MONTREAL — VIA Rail Canada’s new president and CEO reaffirmed the company’s commitment to the “high-frequency rail” plan championed by her predecessor, but no decision has been made on the plan to create a separate passenger-only right-of-way for parts of the Quebec-Windsor, Ont., corridor.
CEO Cynthia Garneau — on the job for only a few weeks since succeeding Yves Desjardins-Siciliano — and Board of Directors Chairman François Bertrand offered those views Tuesday during VIA’s annual public meeting.
“We’ve created a committee to supervise this project that we hope will enter it into a new phase very soon or before the end of 2019,” Bertrand said during the meeting, available here as a 52-minute webcast. The alternative to building the separate right-of-way is adding more trains on the existing Canadian National route.
“This project is complex and ambitious,” Garneau said, “and we continue to work with Transport Canada to capture its scope, to mitigate the risks.” Later, she added, “The feedback we’ve been getting is encouraging. It will be using existing infrastructure, as you know, and existing rights-of-way all the way from Quebec City to Toronto.” Still ahead are environmental analyses and “discussions with communities to look at all of the social acceptability issues.”
Bertrand and Garneau noted that revenue was up 7.4% and ridership 8% in 2018, building on an unbroken string of gains since 2014. There was continued emphasis on the corridor, which provides 95% of VIA’s ridership and which will receive new single-level cars and locomotives from Siemens. [See “VIA Rail Canada, Siemens announce deal for new corridor equipment,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 13, 2018.]
The “Top 10 questions for VIA management” session answered by VIA department heads did yield some previously undisclosed information:
— VIA “fully intends” to resume triweekly Canadian operation over its entire Toronto-Vancouver route next spring after CN capacity improvements are completed. This year, one of the round trips only operates Edmonton-Vancouver [See “VIA settles on dome deployment plan for the Canadian,” Trains News Wire, May 2, 2019].
— Though the Quebec government is working to rebuild tracks on the Gaspe peninsula, VIA intends to go all the way to the end of the line again, “as long as the tracks are safe.” No date has been set for a return to service.
— There are no plans to fill the void left by Greyhound’s departure from Western Canada, since the company does not “have the resources allocated to entertain any more services.”
— Providing additional trains in Southwest Ontario “is solely dependent on working with the infrastructure providers and intermodal partners to evaluate access” but “we don’t see the ability to add services in the short term to a region that we believe shows great potential.”
Perhaps the best option about relining access to Montreal`s Central Station is to simply built two more tunnels under Mount Royal from the north where new access to Quebec City is implemented that must include ALL access trains into Central Station by permanently closing access from the south side. Those existing access tracks from the south side could be converted into parkland, entertainment and exhibits by removing those severe eyesore countless overhead supports formerly used for original old electric line to Deux-Montagnes.
I don’t know. If you bypass downtown, there is not much point in building the whole thing. Just go to Dorval and take a plane.
Re: There are no plans to fill the void left by Greyhound’s departure from Western Canada, since the company does not “have the resources allocated to entertain any more services.”
We need to have a network of subsidized buses in Canada too. CanHound would be the Canadian version of AmHound. Buses are at least as important as preserving as trains.
@jf Turcotte
My solution is simple: bypass Montreal!!! (read: bypass downtown)
Use CP tracks from St-Martin Jct to Ballantyne. Use St-Luc Branch to reach Dorval by building a connecting track near actual commuter station at Lachine to reach VIA station. All road overpass on Outremont sub are already large enough to add a 3rd and 4th track. Some commuter platforms built on these viaducts should be moved.
Trains from Quebec City (theorically arriving at St-Martin Jct from Quebec-Gatineau tracks) would do a 1st stop at De la Concorde subway station OR at a new station built over the north portal of Mt-Royal tunnel where a transfer could be easily made with the REM. Train then continue on CP, take St-Luc branch shortcut thru CP golf then switch to a new VIA track, built between CP and CN tracks, starting just east of Dorval station nearby actual Lachine commuter station.
Once at Dorval, trains have 3 choices:
A – Continue to Ottawa or Toronto
B – Reverse direction to Central station on CN
C – End at Dorval and run deadhead to Pte St-Charles shops.
Option A is the best for Quebec City and Trois-Rivieres citizens.
Option B do not eliminate the western access issue.
Option B and C are only viabie if it allows a platform-to-platform transfer at Dorval station with another synchronized train leaving Montreal Central to Ottawa/Toronto.
So, in a matter of weeks VIA Rail Canada has stepped down from proposing High-Speed Rail to proposing High-Frequency Rail. What’s the next step down?
Here’s an idea: VIA Rail Canada should try running some trains. That would be a huge step up. Compare VIA now to when VIA started,what a disgrace. Amtrak is more or less its same footprint as when it started. VIA on the other hand has cut itself down to next to nothing.
Too bad we’re losing the only access to Montreal Central Station that does not involve using the CN main line: the Mount Royal tunnel. This one is being converted to an automated light rail line and will close to heavy rail traffic in 2020.
The HFR corridor also cannot run along the CN’s main line between Dorval and Central Station because there simply isn’t enough room to build more tracks between Ballantyne and Turcot West, as well as between De Courcelles and Cape. Running along the CP line to Lucien l’Allier is not a viable option either.
Basically, it means VIA is shut out of Montreal’s downtown by poor planning decisions. It pretty much kills the business case for HFR, unless you keep it as a Toronto – Ottawa service only.