Via's Renaissance equipment

[firequall]

Does Via operate its Renaissance on specific trains between Montreal and Ottawa/Toronto or is its appearance random between the two destinations? I'm booking a trip from Ottawa to Montreal, then to Toronto and wouldn't mind riding the 'new' equipment.

[imprezzed]

Does Via operate its Renaissance on specific trains between Montreal and Ottawa/Toronto or is its appearance random between the two destinations? I'm booking a trip from Ottawa to Montreal, then to Toronto and wouldn't mind riding the 'new' equipment.

The odds of you seeing "Ren" equipment on these two trips are somewhat high. The Renissance equipment normally operates between Quebec City and Montreal, with 2 or 3 sets (maybe as many as 4) operating on Train 14 "The Ocean" between Montreal and Halifax. It's somewhat rare to see the Renissance equipment south of Montreal. But, you may get lucky.

I'd prepare for a ride on a LRC or HEP 2 though.

[D40LF]

Does Via operate its Renaissance on specific trains between Montreal and Ottawa/Toronto or is its appearance random between the two destinations? I'm booking a trip from Ottawa to Montreal, then to Toronto and wouldn't mind riding the 'new' equipment.

Via does not operate the Ren cars between Montreal and Toronto. They once did between Montreal and Ottawa but I am now told that this isn't the case anymore.

[Prevostlemiragexl]

Via does not operate the Ren cars between Montreal and Toronto. They once did between Montreal and Ottawa but I am now told that this isn't the case anymore.

The only time VIA has ever used Ren consists on the corridor down as far as Toronto was with 'The Enterprise'.

That was an overnight train trip from Toronto-Montreal/Montreal-Toronto equipped with sleeper cars. They canceled that service a few years back. On rare occasion VIA uses Ren equipment between Ottawa-Montreal, but you'll never see a set west of Montreal on the Kingston Sub doing a regular trip. Same goes for the western part of the corridor down to London/Windsor. There was a period of time, heck if I can remember exactly when, within the last year where VIA was using a Ren set between Montreal and Ottawa regularly. That has stopped.

All Toronto-Ottawa trains are scheduled to be LRC. On rare occasion you'll find a complete HEP-II consist rotate through Ottawa because of scheduling difficulties. HEP-II cars sometimes get tacked on the end or front of an LRC consist heading to or from Ottawa at the MMC or TMC.

Trips between Montreal Toronto are either HEP-II or LRC, with the HEP-II consists being the ones listed on ReserVIA as having baggage service available. Those consists usually cycle through the whole Montreal-Windsor corridor because a lot of western trips have baggage service as well. Ottawa has no baggage service/car on their regular trips.

[LRC3]

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.

[smallspy]

The general consensus from the CanPassRail Yahoo-Group was that the Ren cars seem to only appear on the Montreal-Ottawa runs around Christmas, or anytime there is a period of high-ridership within the Corridor.

Dan