Canadian Railroads > Another delay to a Wed. departure of VIA #1

Wednesday departures of the Canadian from Toronto have had a lot of significant delays this season.  Number 2 was already many hours late as it came down the Bala Sub. on Tuesday the 11th.  An issue with a canal bridge near Brechin caused a shutdown of the subdivision for several hours.  VIA gave an ETA of 04:45 for arrival in Toronto.  A posting on Facebook says the delays to #2 had nothing to do with wildfires. I haven't seen the actual arrival time but it may have been later than that.  The map on tsimobile showed the consist heading to the Maintenance Centre around 07:30.

The departure of #1 on Wed. the 12th was 19:54.  The train is now 12 hours late.  Sunday departures of #1 are more reliable because of the extra day of layover in Toronto. 

How bad are delays on The Canadian as a general matter? I had the impression (hope?) that the significant padding added to the schedule largely fixed the problem. Please don’t crush my dream!!

Posted from iPhone

Magritte55 Wrote:
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> How bad are delays on The Canadian as a general
> matter? I had the impression (hope?) that the
> significant padding added to the schedule largely
> fixed the problem. Please don’t crush my
> dream!!
>
> Posted from iPhone

Sorry to crush your dream. The padding didn't help and I don't think VIA should have EVER agreed to ANY of this padding starting with the first change back in 2008 or so. 

jp1822 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Magritte55 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > How bad are delays on The Canadian as a general
> > matter? I had the impression (hope?) that the
> > significant padding added to the schedule
> largely
> > fixed the problem. Please don’t crush my
> > dream!!
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> Sorry to crush your dream. The padding didn't help
> and I don't think VIA should have EVER agreed to
> ANY of this padding starting with the first change
> back in 2008 or so. 

Realistically VIA had no choice.  If they said no, I shudder to think of what CN would do to our beloved Canadian.  

For the westbound train, #1, a large part of the padding is built in over the last ~125 miles of the trip.  The run from Boston Bar to Pacific Central Station in Vancouver could be done in 4 hours handily, but is scheduled for 8h 24m.  It is quite common for a train to arrive into Boston Bar several hours late, but arrive at the final destination of Vancouver on time.  For customers travelling the entire distance from Toronto to Vancouver this may work out fine for their trips, but for anyone whose destination is in the prairies, where the train is most commonly arriving many hours behind schedule, that padding wouldn't help at all.

For the eastbound train #2, the schedule allows for 4h 46m over a similar distance from Vancouver to North Bend.  The train departs partway through the busy 'afternoon rush' for both railroads though, so it is almost guaranteed to be down at least an hour by the time it reaches Mission, BC, 30 miles into it's journey.  At that point it will be stuck behind numerous eastbound freight trains for the 150 mile stretch up the directional running zone.  From that point, it can resume it's typical abuse by CN dispatching along their single track mainline.

HUGE amount of padding put in between Winnipeg and Edmonton. That's gotta take the cake with padding since 2005 or so. 

I agree that VIA was backed into a corner with re-scheduling the train with CN and was backed into a corner, but as soon as the schedule started to get longer, more changes came and it was a HUGE slippery slope. I just hated to see it happen......I do respect your opinion and thoughts on this DrawingroomA!!!! VIA can never go back to a tri-weekly schedule with the current scheduled that has added over 24 hours since the Canadian was re-routed onto CN back in 1990. I took the Canadian MANY times in the winter months and over New Year's holiday even back in the early 2000's and we'd arrive into some intermediate stations late, others early, but then be into Vancouver on-time or up to 3.5 hours early! The onboard staff as even surprised when we would arrive early into Kamloops North in the late 10 pm hour after leaving Jasper at 4 pm or so. 

CN should have been given a flat NO when it sought that last addition of 12 hours or so to the Canadian's schedule, simply because VIA didn't have enough equipment to keep the former tri-weekly schedule with that extra time built in. It seems genuinely shocking the way CN treats the Canadian and for that matter Canadians along its route. I get the impression that CN has amassed such poer that it is now the Canadian government when it comes to rail transportation in Canada, and that shouldn't be. CN should never have been privatized. 

NPRocky Wrote:
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> CN should have been given a flat NO when it sought
> that last addition of 12 hours or so to the
> Canadian's schedule, simply because VIA didn't
> have enough equipment to keep the former
> tri-weekly schedule with that extra time built in.
> It seems genuinely shocking the way CN treats the
> Canadian and for that matter Canadians along its
> route. I get the impression that CN has amassed
> such poer that it is now the Canadian government
> when it comes to rail transportation in Canada,
> and that shouldn't be. CN should never have been
> privatized. 

No different here in the states. Rail on the City of New orleans has got to be the worst of any Amtrak route in the US. "Hey, CN is for freight you passenger types can just lump it."

I rode the City of New Orleans a couple of years ago and was worried about derailing for the first time in my train riding career, which includes some mileage on the Penn Central. Penn Central was one thing, but there is truly no excuse for the track of a well-off railroad like CN to be as rough as that was. Yet another bad sign of deregulation, or at least under-regulation, on both sides of the border.