Transport 2000 Canada has met with VIA Rail and examined the three types of cars and agreed the purchase of 139 passenger cars from Europe is a genuine bargain for Canada's passenger railway, Transport 2000 Canada President Harry Gow said last Friday.
If the modern, stylish and comfortable cars are to n used on the Toronto, Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa day service, the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto night service and easterly to Halifax and Gaspé, they will benefit differnt regions of the country while releasing existing VIA equipment to strengthen services in Western Canada and the Western corridor. The overall increase in VIA's fleet will do much to imporve VIA's ability to meet market needs economically.
Transport 2000 Canada has suggestions for improvements, some of which are already being looked at by VIA. They include accessibility imporvements, more baggage capacity, and more public spaces such as dining and observation cars for long-distance trains. It appears that these needs can be addressed.
Transport 2000 Canada is also seeking a commitment to affordable single occupancy sleeper berths. In the current Ocean Chaleur service each Chateau sleeping car has 14 rooms/berths and 19 beds and double or triple rooms. The new equipment is totally double rooms. In our opinion, booking single passengers into these double rooms may be difficult in North America.
Transport 2000 hopes the new equipment will allow VIA to hasten its reinstatement of passenger rail service to Cape Breton and through Saint John and Fredericton to Montreal. The inherent safety features of these cars including improved braking crashworthiness, fire resistance and maintenance as well as ability for 200 km/h speeds point to a good future in VIA's network including future high speed and transporter services.
Although only 64 of the 139 cars are completely ready for use, the assembly of the remaining cars as they are needed will provide employment and build expertise in Canada.
"This is the beginning, I hope, of a real renaissance in rail," said Vermont State Governor Howard Dean who has worked towards this first run for 9 years.
No real attempt has been made to make rail passenger services viable on the Ontario Northland said Dale Wilson, Past President of Transport 2000 Ontario. Mr Wilson provided several examples of the Commission's demarketing, undermining of, or failure to market the service.
Transport 2000 Ontario is calling for an immediate and wide-ranging inquiry on northern passenger transportation to examine the effects of current policy: highway spending as well as the demise of NorOntair and now the threat against Ontario Northland rail passenger services said Dale Wilson.
It is a late breaking item that the government of Ontario announced a reprieve to the railway passenger service and is looking at some kind of public-private partnership.
The US company credited with breathing life into Manitoba's remote Churchill seaport has put forward a radical proposal to make Canada's rail system more competitive. Omnitrax wants to set up a new railway and run it over track owned by Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific railway in order to give shippers more choice.
But there's a catch - the established railways aren't keen on letting Omnitrax proposed CanRail West come in and compete against them on infrastructure they have spent billions of dollars laying down and decades maintaining. So Omnitrax is asking Ottawa to institute a policy of manageed access which would give select regional railways running rights for a fee on tracks owned by Class 1 or mainline railways.
"Our concept involves delivering that traffic to the nearest interchange point served by both CN and CP thereby creating the competition," said Dwight Johnson, President of the Denver-based Omnitrax. This is a big one.
GO Chair Eldred King receives complaints about overcrowding - and GO is desperate for more capacity.
There is a similar predicament for the Toronto Transit Commission. Just before GO's ceremony, TTC chief Rick Ducharme showed Toronto politicians the cash crunch that will face the city transit system for which city taxpayers help pay the costs. The TTC will have to spend over $1.5 billion in the near term to replace worn out subway cars and buses and refurbish aging streetcars. The total cost for the next decade tops $3.8 billion. Since neither the Ontario nor federal governments fund transit, the city alone pays the costs. No other city in the world subsidises transit from the municipal tax base alone.
BC Rail is looking at costs and benefits said spokesman Alan Beaver: "The Royal Hudson is a low-end service which does not make money."
What Beaver means is that the common people are not lucrative enough to finance the kind of fancy train that BC Rail is proposing for Whistler. This is a trend in North Ameircan tourism a move away from transport for the masses and luxury trains now for millionaires, and the rest of us can walk or drive.
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