Canadian Railroads > So when is the Canadian going to switch....

...to the North Shore.
JBWX

JB, I'll be booking a trip for that routing too.....who knows?  Perhaps we can book a trip with the great Fred Frailey, I feel certain he'll be wanting to travel that route too.  AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Heck, my wife might even want to join us. Last time we rode the North Shore was on our honeymoon in 1974.

JBWX

Those that work on the Canadian say it has been talked about for the last 20 years.  Don't hold your breath!  The Northern towns don't want to lose passenger service.

edsaalig Wrote:
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> Those that work on the Canadian say it has been
> talked about for the last 20 years.  Don't hold
> your breath!  The Northern towns don't want to
> lose passenger service.

They shouldn't lose their passenger service if RDC's or a regular trainset takes their place. I am in favor of running a regular trainset on this line with F40, baggage, coach, Skyline (for food and snack service), and sleeper. Run straight on through tri-weekly



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/16 21:53 by jp1822.

edsaalig Wrote:
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> Those that work on the Canadian say it has been
> talked about for the last 20 years.  Don't hold
> your breath!  The Northern towns don't want to
> lose passenger service.

There's also the question of how the Canadian would replace the Sudbury-White River RDC service that already uses the CP route. That train takes about nine hours to cover the distance, all in daylight hours (departure is at 09:00 at either end) and can make numerous flagstops to deliver supplies and drop off "baggage" that can include canoes for hunters and wilderness adventurers.  There are 30 possible stops between the end points, compared with just nine on the existing route between Capreol and Hornepayne, an almost identical distance.  Does it really make sense to saddle the Canadian with that role? 

The Canadian never does all the flag stops. That's why there are flag stops. It only stops if someone is booked to entrain or detrain there. Isn't the CP route shorter. Would that make up for extended time stopping for passengers? Thsi needs to be done. The CN routing through N. Ontario is beyond boring excepting the western part which in dark in both directions.

VIA has never said it is going to switch to the CPR route around Lake Superior only that it might like to. 

KG

If the White River train and the Canadian swap, then the remote train serving the CN would have to run all the way to from Capreol to Winnipeg, which could mean it would need a 2nd train set to cover a tri-weekly schedule, unless it goes bi-weekly year round.

I mention this only because Don Phillips mentioned it in his Trains mag column.  It makes business sense and he claims Harrison is considering it.  Like many North American railroads CP is facing difficult times due to traffic losses.  The North Shore line is well maintained but underutilized so handling VIA would gemerate some additional revenue at very low cost.  Small potatoes but every little bit helps in times like these.  The SP did exactly the same thing during the bad times.  Under Krebs they transitioned from fighting Amtrak to looking at Amtrak as a customer from whom they should extract as much money as possible.  The major cost for most roads to handle passenger trains is capacity, passenger trains soak up a LOT of capacity because of their schedule requirements.  That is a big deal for say BNSF.  This is sure the case with CN over the existing line east of Winnepeg.  And exactly the opposite with the CP for the North Shore route.  Which is not to say it will happen. As others point out there are other issues that need to be addressed.  But the basic economics seem to make the move a win win situation.  But the devil is always in the details.

JBWX

jbwest Wrote:
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> I mention this only because Don Phillips mentioned
> it in his Trains mag column.  It makes business
> sense and he claims Harrison is considering it.
>  Like many North American railroads CP is facing
> difficult times due to traffic losses.  The North
> Shore line is well maintained but underutilized so
> handling VIA would gemerate some additional
> revenue at very low cost.  Small potatoes but
> every little bit helps in times like these.  The
> SP did exactly the same thing during the bad
> times.  Under Krebs they transitioned from
> fighting Amtrak to looking at Amtrak as a customer
> from whom they should extract as much money as
> possible.  The major cost for most roads to
> handle passenger trains is capacity, passenger
> trains soak up a LOT of capacity because of their
> schedule requirements.  That is a big deal for
> say BNSF.  This is sure the case with CN over the
> existing line east of Winnepeg.  And exactly the
> opposite with the CP for the North Shore route.
>  Which is not to say it will happen. As others
> point out there are other issues that need to be
> addressed.  But the basic economics seem to make
> the move a win win situation.  But the devil is
> always in the details.
>
> JBWX

It's unlikely that CP would view this as a money-making opportunity.  And extra money made would be more than offset by the headaches of handling a passenger train and the associated burdens on staff, many of which would be uncompensated.

But it is a steady, non-risk, cash inflow.
2 or 3 trains a week each way is not going to stress any dispatcher very much. They have that much variability with freight traffic day to day, and they already host a train to White River.

jp1822 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> edsaalig Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Those that work on the Canadian say it has been
> > talked about for the last 20 years.  Don't
> hold
> > your breath!  The Northern towns don't want to
> > lose passenger service.
>
> They shouldn't lose their passenger service if
> RDC's or a regular trainset takes their place. I
> am in favor of running a regular trainset on this
> line with F40, baggage, coach, Skyline (for food
> and snack service), and sleeper. Run straight on
> through tri-weekly
As long as we are talking about things that are unlikely to happen... how about running the train you describe between Montreal and Calgary? In addition to online business it would also act as a bridge route between the Ocean and the Rocky Mountaineer and Royal C.P. operations out of Calgary.

ORNHOO Wrote:
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> As long as we are talking about things that are
> unlikely to happen... how about running the train
> you describe between Montreal and Calgary?

The Canadian would have to run on the Kingston Sub between Montreal and Toronto now as portions of the former CP transcontinental line through the Ottawa Valley have been abandoned and removed.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> The Canadian never does all the flag stops. That's
> why there are flag stops. It only stops if someone
> is booked to entrain or detrain there. Isn't the
> CP route shorter. Would that make up for extended
> time stopping for passengers? Thsi needs to be
> done. The CN routing through N. Ontario is beyond
> boring excepting the western part which in dark in
> both directions.

Right, the Canadian never does all the nine flagstops on the existing route, but how about the 30 stops (23 flag, 7 mandatory) on the Sudbury-White River route? That is a designated remote service (for which VIA receives remote service funding) and arguably more dependent on the rail service than the more northerly CN route.

The CP route is not shorter, nor is it faster. Sudbury to Winnipeg on CP is 970.6 miles. Capreol to Winnipeg on CN is 931.0 miles. And the CN route does not have anything comparable to the tortuous alignment alongside Lake Superior, which is the scenic part of the CP route, perhaps 175 miles in all.

In the late 1980s, the final years before the Canadian was rerouted to run via CN, it was slower between Sudbury and Winnipeg than the corresponding milk run on the CN route between Winnipeg and Capreol, Trains 7 and 8.  The Canadian took 24 hr, 5 min westbound and exactly 24 hours eastbound (actual running times adjusted for time zone changes).  Trains 7 and 8 took 23 hr, 30 min westbound and 23 hr, 40 min eastbound.

Of note here is that the Canadian made only five stops at most between Sudbury and White River because the RDC service was operating the milk run, and it made at most 17 stops between Sudbury and Winnipeg. Yet it was still slower than Trains 7 and 8 on the CN route, which made up to 40 stops between Capreol and Winnipeg.



 

For the record for several years in the early 1980s the Canadian did run from Montreal through Toronto then out west. This happened after service cuts which eliminated the Montreal Sudbury section of the Canadian.

WP17


ghCBNS Wrote:
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> ORNHOO Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> The Canadian would have to run on the Kingston Sub
> between Montreal and Toronto now as portions of
> the former CP transcontinental line through the
> Ottawa Valley have been abandoned and removed.

WP17 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> For the record for several years in the early
> 1980s the Canadian did run from Montreal through
> Toronto then out west. This happened after service
> cuts which eliminated the Montreal Sudbury section
> of the Canadian.
>
> WP17
>
I rode the Canadian on the Kingston Sub. a few times during that era.  It was not the full consist and was attached to a regular Toronto-Montreal train.  On the times I rode or observed it, there was no dining car and only some of the sleepers.  It did, however, have the Skyline and Park car.  Dining was provided in the Skyline car.

< The CP route is not shorter, nor is it faster.>
But it could escape 24 hours of CN's hostile dispatching and artificial schedule padding.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/16 06:24 by joemvcnj.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> < The CP route is not shorter, nor is it faster.>
> But it could escape 24 hours of CN's hostile
> dispatching and artificial schedule padding.

Perhaps there would be an equally onerous 24 hours of CP hostile dispatching and artificial schedule padding.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/16 12:09 by reindeerflame.

CP does not do very badly with the Empire Builder nor Adirondack. Could be better, but nothing like the CN.