Putting on the new VIA Rail TurboTrain livery - HSRC Collection On July 10th, 2024, VIA Rail released a publicity campaign for their Windsor to Quebec City corridor new train sets. The Siemens Venture trains, powered by Siemens Charger locomotives, will be fully in service across the entire corridor by the fall of this year. High Speed Rail Canada salutes VIA Rail’s acknowledgement of its past train, the TurboTrain in their new livery of the Lumi. According to the VIA Rail press release, Introducing Lumi, the unique train of its new Corridor fleet, which bears VIA Rail’s classic monochrome yellow all while keeping the signature linear lines of the new trains. Lumi will be the only new train (Simple and efficient, the monochrome yellow, our brand’s signature colour) with this unique exterior design and acts as a reminder of the beginning of a new era for passenger rail. As others have done when introducing a new fleet, VIA Rail wanted to make a strong gesture by differentiating one of ...

I walked into the VIA Rail station in Windsor in 1991 to protest VIA Rail Canada’s refusal to allow my girlfriend to purchase a CanRail Pass. They refused her because she was a Canadian. Ridiculous……It was my first real world experience with the dysfunctional state of passenger rail then and today in our country. Back then and today, Transport 2000, (now Transport Action Canada) were, and still are, the only national passenger rail advocacy group in Canada. I had read in the newspapers about Harry Gow, President of Transport 2000 back in 1991. His fire and brimstone passenger rail advocacy was legendary and inspired me. Moving to Guelph in 1994, I got involved with local passenger rail activists the late Mary Pappert and George Bechtel. Mary was a no nonsense person and so was George. I had no idea at the time, just how effective they were at passenger rail advocacy. If cuts were coming or money was being made available for passenger trains, they immediately went into action. Organizi...

  Sylvain Larocque, Le Journal de Montreal - Plus rentable, meilleur pour l’environnement : le gouvernement Trudeau devrait mettre de côté son projet de train à grande fréquence (TGF) entre Québec et Toronto pour miser sur la grande vitesse, martèle le géant français Alstom. « Tant qu’à mettre des sommes comme celles-là, autant que soit dans un investissement le plus rentable possible et qui amène l’impact à la fois économique et sociétal le plus élevé », confie au Journal Michael Keroullé, président d’Alstom pour les Amériques. https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2023/01/24/alstom-propose-a-nouveau-un-tgv-entre-quebec-et-toronto

Railway Tracks to Nowhere Excellent article by Global News  written by Mike De Souza and Megan Robinson about  VIA Rail Canada and their present problems on the Ontario-Quebec Corridor. Full credit to the Mike and Megan for uncovering the truth behind the out of control spending on the Kingston Subdivision upgrades. It is refreshing to see investigative journalism on the topic of passenger rail. Read the whole article HERE . #ViaRail #Globalnews #trains

Despite a wealth advantage, Canada lags behind Spain on high-speed rail, VIA Rail Canada Toronto Star - Jan. 18, 2020 by Amir Barnea is an associate professor of finance at HEC Montréal As a pair, Toronto and Montreal, Canada’s two largest cities, have a lot in common with Madrid and Barcelona. Both city couples are roughly 600 km away from each other: Madrid is 650 km from Barcelona, and Toronto is 540 km from Montreal. Jointly, 11 million people live in the metropolitan areas of the two largest Spanish cities, compared to 10 million in the metropolitan areas of the Canadian cities. Read the whole article HERE.

High Speed Trains and Low Fares with AVLO in Spain Renfe chief Isaías Táboas in front of an AVLO train RENFE has announced some fare details on their new high speed rail discount  train service named ALVO. Let us compare VIA Rail Canada Toronto -Montreal service and Madrid to Barcelona service. (taking into consideration Madrid to Barcelona is a greater distance than Toronto to Montreal) The head of Renfe, Isaías Táboas stated in El Pais, "My proposal to the board will be to have a range of prices from €10 to €60 per trip. This is not a promotional price but rather a price scale that will depend on demand at any given time. Of course, there are not going to be €10 tickets for everyone, but at some point everyone will be able to buy an AVLO ticket for €10 to travel between Madrid and Barcelona. So on April 6, there will be tickets for €10.” MADRID - BARCELONA HIGH SPEED TRAINS Madrid to Barcelona - distance - 621km Speed - 300 km/h - max 330km/hr Trip Time - 2hr.30...

I have previously done an article on comparing RENFE Seville-Madrid and VIA Rail Montreal to Toronto. ( english link ) ( french link ) No surprise as RENFE was cheaper and faster than VIA Rail. Now RENFE is introducing their new low cost high speed train service in April 2020 called Alvo. Based on the current 112 series Talgo. Ministry of Development José Luis Ábalos, "Renfe is prepared to face the arrival of the competition", but has also requested "reciprocity" in other European countries in view of which "the liberalization of the railroad in this country is becoming the most open and balanced, a whole model. " This is in relation to the opening up of domestic railways to competition in the passenger rail industry. Avlo will be Renfe's high-speed service with the highest passenger capacity, with 438 seats per train, 20% more seats compared to the current 112 series trains. Subsequently, as the new service is extended , the new trains of t...

Plan de train à haute fréquence de VIA Rail (Toronto-Ottawa-Montréal-Québec) vs Le TGV de Rail Baltica (Estonie - Lituanien - Lettonie) À notre premier examen, nous comparions VIA Rail au Canada à l’Ouzbékistan et nous avons constaté que l’Ouzbékistan disposait des trains-passagers les plus rapides. Voyons donc deux nouveaux projets. Il est peut-être injuste de comparer un pays riche comme le Canada (produit intérieur brut au 9ème rang mondial) à l'Estonie, la Lituanie et la Lettonie (PIB respectifs de 46ème, 38ème et 47ème du monde). Les trains voyageurs ont été comparés à ceux de l'Ouzbékistan sans que le facteur PIB soit important Nous examinerons maintenant trois facteurs importants. Sécurité, vitesse et environnement. Chemin de fer Baltica (Estonie-Lituanie-Lettonie): Électrifié Double voie, pas de passages à niveau - Séparé ERTMS - système de gestion du trafic ferroviaire européen de dernière génération Vitesse maximale nominale de 249 km / h (la vitesse ...

VIA Rail High Frequency Rail Plan - (Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City) vs Rail Baltica High Speed Rail Plan (Estonia - Lithuanian - Latvia) In our first review we compared Canada’s VIA Rail service to  Uzbekistan and to no ones surprise  Uzbekistan had faster passenger trains. Now we will do a quick look at comparing two new projects. Now maybe it’s not fair to compare a rich country like Canada (Gross Domestic Product ranking 9th in the world  to Estonia, Lithuania -Latvia (GDP 46th,38th and 47th in world respectively) That GDP rating didn’t seem to matter when Canada VIA Rail passenger rail system was compared to Uzbekistan We will look at what I believe are three important factors. Safety, Speed and the Environment. Rail Baltica (Estonia-Lithuanian-Latvia): Electrified  Double tracked, no level crossings - grade separated ERTMS- newest generation of European railway traffic management system Maximum design speed of 249 km/h (the maximum op...

Excellent Article in Toronto Star by Michael Lewis about Transport Canada failure to implement legislation requiring Positive Train Control on all main VIA Rail corridors. "Via’s high frequency rail link from Toronto to Quebec raises safety concerns"  No Information Yet from VIA Rail about having Positive Train Control Systems

VIA Rail passenger car -photo copyright Paul Langan One thing is constant in Canada - we never really move forward to having a truly modern passenger rail system. Periodically the government invests in rolling stock for VIA Rail but then it is back to the ‘same old, same old’.  That is: slow trains, high fare prices, and the absence of safety requirements that are mandatory in other countries. The federal government has recently given money ($1billion plus) to VIA Rail to update their aging fleet of passenger rail vehicles. Just like the previous 2002-2003 federal government VIA Rail Renaissance Funding, this funding is heralded as modernizing VIA Rail service.  It remains to be seen if Canada can ever have a modern passenger rail system. The federal infrastructure bank is ready to invest in big infrastructure programs. Should they invest in VIA Rail’s flawed High Frequency Rail (HFR) plan? HFR (High Frequency Rail) I have written extensively about this plan by V...

Supporters of the restoration of passenger rail services between Michigan and Ontario were presently surprised lately. In the Amtrak 2020 General and Legislative Report there is a line item titled, Restoration of the Detroit–Toronto Service " on page 7. The amount of money needed is "to be determined." The idea of of having trains connecting from Chicago, through Detroit/Windsor can become reality. There are significant hurdles to go through to make this happen: getting permission to use tracks from freight companies,  improving/adding to track infrastructure moving VIA Rail station to former site of Canada Southern station site, or connecting to existing VIA station federal government funding from Canada and USA funding from the province of Ontario and state of Michigan support from VIA Rail Canada and the Cities of Detroit and Windsor for the idea resolving customs/border issues complete restoration of Detroit's Michigan Central Railway Station to al...

Passenger rail advocate calls VIA's proposed Ontario-Quebec a 'tourist train' to the 'hinterland' - by Adam Swimmer, March 17, 2019. LINK

New evidence suggest Canada's first and only high speed train went even faster than previous known in test runs. Amazing TurboTrain photo by John Stewart  What a shock to us at High Speed Rail Canada. We thought we knew everything about the CN Turbo Trains that used to run in Canada from 1968-1982. It is a well known fact that the TurboTrain reached a well documented record speed of 226 km/h in 1976 speed runs. This record will stand even after VIA Rail spends $1 billion on new trains from Siemens. Please see previous blog POST for photo of certificate given to those on the historic run. Recently we were reviewing our TurboTrain Footage on our Youtube page and found this amazing fact. On Part 1 of the three part documentary 1970 film on the Turbotrain by CN, it states at 6:08 into the video that, "These features helped Turbo to achieve speeds of up to 170 mph on test runs" . (273 km/h) The key words in the statement above regarding the speed is " of u...

VIA Rail charges $25.00 each way to put your bike on their train!    On my recent trip to high ride trains in Portugal and Spain, I was on a local train in the town of Olhao to connect with the hide speed train in Faro. The fare was only $2.00 and putting your bike on the train was free. I noticed people loading their bikes on the train and wondered what the policies were for putting your bikes on the train in Canada. Comboios de Portugal   There is a variety of options depending on the type of the train you are taking in Portugal. The one constant fact on all trains is bringing your bike on the train is free. I Inquired about taking my bike leaving from Guelph Ontario. VIA Rail   VIA Rail has no trains that have baggage cars so you can't take your bike on train. If they did have baggage car, VIA Rail charged the ridiculous price of $25.00 each way plus taxes to put your bike on. GO Transit GO RAIL does allow bikes on its trains at no charge...

Bonjour à tous et bienvenue.  Je reviens tout juste du Portugal et d’Espagne où j’ai fait l’expérience de toutes sortes de moyens de transport. Nous le savons tous, il existe de bien meilleures façons de transporter les gens par chemin de fer au Canada que ce que nous connaissons actuellement. Le texte qui suit veut comparer deux parcours ferroviaires touchant des populations similaires mais avec des résultats dramatiquement différent. Merci Paul Langan, fondateur de Train à grande vitesse au Canada Comparaison entre les trajets par rail entre Toronto-Montréal vs Séville-Madrid  VIA Rail projette d’utiliser une ancienne emprise de chemin de fer pour établir une voie ferrée allant de Toronto à Ottawa et Montréal au coût de 6 milliards de dollars. Notre organisme a déjà dénoncé les principales failles de ce projet dans d’autres articles.  Je crois qu’il est nécessaire d’établir une comparaison factuelle entre le trajet entre Séville et Madrid et le trajet actuel et...

  Toronto-Montreal vs Seville-Madrid Passenger Rail Lines Comparison After a recent visit to Portugal and Spain, and a lot of reflection, I am even more committed to advocate for a modern passenger rail system in Canada. Currently VIA Rail has a $6 billion dollar plan to have a rail corridor from Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal on a largely abandoned rail corridor. High Speed Rail Canada has exposed the major flaws in the plan in previous articles. I do believe it is good to give a factual example of comparing the Seville to Madrid High Speed Line with the current and future proposed VIA Rail line Toronto to Montreal. Populations The population of Toronto is 2,731,571 (source: Statistics Canada).  The wider Greater Toronto Area (GTA) population was 6,417,516 at the time of the most recent (2016) census. The population of Montreal is 1,704,694. The population of the wider Montreal metropolitan area is 4,098,927 (2016 data). Madrid has almost 3.2 million inhabitants ...

High Speed Rail Canada To Release Toronto-Montreal vs Seville-Madrid Passenger Rail Lines Comparison High Speed Rail Canada will release their comparison of the Toronto-Montreal and Seville-Madrid passenger rail lines. WireService.ca Media Release (09/17/2018) - MEDIA ALERT: At 8:00am on Tuesday September 18th, 2018, High Speed Rail Canada will have available on their website a copy of the their latest report to read and download. The population densities of Toronto-Montreal and Madrid-Seville are similar but the passenger rail options and trip times are dramatically different. High Speed Rail Canada, as part of their mandate to educate the Canadian public, has done an analysis of the two passenger rail lines in Canada and Spain. Media Contact - Paul Langan, High Speed Rail Canada founder at 226-505-7605 or by using contact page on website at http://highspeedrail.ca

Will the Canadian government spend $4 billion resulting in the same trip times between Toronto and Montreal as in 1973? One of the biggest unsubstantiated statements by VIA Rail is their proposed high frequency rail line will reduce trip times by 25%. What data have VIA Rail released to show how this reduced travel time will be accomplished?  The answer is simple. VIA Rail has not even released any data to the public to support that statement or even the exact routing of the line. Current VIA trains tips between Toronto and Montreal is  about 5hrs and 5hrs 17min on the main line. Even if VIA Rail could obtain a 20% reduction in trip times it would result in travel times like we had in 1973 around 4hours.(and  this percentage reduction would take a leap of faith). Travelling along the old Ontario-Quebec (CP) Rail line has many level crossings, a winding route, travelling through small communities and the reduced speed to enter and leave Montreal and Toronto. I...