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New fleet for VIA Rail Canada?


dibber25
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In the Canadian budget Via Rail has apparently been authorized to seek renewal of its fleet for the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. It is seeking 32 trainsets providing 9,100 seats with Tier 4 emissions engines and push-pull operation. Sounds like a version of the Class 68/Mk5 coach combination might do the job? One wonders how engineers will feel about push-pull driving trailers v. grade crossing interaction with heavy road vehicles.  Interesting that fleet replacement on this particular route presumably means that LRC coaches would go - together with the P42 locomotives, meaning that the much-maligned ex-Nightstar stock and the near 70-year-old stock on the 'Canadian' would remain in use. (CJL)

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One wonders how engineers will feel about push-pull driving trailers v. grade crossing interaction with heavy road vehicles.  

 

Why would it be of any more concern on that route than on the many other routes where it is already in operation? As only one example of many, the Westcoast Express here in the Lower Mainland of BC.

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The 2 stage tendering process is expected to announce a winner around this time next year.

 

Requirement is trains in service in 2022.

 

Understanding is this is in part forced by fact that much of the equipment is getting problematic and a replace / end service date is approaching.

 

Push/pull is in common use around North America and so doubt it is an issue, even the cab car is still  bigger than anything on the road.

 

http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail/fleet-renewal

 

Also, last week VIA made 2 other announcements regarding the rebuilding/refurbishment of the stainless coaches used on the Canadian.  First contract went to Bombardier for 17? coaches to be remade wheelchair accessible (washroom, lifts onboard), the other contract to another company for non-accessible upgrading.

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I must remember to state "I am joking" when posting for transatlantic consumption. I was alluding to the amount of extra time it is taking for them to catch up with the present fleet.

 

Thank goodness Jason's humour comes from Birmingham (and I don't mean Alabama).

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The Siemens Charger would seem to be the obvious choice, but I'm guessing others will submit bids and who knows, if another supplier meets the spec and offers a killer deal they may win the order. EMD have their F125 which has a 3.5MW Tier 4 engine (and uses a lot of European know how). The MPXxpress MP54AC is another option, 4.0MW and Tier 4.

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Why would it be of any more concern on that route than on the many other routes where it is already in operation? As only one example of many, the Westcoast Express here in the Lower Mainland of BC.

 

I don't know that it is of any MORE concern. Depends, I guess, what experience the particular engineer has had of grade crossing conflicts with heavy trucks, and what speed the engineer is expected to drive at. I imagine the line speed in the corridor is somewhat faster than in suburban Vancouver. 

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The Siemens Charger would seem to be the obvious choice, but I'm guessing others will submit bids and who knows, if another supplier meets the spec and offers a killer deal they may win the order. EMD have their F125 which has a 3.5MW Tier 4 engine (and uses a lot of European know how). The MPXxpress MP54AC is another option, 4.0MW and Tier 4.

Their spec from a while ago stated that, because of the small size of the order, it would need to be 'bolted on' to an order placed by another operator. I seem to recall that it also required a bi-mode or bi-mode convertible design, but that now seems to have been dropped. With the availability of hydro-electric in Ontario (surplus power, so I believe) it suprises me that there's still no significant move towards electrification. (CJL)

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Again , I'd say Siemens is in the box seat - they offer the ACS64 electric should Canada decide on electrification - the corridor lines would be a good case for that , and secondly , as the US states are ordering Siemens locos and stock ,and presuming any Canadian order is broadly the same , there is the opportunity to interwork across the borders, either on existing trains or new services if there is enough willpower.

 

The EMD F125s have yet to make any significant progress in Los Angeles , indeed the inaugural passenger train worked by one managed to fail en route, hardly a good advert.

 

Likewise MPI have had their fingers burnt with their more recent loco builds , the HSP46s for MBTA in Boston needed a lot of warranty work involving them going back to Boise.

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Ontario is mainly nuclear (60%) with 24% hydro.  Don't know how much would be considered surplus but the biggest issue for electrification is the freight railways (they don't want it) followed by installation cost.  GO / Metrolinx is working towards going electric for the Metrolinx owned GO corridors as well as high speed rail Toronto to London but the sudden change in leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party has put that into question - election in Ontario is June 7 and while the previous leader continued it as part of the party platform the new leader hasn't announced a platform yet.

 

As for VIA's fleet renewal, indications of a desire for bi-mode have been rumoured but without the details its hard to know.

 

What we do seem to know is that VIA is looking for the winning bidder to provide and maintain the complete trains, so the winning bidder either needs to build both locomotives and passenger cars or assemble/outside source the needed parts themselves.

 

The time frame is tight - winning contract Q1 2019, trains in service 2022, which would seem to work against anyone trying to make a new North American design and getting it tested/certified.  Thus the leading contender would be Siemens, followed possibly by Alstom depending on how they have designed the Avelia Liberty.

 

The possible complicating factors:

 

1) mixed platform heights.  Montreal, Quebec City, and Ottawa are all high level, everywhere else is low level.

 

2) VIA is unsure where they will be running the trains.  They have a "plan" to build their own corridor with private money but the federal government is publicly quiet on this option only allocating some money is the new budget to study it.  There is no guarantee the private money will extend to the cost of electrification, with the added wrinkle that the proposed route from Toronto to Ottawa goes through Peterborough but misses all the existing corridor locations (Kingston/Belleville/etc).

 

Given that the electrification may never occur, and even if it does is likely at least 10 years away and likely longer it doesn't seem to make sense to haul around the extra weight of bi-mode equipment for at least 10, likely more years and burning through all that extra diesel.

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I'd see Siemens are the prime contender, but I wouldn't rule out the EMD F125 or MP54AC. A lot will come down to what each bidder proposes in terms of cost, support and possibly access to finance depending on how the deal is arranged. Despite the embarrassment at the F125 roll out it is a design that comes from builders will a great provenance and the Caterpillar C175 has an excellent reputation as an engine.

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Seems odd that Bombardier aren't being discussed, considering they're Canadian.

Bombardier has not had very good form of late if their delivery of light rail vehicles is anything to go by. They have been very late getting trains to Metrolinx, TTC, and ION to say nothing of quality control problems. That and recent government bailouts for the aircraft division means that Bombardier is not flavour of the month in transportation circles here.

 

Oh, and a probable change in government in Ontario come this June to a party that is NOT transit friendly plus recent fun and games at the federal level (election in 2019) means that nothing can be taken for granted.

 

Cheers,

 

David

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There is speculation on here about the choice of locomotive, but the deciding factor is the passenger coaches.

 

The quote from the linked article above is telling

 

 

“service-proven design and/or platform that meets the requirements of the CFRP.”

 

The only currently available modern coach design that meets that requirement currently is the SIemens offering - in North America.

 

Yes, Bombardier has designs elsewhere in the world but they don't meet North American rail standards, which brings up 2 points:

 

1) unlike the renaissance equipment, I can't see there being a waiver to allow European equipment to operate given the need to operate in push/pull service.

 

2) Like the consortium of US states found with Nippon Sharyo custom designing a rail car to North American standards can be difficult.

 

Depending on how exactly it is worded Alstom could still be in the running given that design is well along and VIA wouldn't be an only customer thus reducing the risk.

 

Similar to Bombardier, EMD/Caterpillar don't have a great reputation currently.  There is a reason GE has owned the North American locomotive market for the last 20+ years, and I am sure that someone would remind the decision makers about Caterpillar's decision to abandon the London ON plant for cheaper labour if they somehow managed to meet the requirements for the passenger coaches.

 

The possible entry from out of nowhere could be China, but I don't think there have been much of any indications of any interest in part because it wouldn't be worth their effort.

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Taking stock out of the equation - and I'm not sure that Bombardier currently have a North American/ Canadian compliant model , loco wise, they could offer the ALP46 electric based on the current TRAXX platform - not sure if they could do a diesel variant of this as well , but certainly the fizzy multi engined TRAXX electro-diesels that AMT Montreal have would be no good for long distance work.

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Ah, but the Chinese are very keen to get a (further, better) foothold in the (any) North-American market. They may not have direct access to the US, certainly with the current id1ot orange-baboon-in-a-white-mansion blabbing about, but Canada is an entirely different matter. It may be their door to the US market and the current Chinese gov't has no qualms spending large sums of Yuans on something that weakens their arch-rivals, politically, financially, ideologically and economically either in the short or long(er) term by driving a wedge between the natural allies in any way they can. So, expect an entry from Beijing just before the deadline which ticks most, if not all, of the boxes stipulated by the tender. :yes:

 

I agree China would like to enter the US market, and they certainly have the money to throw at it.

 

But China's problem isn't Trump, but rather the US has had laws governing passenger train purchases on the books for a long time that require "Buy American" and I don't think China is interested in spending money to hire Americans to build American trains built with American components.

 

So if that is correct, then the order in Canada isn't going to be all that attractive for China.

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Fair point on that, forgot about the "Buy American" doctrine prevalent over there :nono:  (quite hypocritical though: demanding other countries open up their markets completely to US goods and services, while protecting your own by Law :rolleyes: )

Ah, the reverse of U.K. policy... ;)

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