The Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced that, for the first time in four decades, VIA Rail passenger cars will be built in Canada. The federal government is investing more than $4.7 billion for VIA Rail to acquire and maintain 313 new passenger rail cars from Alstom Canada.
Isn’t it a lack of rails that’s the problem, not a lack of rail cars? Passenger trains have to give way to cargo trains, and dedicated tracks are the solution.
Ideally this is just one of several rail related initiatives and we have more announcements coming.
Hopefully we’ll start prioritizing Passenger Cars over freight like the rest of the world
We will be building a new high speed rail from Quebec to Toronto so passenger rail will finally be separate from freight rail. Finally drag our asses out of the 1800’s.
The amount of money planned for that could probably cover twinning a much larger amount of existing track, with less environmental impact.
Why just twin the line and still have something designed in the 1800’s. Canadians are so damn cheap to do anything properly.
Canada could also benefit from a shinkansen line or two. With population centers mostly along a straight line in the south, it would allow for rapid transit between major cities on dedicated passenger rail.
We can all enjoy the new cars whilst sitting waiting for another train to pass.
Freight right-of-way ownership is also a problem, but the car set they are replacing/adding to is 75+ years old, they are sturdy and reliable, but having more cars means that they could increase service beyond 3 trips a week on these routes. At the moment, occasional breakdowns and maintenance periods mean they face long distance equipment shortages sometimes.
@ryper @radish6367
Thats one issue. This announcement addresses a different issue.
The current VIA long-haul fleet is 70 year old equipment. It’s getting increasingly expensive to maintain, and if it isn’t replaced it will become almost impossible to keep them safely operating.
For anyone interested, this video give a good overview of some of the issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1G0Lyh3uik
it’s both.
Via is a shit service. yes, please charge me $200 for a 10 hour trip during which I will be knocking knees and playing footsie with the person across from me, with less space than an airplane seat has. I can’t wait for the privilege
nah dude I’ll just drive for the same cost, less time, more flexibility, and more cargo capacity
That description fits perfectly on the Deutsche Bahn as well lol