How do you know which trains are going to be Chargers? I don’t see that information on the Via website.

@tiernanstrains

7 ай бұрын

This specific shot was made possible by a tip-off. Usually, I use a crowdsourced consist rotation diagram. I'll email it to you if you're interested, however the one I have right now seems to be wrong. There also used to be a bug in asm.transitdocs.com where Venture consists would always show their direction as North, but that's been fixed.

@tiernanstrains

6 ай бұрын

www.viarail.ca/en/plan/new-fleet now shows which trains will be Ventures

@partiellementecreme

6 ай бұрын

@@tiernanstrains how interesting, thank you. I wonder why they’re avoiding putting their best and newest rolling stock on the Montreal-Toronto route (except for once on Friday), which is Via’s real flagship train.

@tiernanstrains

4 ай бұрын

@partiellementecreme Update on this: 668 is a Venture set on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, as well as 61 on Mondays and 63 on Fridays.

Nice to see the oldest coaches meet the new coaches.

As an Eastern European railway worker myself, I appreciate your train operation informations. Great catch. :)

I hope that someone in this country will realize that it is the time to start investing in the railway tracks which really need an upgrade. Not even mention to electrify at least the "corridor" line. The Charger is capable of speeds of up to 200km/h but due to the poor state of the tracks it cannot run like this in Canada.

@tiernanstrains

5 ай бұрын

It's not quite that simple unfortunately. Most of the track VIA Rail uses is owned by freight companies that prefer to spare the expense of maintaining track to higher classes because their trains just don't need that kind of speed. Additionally, Canada itself doesn't specify a class of track that permits passenger operation over 95mph. The US, which does, also specifies that track rated for >110mph (177km/h) must be completely grade separated (no RR crossings). To get the most out of the Chargers would require an enormous effort, and no one is going to do it without proper motivation and legislation. I would like to invite you to read the petition at the top of my community page and sign it if you're interested.

@cristianboldisor1175

5 ай бұрын

​​​​​​@tiernantrains True, but Canada could have nationalized the track part by buying it out from the private companies. Then the newly formed entity could have leased "track time slots" to various operators, including the Via Rail. Even though it would have been a very large investment in the short term,it would pay off in the long run.At a certain point, someone will have to start having a longer-term vision on where this country should go. Unlike what we have now when everything is for today like there will be no tomorrow. Long term planning is crucial for any large project that may shape the country for the next 100 years. Without this Canada will always have outdated railways because the companies who own them have no interest to invest into upgrading them.

@tiernanstrains

5 ай бұрын

I know, that's why that petition exists.

@nicholasyoung9758

3 ай бұрын

The point is that money should be invested in railway infrastructure. I agree 100%. Canadian rail service is underdeveloped, and because of "operating costs," it is 1:29 overpriced at the same time.

@tiernanstrains

3 ай бұрын

@@nicholasyoung9758 Yep I agree too. VIA needs actual purchasing and executive power to actually do something instead of withering away, especially on long distance routes.

A very cool train. I have subscribed to your channel. 😸👍

Update: the consist rotation is all over the place now. 40 became 28 and 31 (which broke down that morning) became 59 (video soon), swapping the two. Trackside Treasure just posted on his blog detailing the service expansion rotation with four Ventures active at once! tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2023/10/ventures-are-coming-ventures-are-coming.html

We could look to Middle Europe as a model. Travelling from Vienna to Prague and Budapest, as well as Bratislava, is straightforward. Some of the trains have air conditioner problems in summer though! - Naturally the scale of the railway infrastructure is smaller than Canada's.

I caught this one at Richmond. David M caught it at Moodie

Great video!

Coach 4116 on the 2nd train was built for Southern Pacific's Sunset Limited in 1950! Glad to see she's still in service.

@tiernanstrains

7 ай бұрын

It's kind of bittersweet honestly. I'd much rather it be still in service on a heritage line than in intercity revenue service.

I can’t wait until these start servicing the Woodstock route

@tiernanstrains

7 ай бұрын

Me neither!

short of the high effort for doubletracking, they could at least speed up the meets. With very little investment, don't let the level crossing open for cars before both trains cross and - with some more investment - put in higher speed switches.

@tiernanstrains

5 ай бұрын

Double tracking would be the better investment imo, because you'd have to rip up your shiny new faster switches to double track anyway.

@franz-peterkayser722

5 ай бұрын

​@@tiernanstrains true, but apart from the cost of double tracking (which are orders of magnitude higher than what I proposed), there might be a lot of other barriers like land acquisition and environmental concerns that at least cost time. Hence improving the current situation would still make sense in any case.

When will the chargers serve train 75 or all the trains to Aldershot

@tiernanstrains

6 ай бұрын

Not sure. 70-64-65-75 is a pair of six car trains that do that rotation and that rotation only. I don't see those getting replaced yet because there's no configuration of Venture cars that has enough seats yet. I think they'll do 79-72 first, because that was the train the test train followed when I saw it (679-672}. They might also reintroduce 77 and 74, which would be nice. They'd have to renumber 75 to 77, move 73 earlier, and 75 somewhere between those two. 74 would probably be around noon. What they'll actually do, no idea. These are just what I think could happen.

@ThePeelRegionTransitChannel

6 ай бұрын

Oh ok thnx im just askin bc so I might have a chance to catch the chargers but I guess I'll stick with the P42DC or F40PH

@tiernanstrains

6 ай бұрын

I'll make a community post when the rotation changes again

Couldn't the train get to Ottawa station first instead of slowing down to meet the other train at Fallowfield?

@tiernanstrains

3 ай бұрын

Pretty much. 40 was quite late that day. Usually it leaves Fallowfield and meets 645 at the passing track further north in Ottawa.

Did anyone even entrain or detrain at this station? And how long is the stop?

@tiernanstrains

3 ай бұрын

Yes, but there are some quirks. Fallowfield is a sister station to Ottawa, in that the fare when travelling to them is the same. You can't book a ticket from Fallowfield to Ottawa unless it's part of a ticket from Fallowfield to somewhere east, like Montreal. As such, there is little to no entraining for eastbounds or detraining for westbounds. Fallowfield still gets plenty of use for going to/from the west though, because it's faster to get to than Ottawa Central from a pretty large area thanks to the Transitway stop right next to it. In this video I cut most of that out because it's not as interesting. I stopped filming and moved farther down the platform to get the next part of the video. You can still see plenty of people at 2:04 in the video. As to the stop length, roughly 3 minutes between stopping and moving up the track to wait - long enough for the engineer to have a smoke break.