Passenger Trains > A Fascinating Look at VIA Rail Canada's on-time performance

We often like to think that everything with passenger rail is better in Canada than it is here. It is absolutely true that VIA Rail Canada's on-board service is generally superb, BUT, it's on-time performance on the transcontinental CANADIAN is incredibly bad, even after giving the host Canadian National Railway an added fourth night enroute and then further padding that schedule by as much as 18 more hours for a period last year, as well as allowing CN to insist on the full Toronto-Vancouver route being cut to only twice a week this summer--despite the train being sold out on almost every summer departure and by VIA's own admission running at a profit (at least out of pocket) in high season.Give yourself an hour to read a fascinating and even beautiful presentation.

There are lessons here for our US fight against freight train interference as well. That this was produced by students at the University of King's College gives hope that the next generation really cares about rail.

Visit https://signalhfx.ca/standingstill/

Railvt Wrote:
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> even after giving the
> host Canadian National Railway an added fourth
> night enroute and then further padding that
> schedule by as much as 18 more hours for a period
> last year, as well as allowing CN to insist on the
> full Toronto-Vancouver route being cut to only
> twice a week this summer

That never works. Failure is lack of discipline and lack of skill, not insufficient schedule running time.

Be assurred that if the schedule gets down to an average speed of 3 mph, CN will "need more time."

TAW

Overall a good article. CN should be ashamed. But on the Windsor-Quebec corredor time keeping, even in winters much more severe than those in the U.S. seems to be quite acceptable. I don't recall Toronto or Montreal having a system meltdown (no pun intended) as seems to happen to Amtrak in Chicago every year.

Precision Scheduled Railroading on CN.

Posted from Android

The Canadian is only 6 trains per week (and only 4 do the entire route) of the nearly 500 others that VIA operates each week. The OT performance of those is no different than what you would find on Amtrak covering a similar distance.

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/19 14:22 by ghCBNS.

ghCBNS Wrote:
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> The Canadian is only 6 trains per week (and only 4
> do the entire route) of the nearly 500 others that
> VIA operates each week. The OT performance of
> those is no different than what you would find on
> Amtrak covering a similar distance.
>

I think the magnitide of latenss is quite a bit worse on the Canadian than Amtrak LD overall, even allowing for the distance, and it is skewed worse west of Winnipeg. 

Is the Canadian also handicapped with its on-time performance because it operates two days a week or three days a week, and thus it is NOT given a REGULAR "block" or "slot" on a daily basis that not only VIA, but CN can plan for? Because it only operates this day, or that day, I feel CN just throws the train in where and when it can now because of its heavy traffic. Whereas, if it had a regular daily slot, wouldn't that make for better planning and scheduling? And then consider the train gets handed off hours late from one section to another section of dispatching. The train has no on-time performance reliabiity, but it also has no daily scheduling. I just think that lends itself to being a problem right off the bat and CN is not going to give something that runs twice a week any priority, unless CN is given an incentive to do so (extra $$$) like Rocky Mountaineer does. Rocky Mountaineer has a department that deals specifically with CN/CP dispatchers for its trains. I remember being on the Rocky Mountaineer train from Jasper to Quesnel. We got waylaid into nearly every siding while on the CN from Jasper to the outskirts of Prince George. As we curved onto the old BC Rail to head south towards Quesnel, we were approaching two hours late by this time, but we were assured by the service coordinator of the train - "Rocky Mountaineer's dispatch department is working with CN's dispatch to ensure we arrive at xx:xx, and will make up time and have no further delays.........." Sure enough we made up time and arrived just a little over an hour an hour late and no more sidings or the freights were waiting for us. Course we were also off the CN Main and on the old BC Main.......

stash Wrote:
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> Precision Scheduled Railroading on CN.
>
Yes the Canadian’s timekeeping is terrible.....but it’s only 4 trains a week (the VAN-EDM only Canadians do better) of the nearly 500 other trains that are mostly dispatched by CN and most of these would have an acceptable OT performance and comparable to Amtrak corridor runs.

Another VIA LD train and dispatched by CN....the Ocean for example was 15 min late arriving into Montreal yesterday and 50 min late into Halifax. Some of this lateness can be attributed to double stops required for a 20 care train during the summer. The rest of the year the Ocean’s performance is quite good.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/19 04:58 by ghCBNS.