still retain their previous numbers. Interesting strategy. You can buy seats on the through service by searching Montreal-Toronto. They were previously selling these as same train connections. I suppose this benefits for travelling Alexandria-Toronto, or Smiths Falls-Montreal. Kindof cool.

Regarding the renaissance, all VIA did was slap their reflective yellow stripe and a few logo's on over top of the existing paint. If the nightstars had been used in the setup envisaged by the original designers, the light top coach cars would all be together, then the transitional service car, and then a string of dark top sleeping cars. At least it would make sortof sense. Its a shame they are doing away with more names! At one time all the corridor trains had names too! LaSalle, York, General Brock and Simcoe being just a few I can recall off hand. Does it cost them more money to uphold a simple railway tradition like that?? Meanwhile they're so proud to label which departures are renaissance on the departure board at Central Station. I don't necessarily have an issue taking away the name of Easterly Class. Its was worthy when the train was always a HEP1 consist, but somewhat un-deserving now that most of the Ocean services use Renaissance equipment. Tacking a park car on the end during the summer doesn't quite cut it. Re the dark pink LRC interior: I actually saw a HEP2 car done up that way, in a train on an adjacent platform at Union station on a recent trip to Toronto. A couple hours into my trip, I gleaned the destinations magazine and some of the promo photos at the back showed this interior, so I was also surprised to see the presentation photos which go in a different design direction...

Other than the obvious ignorant tresspassers, how is electrified 3rd rail on the ROW adjacent to but not within the crossing area, any more dangerous than electrified rail running the length of a conventional raised platform in a station? Its equally stupid/dangerous to enter what appears a private ROW which in that picture has nearly no additional clearance beyond the train dimensions, as it is to descend to the tracks from the platform... Either way, you're going off limits into an area that you have no right, need or permission to enter and taking all risk upon yourself. Its shameful CTA had to award damages.

Detailed documentation about the LRC rebuilds and also mods to 21 Ren cars can be found here: http://ourcompany.viarail.ca/en/about-via-.../passenger-cars All in all a very cool upgrade I think. However, I downloaded a PDF with renderings of the VIA 1 and coach cars and find the makeover of the VIA 1 exterior to be a bit extreme and visually disconcerting. I'm up for reconceptualization of the paint scheme, to be more aligned with the colours introduced by the renaissance fleet, and carried on with the P42 and now F40 rebuilds, but what they are proposing for the VIA 1 car looks unfinished and moves off in yet another design direction. It will also create more mismatches in the trainsets. I already despise how the colours invert back and forth on the renaissance cars, especially not matching the "baggage car" (sleeper shell) to either the locomotive infront of it or the coach behind it, and then theres the ugly misplaced transition scheme on the mid-train service car. Its starting to look like rainbow era amtrak, and yet VIA is 32 years old and should have no such unprofessional kinks in their visuals at this point! I wonder what they'll do to the HEP1 trains? Paint that blue stripe dark green? or just keep that component of the fleet completely different from everything else??

Thanks for the info. I didn't know there were such constraints! Sounds like it will eventually be inevitable to extend that track, and if thats not a possibility, another location for a storage spur will have to be looked at I guess...

Its not like the EGU and the LOCO need to be parked within station platform limits is it? Cant they position the train to the platform so that only the relevant passenger coaches are accessible if the added length of the EGU and loco are problematic on the short platforms of the Candiac line? ... Just a thought. I think that when the EGU's were heavily used on the Dorion line they did this at the shorter platforms i.e. Ste Anne De Bellevue.

To clarify, many (if not all, at this point) of the regular Montreal-Quebec City corridor trains are operated with Renaissance cars pulled usually by a P42, with a few instances being LRC equipment, so if you want to take a trip to QC, you will probably get to see what they are like. I've done that trip, going up on the LRC and coming back to Montreal on a renaissance trainset. I love the LRC's but the renaissance car I was in rode even smoother and was quieter, probably just because its about 20 years younger. On top of this, the Ocean runs to Halifax on the same corridor out of Montreal as far as Charny (a suburb of Quebec City), and except for one HEP1 consist, the Ocean is all Renaissance cars as well. Since their introduction in the early 2000's, the renaissance trainsets were frequently used on the Montreal-Ottawa trips as well, however it would seem this is no longer the case based on the previous posts, perhaps for better operations flow of equipment on the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle.