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Greg Gormick Releases his VIA 1-4-10 Plan - Recovery Stategy for VIA RAIL

Photo by Walter Pfefferle

Greg Gormick is an authority on the history of passenger rail service in Canada. In particular he has studied VIA RAIL extensively. Transport Action Canada hired Greg to produce a study on how to revitalize passenger rail service. He has produced a lengthy 126 page report on the topic.

His report hits home identifying some of the serious problems facing VIA RAIL especially relating to it's poor management, lack of VIA RAIL legislation, inability to market their train services and the need for new rolling stock.

This study educates people on the current state that VIA RAIL is in. Greg also offers a plan to fix the situation. Most of his solutions involved continuing to use existing CN tracks and make incremental improvements.

Herein lies the problem with the studies recommendations. Greg, like many who have followed VIA RAIL through their history, is trapped in the past thinking VIA can thrive staying on CN lines. The cruel reality is this has never worked since VIA RAIL began service. There are decades of examples of CN being a substantial part of the problem that keeps VIA RAIL from becoming any type of efficient passenger rail service.

Part of the answer is owning the track for more reliable passenger rail service. GO TRANSIT realizes this is the key to success as they continue to purchase track from CN.

The new VIA RAIL proposal for a medium speed dedicated track Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal is discussed in this paper also.

Although this report ignores high speed rail solutions, we still recommend it as essential reading to understand the scope of the problems facing VIA RAIL as they continue to struggle running on freight rail lines. Read the whole study at this link.

http://transport-action-ontario.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/VIA-1-4-10-Plan-Final-Release-Version-151106.pdf






Comments

  1. Mr. Gormick's report hits the nail right on the head.

    A simple law giving VIA Rail dispatching priority over freight trains and ensuring reasonable track access fees for VIA (like Amtrak has in the U.S.) would be far a more cost-effective way of solving the challenges of operating VIA on the freight railroads than spending large sums of money on a new right-of-way between Montreal & Toronto or a high speed line from Toronto to Windsor that will take years to build.

    Like VIA, the vast majority of the Amtrak system runs on lines operated by freight railroads, yet ridership & revenue continue to reach record levels, in part because of legislation giving Amtrak dispatching priority.

    I would rather the government the restore VIA service frequencies that were cut in Niagara & Southern Ontario & Quebec as well as Western & Atlantic Canada as that would provide far more immediate benefit to the many people across Canada left stranded by the Conservatives' reckless funding cuts to VIA's meagre budget, instead of a high speed line that will only serve Toronto to Windsor and take a decade to build if the NIMBYS don't kill it first.

    In addition VIA needs to invest in new rolling stock like the bilevel cars used by Amtrak that have lowered operating costs and increased capacity resulting in the constant revenue & ridership growth that Amtrak has been experiencing year after year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr. Gormick's report hits the nail right on the head.

    A simple law giving VIA Rail dispatching priority over freight trains and ensuring reasonable track access fees for VIA (like Amtrak has in the U.S.) would be far a more cost-effective way of solving the challenges of operating VIA on the freight railroads than spending large sums of money on a new right-of-way between Montreal & Toronto or a high speed line from Toronto to Windsor that will take years to build.

    Like VIA, the vast majority of the Amtrak system runs on lines operated by freight railroads, yet ridership & revenue continue to reach record levels, in part because of legislation giving Amtrak dispatching priority.

    I would rather the government restore the VIA service frequencies that were cut in Niagara & Southern Ontario & Quebec as well as Western & Atlantic Canada as that would provide far more immediate benefit to the many people across Canada left stranded by the Conservatives' reckless funding cuts to VIA's meagre budget, instead of a high speed line that will only serve Toronto to Windsor and take a decade to build if the NIMBYS don't kill it first.

    In addition VIA needs to invest in new rolling stock like the bilevel cars used by Amtrak that have lowered operating costs and increased capacity resulting in the constant revenue & ridership growth that Amtrak has been experiencing year after year.

    Only after the national system is fixed should we start thinking about dedicated high speed corridors.

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