Interview with head of VIA Rail

[Adrian Wintle]

A while ago I once had to make a trip from Burlington to Ottawa, I asked our office about using VIA and was met with laughter and told to be sensible and they booked a flight. That is just an anecdote but I think it revealed something of some attitudes to rail travel in Canada. I do think rail travel can work in Canada and that there are routes which are viable but I also think that we should be careful about comparing railways in NA with those in Europe as it is comparing apples with pears.

 

Rail travel does work in Canada, but only really for commuter operations. There is an extensive commuter rail operation around Montreal and an even bigger one centred on Toronto (GO Transit). The GO line I live on (which isn't the busiest) runs 7 trains into the city a day, two of which only pick up from the two nearest stations. They run fairly close to full, and each train has 1500-1600 seats, so the morning traffic on this one line is about the same as VIA's system wide best day.

 

Burlington to Ottawa would be possible, but it would require changing trains in Toronto (GO to VIA) and probably six hours station to station.

 

Adrian

[Gerald Henriksen]

A while ago I once had to make a trip from Burlington to Ottawa, I asked our office about using VIA and was met with laughter and told to be sensible and they booked a flight. That is just an anecdote but I think it revealed something of some attitudes to rail travel in Canada. I do think rail travel can work in Canada and that there are routes which are viable but I also think that we should be careful about comparing railways in NA with those in Europe as it is comparing apples with pears.

 

Not so much attitudes about rail travel but more a case of the reality.

 

The good news is that VIA would have ticketed you for both the VIA portion of the journey as well as the GO section.

 

The bad news is that VIA simply isn't very competitive.

 

The earliest you could get to Ottawa would be 11:12 (which would mean a 5:13 departure from Burlington), and the latest return trip would be at 5pm.  Doesn't leave a lot of time in Ottawa.

 

Compare with flying, where Air Canada offers hourly service from Toronto (and the flight only takes an hour), and for that same past 11 arrival in Ottawa you could leave Burlington at around 8:45.  Or more likely, leave earlier in the morning and have more time in Ottawa.

 

The one advantage rail had to overcome the time disadvantage was the ability to get work done while travelling, but with Wi-Fi everywhere, cell phone data plans, and with ultrabooks that are small, light, and long battery life you can now also do work while waiting at the airport, and if you can't work on the plane it is only an hour anyway.

 

I wish it wasn't the case, but unless you really dislike flying (or can't afford the cost) VIA isn't a very good option in most cases thanks to the time penalty (both in travel time and restrictions on departures).

[Gerald Henriksen]

Both Amtrak and VIA seem very insular. I wonder if they ever look at what passenger rail is doing in the rest of the World. I just get the impression that they struggle along and don't really feel that they can have any sort of future. They seem prepossessed about coping with all these 'problems' without looking seriously at how they might be overcome. Sad. The UK system is now carrying annually more passengers than it carried when the system was at its maximum size (in track miles).

 

I am curious, but is there any data available for the UK system showing the growth of the various types of journey (commuter vs long distance intercity)?  The perception I have (perhaps incorrect) is that the UK rail system has seen tremendous growth in commuter journeys caused both by population increases as well as a greatly expanded "commuter zone" where it is now viewed at routine to travel multiple hours to get to work.  On the other hand, longer journeys seem to be less attractive due to cost.

 

One reason for wondering that is that North America is very much broken up into commuter and long distance rail operations, and to compare VIA with the UK can be a bit misleading when it should be VIA/GO/Montreal/Vancouver vs the UK.  Certainly GO has seen continuous growth in service and ridership, with a significant amount of capital investment proposed over the next decade as they move to electrify the GO lines.

 

VIA on the other hand has long distance routes that really aren't comparable to anything in Europe, or much of the rest of the world outside North America, which leaves little opportunity for inspiration or learning.  Combine the differences with the limitations that both VIA and Amtrak face - they operate in a rail environment that well suited for moving bulk freight doesn't work so well for passenger needs which means custom designed equipment - and they really are isolated.

 

Then factor in national governments that really aren't inclined to provide the significant amount of capital money required to make any changes and you are left with what exists, where the little money VIA has is spent trying to make small, incremental improvements that hope to maintain service at its current levels.

[highpeak]

I think Gerald is quite correct there. There are some natural corridors that both systems do a fairly decent job of serving, but it is hard to see how they could realistically provide service over distances much longer than, say, Washington-NY-Boston or Toronto-Montreal. And as Adrian pointed out, there are other factors that make those services not entirely competitive with driving.

My partner and I are going up to Maine next week. In theory we could get close to where we are going on Amtrak (New Haven to Boston, change of stations in Boston, Downeaster to Brunswick then would need to be picked up) but it is far quicker, more convenient and in a fuel-efficient vehicle a lot cheaper to drive.

I once looked at rail travel to Chicago when I had a business trip to one of our locations north of the city. The rail service was no faster than the bus (Greyhound has a couple of trips that are comparable in duration) and as I recall cost more than the airfare. I wouldn't expect the rail trip to come close to air travel, even adding in the pre-departure rituals at the hell-hole that is O'Hare, but 18 hours NYC to Chicago (959 miles) is a bit leisurely. 

[BR60103]

One thing that the railways aren't even trying is the smaller places they go through between the big cities. Aeroplanes go right over the top, but rails go through the middle. Bring back the parliamentaries!

[jsp3970]

Back in the late 1980's I used to catch the train from St.Catharines, Ontario and there were several trains for me to choose from, either going onward to Windsor or Kingston. Most of these disappeared in the 1990 cuts so it became easier for me to drive.

 

In both 2006 and 2008 I went to Newfoundland, first time by train to Truro in Nova Scotia, then I had to take a bus to North Sydney despite the fact that there was a rail line and even a VIA Rail service that was operated as a luxury train. I found this odd as VIA dumped a lot of people off at Truro who were going to North Sydney for the ferry. This was a captive crowd that VIA didn't want to cater to! I learnt my lesson in 2008 and drove all the way.

 

Now I live in Calgary, no VIA train, they cancelled it in the 1990 cuts. Again there is a luxury train that runs from Vancouver through the Rockies to Calgary, but its not set up for people who want to commute.  If I want to go to Edmonton I either drive or take the bus, despite there being both CN and CP lines between the two cities.

 

These are just some of the examples of how bad rail service is in Canada. They have decimated service to the point that people don't find it convenient to take the train and once these people are lost it is hard to get them back.  The equipment is getting on, 60 year old stainless steel cars (I think the oldest is 65-70 years old), 30 year old LRC cars, and ex Channel Tunnel stock that they don't seem to know what to do with!  Whats even better is that VIA retired the old CN blue cars as life expired and sold them for further use, some of which are still going strong 25 years later!

 

Now I personally don't blame VIA, it is after all a public beast that is responsible to its political masters and sadly no one seems really interested in investing in it. Oh for sure there have been some investment, refurbishing stations, locomotives, rolling stock, and even installing a third line alongside stretches of CN's Kingston Sub. But really its not enough!

[jjb1970]

I just wanted to try the VIA option, to me the time wasn't big deal and I'd have happily taken the time penalty however I appreciate that as a rail enthusiast this is not a typical attitude and also that even as a rail enthusiast I do not think I'd ask for the VIA option as a regular traveller. A few weeks ago I had to go from Munich to Brussels and seriously thought about asking for the train but ended up flying as the time difference was too great to justify to my employer.

[RJS1977]

I am curious, but is there any data available for the UK system showing the growth of the various types of journey (commuter vs long distance intercity)?  The perception I have (perhaps incorrect) is that the UK rail system has seen tremendous growth in commuter journeys caused both by population increases as well as a greatly expanded "commuter zone" where it is now viewed at routine to travel multiple hours to get to work.  On the other hand, longer journeys seem to be less attractive due to cost.

 

 

 

I don't have any precise figures but I know that passenger numbers on Virgin Cross-Country services increased by something like 40% when the HSTs and 47s were replaced by Voyagers (shorter trains run more frequently).Likewise when Pendolinos were introduced on the Euston-Manchester route,it attracted so many passengers BA closed the Heathrow-Manchester air service.

 

Although you mention cost, the cost per mile of a longer journey can often work out less than the cost per mile of a short one, especially where advance ticket discounts are available. I suspect that part of the reason for this is that something like 50% of the price of a ticket is wages for the train operator's staff (drivers, guards, depot workers etc) and the cost of paying someone to drive for an hour at 125mph is probably not too different to the cost of paying them to drive for an hour at a maximum speed of 75mph stopping at a dozen or more stations.

[dave1905]

Crew costs used to be the big slice but over the last 25 years or so fuel and equipment is a much bigger share.  An express that makes fewer stops and travels at a higher speed can use much less fuel than a local that makes many stops at a slower speed.  The big fuel costs are stopping and starting.

[dibber25]

I am curious, but is there any data available for the UK system showing the growth of the various types of journey (commuter vs long distance intercity)?  The perception I have (perhaps incorrect) is that the UK rail system has seen tremendous growth in commuter journeys caused both by population increases as well as a greatly expanded "commuter zone" where it is now viewed at routine to travel multiple hours to get to work.  On the other hand, longer journeys seem to be less attractive due to cost.

 

One reason for wondering that is that North America is very much broken up into commuter and long distance rail operations, and to compare VIA with the UK can be a bit misleading when it should be VIA/GO/Montreal/Vancouver vs the UK.  Certainly GO has seen continuous growth in service and ridership, with a significant amount of capital investment proposed over the next decade as they move to electrify the GO lines.

 

VIA on the other hand has long distance routes that really aren't comparable to anything in Europe, or much of the rest of the world outside North America, which leaves little opportunity for inspiration or learning.  Combine the differences with the limitations that both VIA and Amtrak face - they operate in a rail environment that well suited for moving bulk freight doesn't work so well for passenger needs which means custom designed equipment - and they really are isolated.

 

Then factor in national governments that really aren't inclined to provide the significant amount of capital money required to make any changes and you are left with what exists, where the little money VIA has is spent trying to make small, incremental improvements that hope to maintain service at its current levels.

As I've said many times on another forum when talking about this subject - the UK rail system does not differentiate between types of passenger. Basically, if you can live an hour's journey time away from your work, you can class yourself a commuter. Thus, my 'local' city (20min drive from home) is Peterborough. Peterborough is roughly 45min from King's Cross by fast train, 60-75min by 'stopper'. The slow trains are certainly deemed to be 'commuter' services from the stations nearer to London. The fast trains are used by many commuters from Peterborough if they (or their employers) are willing to pay the much more substantial fares. I always found it farcical that the Vancouver Island VIA service could not be retimed and altered to suit commuters 'because VIA doesn't carry commuters', so it went the wrong way at the wrong time of day and eventually folded (though track safety issues were the actual reason, clearly there was no sadness in govt/VIA circles at seeing the service end). VIA's method of operation seems to be to match the number of seats to the number of potential passengers. Thus, if a route is producing no more than, say, 150 passengers a day, its 'service' gets cut to one train a day. The fact that the timing of that service doesn't suit 100 of those passengers, leads to a drop to 50 passengers a day. Even the one train is then not viable. I've watched it happen on service after service on VIA over the past 20 years. I think the end of VIA is a lot closer than most of its employees realise.

In short, though, all passenger journeys on UK rail are up and they are going up steadily. On the East Coast route (London-Edinburgh) it is often impossible to get a seat south of York (there is no limit on the numbers of standing passengers on British trains other than the sheer physical space to pack them in. Capacity is limited by the lack of new long distance trains (deliveries of the IEP start 2015 but they won't see service before 2018) the most recent being Pendolinos which are now some 15 years old. The mainstay of many of our services are diesel HSTs which are approaching 40 years old.

I used VIA Nos.1/2 three years running (in 2012 I went right across from Halifax to Van) but the 2013 journey was so frustrating (delay by failed freight, sleeping car with wheel flats and other running gear/suspension faults, appalling ride at speed, followed by frustrating 25mph crawl behind a freight across the entire of Southern Ontario, 4.5hours late arrival, makeshift lunch). At £1,200 I decided there were better ways to spend the money, so VIA lost another customer - albeit a tourist.