Here are the big population centres on the route, from ViaRail. For every one named on this map there are at least 10 others that want to be on the map.



Added in edit: ViaRail runs express and local services on these lines, the stops named are for the express trains.

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You can see the Wi-Fi drop-out by the Airbase in
Trenton. One of the postings I had in the RCAF...

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That's 15 "main" stops, now cut out anywhere with a population of less than 100,000 or less than 75km from a major centre or junction - that will probably leave you with about 6 stops, build a >300kph railway using totally new infrastructure including stations and "flat straight" alignments, use the existing network for the short hops (150km and less). Journey time - somewhere around the 4.5hours end to end, which is a massive gain on that starting point of 14hours!!!!

But what be more interesting is to go for a medium speed upgrade of the existing route, push most of that up to 200kph running speed, do "skip stopping" to reduce the number of calling points and you get down to about 8hours, which is a substantial saving in time for a much lower investment. Now put on a "clock face" service, say two hourly departures for the through trains interleaved with a one hourly "all gateposts". Now that would be a service....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I think you are going in the right direction Rob. The only things likely to happen in my lifetime are limited upgrades of the existing services, plus extension of the specialized commuter services till they start to overlap. The limiting factor will be using existing right of ways, which means there will still be "cultural" or "political" speed limits in a lot of places, no matter how good the tracks and trains are. You see some of that on the GO trains around Toronto already. They get up to 80 mph in some places on purpose built track, then have to crawl at 20 mph through some urban level grade crossing on a "legacy" ROW. Makes for an interesting ride if you are standing up.

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It never fails to amaze me how low the speeds are "over there".
80mph is about the maximum speed of the majority of our urban EMUs, never mind our inter-city EMUs (not express trains) which run at 100mph, our express trains run at 125mph (200kph).... And all these are "mixed traffic" routes, not dedicated high speed lines!

It certainly sounds as if there needs to be a big jump in the public expectation of rail speeds, such that 100mph becomes common place. Obviously this needs a lot of political investment as well as the financial investment. One driver might be the "spin-off" of increased freight train speeds, in recent years we've seen the speed of freight trains increase from about 50-60mph as a maximum to many now running at 75mph, and at the same time train mass going up from 1000tonnes to 3000 tonnes. OK, I know that's small by your standards, or minute according to the South Africans and Australians. Most of this increase in both speed and mass has been the improvements in track quality required by the faster passenger trains.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

There is always the CHSR project. The idea was to move people from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco. Well, someone should have checked if people in those two places want to go to the other end. While there are lots and lots of flights between the greater Los Angeles area and the Greater San Francsco Bay area, frankly the business traffic is better described as from West Los Angeles to Santa Clara / San Jose and some convention traffic to Moscone. Most people in Los Angeles loathe downtown and will do anything to avoid it. So putting the terminus there is only to please the few government officials who have their office there!

As to the brainchild or folly of not having any stops along the way, the route proposal follows I-5 freeway, because it is mostly cattle farms and ranches. The population of California follows SR-99 some miles to the east. By using the I-5 route they won't have stops, but that also means they don't have a line to the greatest tourist attraction in California, Yosemite! They also avoid the State Capitol Sacramento. Good Idea!

The planners did finally realize on the north end that they needed to have a stop or two on the way into SFO because their train would be empty otherwise. They haven't figured it out yet on the south end. Might be because they are listening to the politicians who built a light rail line that stops 1 mile short of Los Angeles International Airport!

They are building the first segment form nowhere to nowhere. I suspect a second will get built adding third nowhere to the line. Then somehow I see land acquisition costs skyrocketing to the point the rest of the project is never built.

I suspect the hairbrain behind this thought no stops because if there are stops it will take to long compared to the plane and there won't be riders. Well, hairbrain, if the people have to spend an hour in traffic on the I10 freeway to get from the westside to downtown LA vs 5 minutes to get to LAX, you are never going to be able to compete!

---

I had a most excellent weekend. This will give you a good idea. Details tomorrow.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

...Ahh the trundle along the dear old Slowly Rusting route to Devon.

If you went from Paddington via Bristol to Exeter you would have 125mph running to Bristol, then a mixture of 100/90/70 down to Exeter.

It certainly slows down beyond Exeter as there is a distinct lack of rails (a lot of single track railway) with lots of curves and hills. Actually the route doesn't get too bad until beyond Plymouth.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Ah, you remember the Slow and Dirty too.

...They are building the first segment from nowhere to nowhere. I suspect a second will get built adding third nowhere to the line. Then somehow I see land acquisition costs skyrocketing to the point the rest of the project is never built.....

Other than pointing out that Merced, Fresno, and Bakersfield are not exactly "nowhere", I find I agree more with Gary then Vic.

And living right smack-dab in the middle of the current construction, I see the farms being cut in half, with NO grade crossings for miles so the farmers can get to the other parts of their land, the great chunks being cut out of down-town Fresno, and the fact that there are NO guarantees as to the availability of funds (California's own Congressional delegation is blocking further Federal funding of CHSR) after the current section is built, and this begins to look like the infamous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. Most of my neighbors would rather see CHSR shut down, and the money used to build dams and canals to catch more rain and snow. We'd rather have WATER for our farms and faucets than a train that goes real fast to places we don't want to go.

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Donald
Infernal Optimist / Submariner, retired

We'd rather have WATER for our farms and faucets than a train that goes real fast to places we don't want to go.

The question to be asked is this

"Is this rail route being built for the people that are expected to want to use it. Or, is it being built for political reasons, and to put money in the back pockets of those that might "sell" land to aid it happening?"

As Gary noted, the ORIGINAL route was to run up the I-5 corridor, to move business people and tourists from L.A. to San Fran and Sacramento. During the political process, many things changed, including the route. In some places, the route is still not finalized, yet land is being purchased (much of it through eminent domain, with property owners and City and County governments fighting it fang and claw) and construction has begun in Madera County and Fresno. It is NOT the program that the voters approved way back when....

So I would answer that it may have originally been designed for the people it hoped would use it, but it has become a political program that continues because some politicians have staked their political careers on it. I believe that if it is ever completed, it will require government subsidy, not make a profit as its proponents claimed. And if a Ballot Proposition appeared in 2016 asking if the project should be terminated, it would pass. I voted "NO" the first time, and I would vote "YES" to shut it down.

I think we are very close to getting this discussion moved to Politics, so I will step back now.

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Donald
Infernal Optimist / Submariner, retired

The length of the train in that picture is just ridiculous!!!

Up until the 1990s, the average freight train in Canada was about 5,000 feet (1.54 kilometres) long and weighed 7,000 tons. But it is now not uncommon to see these trains stretch to 12,000 feet, sometimes as much as 14,000 feet (more than four kilometres), weighing up to 18,000 tons.

Are Canadian railways that close to financial ruin that they have to run stuff like this to save money and survive?

No, but they're run by people who care more about profits than anything else.

CN used to be run by E. Hunter Harrison, who decreed that trains should be about 10,000 feet long. Never mind that on single track lines, the passing sidings were only about 5-7,000 feet. He also imposed various other practices that look good on paper but not in reality.

After he hit CN's mandatory retirement age, activist investors took over the board of CP and hired him to be president there. Guess what he did? Yup, the exact same stuff.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

There is always the CHSR project. The idea was to move people from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco. Well, someone should have checked if people in those two places want to go to the other end. While there are lots and lots of flights between the greater Los Angeles area and the Greater San Francsco Bay area, frankly the business traffic is better described as from West Los Angeles to Santa Clara / San Jose and some convention traffic to Moscone. Most people in Los Angeles loathe downtown and will do anything to avoid it. So putting the terminus there is only to please the few government officials who have their office there!

As to the brainchild or folly of not having any stops along the way, the route proposal follows I-5 freeway, because it is mostly cattle farms and ranches. The population of California follows SR-99 some miles to the east. By using the I-5 route they won't have stops, but that also means they don't have a line to the greatest tourist attraction in California, Yosemite! They also avoid the State Capitol Sacramento. Good Idea!

The planners did finally realize on the north end that they needed to have a stop or two on the way into SFO because their train would be empty otherwise. They haven't figured it out yet on the south end. Might be because they are listening to the politicians who built a light rail line that stops 1 mile short of Los Angeles International Airport!

They are building the first segment form nowhere to nowhere. I suspect a second will get built adding third nowhere to the line. Then somehow I see land acquisition costs skyrocketing to the point the rest of the project is never built.

I suspect the hairbrain behind this thought no stops because if there are stops it will take to long compared to the plane and there won't be riders. Well, hairbrain, if the people have to spend an hour in traffic on the I10 freeway to get from the westside to downtown LA vs 5 minutes to get to LAX, you are never going to be able to compete!

I don't follow that project closely enough to respond to everything you said (besides, Vic did respond). However, I do know that it will certainly stop in San Jose because that's where it will join the existing commuter line (which itself is being upgraded for higher speeds) for the last leg into SFO.

Regarding HSR in general, not everyone wants a high speed line in their downtown. That's one of the major points made by the opposition to the California project. Anytime you propose raising speeds on existing lines, there will always be a contingent of NYMBYs screaming about how those dangerously fast trains are going to kill all our children.

One related source of opposition to high speed is the freight railroads. Not only do they not want high speed on their tracks, they don't even want it near their tracks. Denver just built a new commuter rail system. Part of the RoW acquisition deal with Union Pacific is that anyplace where the track centers are less than 50' apart, there has to be a concrete wall between them. The issue here is liability in the event of a wreck, on either line. And that's just standard speed, 80 mph. The State of New York had trouble negotiating with CSX about adding a third track alongside the line west from Albany for the same reason, because they wanted trains to go 90. It's also a major factor in the Cal. project.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

I had a most excellent weekend. This will give you a good idea. Details tomorrow.

So, no comments on this. Did anyone pick out the four pictures that have me in them?

To start from the beginning, no specific time had been mentioned for training on VC19. I suddenly realized Thursday night that Friday morning would be my last chance to pick up a library book on hold for me before they released it to the next person. The library opens at 9, and I was there. Then, instead of taking my usual route to the museum, I consulted my phone for the fastest route and took it. Shouldn't have bothered. The other trainee was running even later, and the trainer had to deal with a defect on a North Shore car that was scheduled to run. By the time he finished with that, he wanted to have lunch first. We finally got to our training after 1pm.

So anyway... Joe (the trainer) took us to the barn and gave us a brief orientation on the car: locations of important parts, such as the air compressor, air tank drain valve, control switch, compressor and light switches. He said another trainer might insist that we be able to stop the car with the hand brake, but his opinion was that that is only useful if the problem is with the air, not the linkage.

When IRM acquired the car from Trolleyville in Cleveland, they added a PVC pipe along one side to keep people from getting or falling off on that side. There is also a pipe on the other side, but it's only to keep people off when the car is not running. Not much point, since it's in a barn that's closed to the public anyway. But the first thing you do (after opening the barn doors) is remove this pipe and lay it on the ground where you can step on it. Raise the trolley pole, turn on the barn power (which is different than all the other barns), and turn on the compressor. When it stops, note the pressure (which the three of us all forgot to do), do a standard brake test, remove the chocks, and move it slowly out of the barn. This has to be done extra carefully because it's kept in Barn 4 West, which opens right onto Depot Street, the main north-south walkway through the museum grounds.

We got it out on the lead and went back to turn off the barn power and block the doorway so people wouldn't wander in. Then we call the dispatcher for permission onto the Car Line for training; he grants it. Larry (other trainee) takes it for a lap, then I take it for a lap. Joe mentions that the controller is not blocked from the parallel points, so we both give that a try. Being a four wheel car, it really bucks and bounces out there, especially at full parallel. Then we started taking passengers, two laps for each of us. We hadn't taken a good look at the info sign on the car, and Joe didn't remember much detail either, but we did the best we could for a car talk: it originally ran in Veracruz Mexico, from the early 1900s to 1962, when it was bought by a museum in Cleveland. When they shut down in 2009, it was one of several pieces we acquired. Chicago had some open cars very early on, but quickly learned that they weren't practical in the winter and it wasn't economical to have two separate fleets.

Then came time to put it away. It's a single-ended car, so this involves backing up. You have a choice: backpole, or turn the pole around. Larry had been conductor on the car once before and they turned it, so that was what we did. There is a bracket on the front to hold the retriever, but someone has to carry it around while the other person uses the rope to pull the pole around. Then I had the odd experience of standing there, facing almost toward the back of the car, feeling for the controls without looking, running it backwards into the yard. Stop, close the switch, turn on the barn power, remove the barrier we put in the doorway, watch out for people, and back it in. Made my safety stop in just the wrong place, with the pole right on the insulator in the wire. On 3142, if you do that you just raise the other pole and backpole for a few feet. On 19, there is no other pole. We tried to turn it around, but it wouldn't go because we were in the doorway. Joe and Larry had to push the car while I stayed on to work the brakes. Now, let me tell you, pulling a car into the barn and right up to the next car without hitting it is nerve wracking enough when you're right there and can see what you're doing. On 19, you're on the other end and have to depend on your conductor to tell you when to stop. We did it, though. shut down the car, put the pipe back in, turn off the barn power, turn the pole back around (tricky with a lift on the walkway between you and the car on the next track). Joe signs our training forms and tells us to find an Operating Dept. officer to sign them in a couple other spots, and who to give copies to. He signs our rulebooks.

I go over to the depot and find Jeff to sign my form. I also find Bob and have him sign my rulebook for tailhose, which we forgot on Sunday when he qualified me. Then I go for a ride on the coach train with my friend Mark as conductor.

This has gotten to be a much longer post than I had intended, so I will do a separate one for Saturday. It should be shorter.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Enjoyed the pics, but only one I felt certain might be you was on the 3174 car, standing behind and to the left of the gal in the green shirt and blue overhauls. If ever I get back to Chicagoland, I will stop by the IRM for a visit.

---

Donald
Infernal Optimist / Submariner, retired

I had a most excellent weekend. This will give you a good idea. Details tomorrow.

Part 2:

I arrive Saturday in plenty of time for the morning meeting. There's not a lot to it. Joe hands out copies of the schedule, which doesn't affect me much because I'm on the Car Line all day. I sign in, get the handles for 3142, and head out to the barn. As I'm inspecting and prepping it, I realize it's been turned around. I also realize there's no step box to lean on to get down on my knee to check the compressor oil. Larry (who is conducting on 1374) kindly does it for me. Then Rod rolls up on a golf cart and says he wants me to train Kathy (who used to be associate editor of Trains). I'm surprised to be asked at my low experience level, but of course I agree. (This only happened because she was able to come out this weekend and I was the assigned motorman.) I get the car out on the line (losing the pole at the 73-74 switch, as usual) and pull around to Electric Park, where Rod is waiting with Kathy and her husband. He tells me again to let her get some practice running it. I agree again. He takes off and I tell Kathy I'd like to run it a little bit myself, just because I need the practice too. She agrees, wanting to watch me for a bit. The dispatcher has cleared us around to Depot St., where cars are stacking up. The separate Car Line Dispatcher has now come one duty, without being told that 1374 and 3142 are on the line already. 141 is out of Barn 4 West in front of 1374, which is in front of us. At some point, 4391 comes out behind me. The dispatcher has to tell 141 to get moving already.

The second time around to Central Ave., someone else tells me to let Kathy run. I ask if she's ready and she says yes. I pull out the reverser key and hand it to her. She sits down and puts it in again. I give her some basic instruction (not enough, it turns out) and she takes us on our way. Not very far; I tell her to stop short of the circuit that activates the crossing signals at Depot St. She's having a bit of trouble catching on to how the straight air brake valve works, but she improves over time.

Meanwhile, on the mainline, the entire schedule is about a half hour late because the Track Dept. was out inspecting the new rails they installed during the week, to see if they could lift the 10mph slow order (they did). Mark is on the coach train again, today with 1630, which needs to come out of the steam lead, out the west end, and onto the train on station 2. We are held at Barn 9 North for this to happen.

After we go around and around for about three hours, Larry and the dispatcher start talking about putting 1374 to bed so he can start prepping 19. Two laps later, we discharge all our passengers and also go to bed. I let Kathy handle the radio for this. He gives us authority to the tail track and into the yard, and call him when we're off controlled trackage. Fortunately, because it's a busy day, there are switchmen to line everything up for us and all we have to do is change poles in the tail track, which I let Kathy do. I let her run it right into the barn, which she does well. We are told we don't need to do the whole shutdown procedure, but I do have her chock it. I also tell her where to put the box with the handles. Then I trot off to join Larry, who has already brought 19 out of the barn by himself.

We call the dispatcher and say we're ready for service in Yard 4 West. He gives us permission out. We pull out and up to Depot St. and are instantly mobbed by people wanting to ride. We almost have to beat them off with a stick. Larry does a couple of trips, and then I do three, and then Bob comes along and wants to do one. I'm not about to tell him no. Then Larry takes it again, and I do a few more, and so on. When Larry's running, as we leave Electric Park, I tell the passengers to stand by for ludicrous speed. Not many get it. Even fully loaded, that car gets up and goes when you go to full parallel. You can only do that for a few seconds and then coast until the friction of the tight curves ahead slows you down. Later, I just say to hang on, this is where it gets wild.

Once, when I was running, Larry gave me a ding ding on the conductor's bell, but the switch ahead was lined for the main, so I gave four bongs of the gong. The Car Line Dispatcher looked up at me in a bit of surprise, then sent his helper to throw the switch for the Car Line. He's old school and I knew he'd appreciate me doing it that way instead of the radio. When it happened again later, though, I just used the radio.

After a while, I'm getting really tired and I just let Larry keep running it. (The operator's seat is a bit uncomfortable for me. I have to sit slightly sideways, and sometimes get up and stretch.) As the crowd dwindles, I even take a seat in the rear instead of standing on my aching feet.

Finally, we want to put it away. This time, we decide to backpole into Yard 4, although neither of us has done it before. A switchman get the switch for us. I watch from the ground as Larry backs slowly. As soon as the pole passes the frog (the wrong way) I give him a hand signal to stop. Then I call out for three point and he pulls out the reverser key. I step behind the car and move the pole to the correct wire. I step out again and signal to move toward me. He backs it to the next frog and we do it again. Then we have to remove the barrier from the doorway and bring it in. We get awfully close to the next car, but we don't hit it, so we're fine.

We did 19 trips in just under four hours. Most of them were fully loaded. Whew!

So, did you find me in the pictures? Three on 3142 and one on 19.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Enjoyed the pics, but only one I felt certain might be you was on the 3174 car, standing behind and to the left of the gal in the green shirt and blue overhauls. If ever I get back to Chicagoland, I will stop by the IRM for a visit.

3142, but yes, that was me, and that's Kathy. There are also two where you can see me in the windows if you download the full picture and zoom in on it. The fourth is me in the back end of the open car as we're about to leave the yard.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Sunday, I went out with the intention to run 19 again, if they could get me a conductor, but no one was interested. So, I just rode other trains. The CTA L cars 2244/2243. The UP caboose on the caboose train with Kathy training on that. The L4 electric steeplecab pulling the cabooses was an interesting experience. The Nebraska Zephyr, coincidentally at the same time Mark and another friend were on it (he'd been needle chipping the ceiling in a car being restored). Then I rode the L train a couple more times and got to run it. Another new experience. It's a real pain to hold the handle horizontal the whole time, but if you let go it turns to vertical and the train goes into emergency. I did get a chance to nag the guys who restore and maintain the L cars about when they're going to have official training on them.

I also asked those same guys about the possibility of the Metra Electric Highliners running. The major obstacle is that each of them has an MA set, a motor that runs on 1500 VDC and turns an alternator that powers all the auxilliaries on the car: lights, air compressor, radio, battery charger, PA/intercom, air conditioning, basically everything except the traction motors. They said they think all they need to do to make them run on 600 VDC instead is shunt some field windings and they will probably be running before the end of the season. Of course, there will still be the problem of them having pantographs instead of poles. Pans are not compatible with most of the frogs in our wire.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

The length of the train in that picture is just ridiculous!!!

Up until the 1990s, the average freight train in Canada was about 5,000 feet (1.54 kilometres) long and weighed 7,000 tons. But it is now not uncommon to see these trains stretch to 12,000 feet, sometimes as much as 14,000 feet (more than four kilometres), weighing up to 18,000 tons.

Are Canadian railways that close to financial ruin that they have to run stuff like this to save money and survive?

No, but they're run by people who care more about profits than anything else.

Legally, that is what they HAVE to do.

CN used to be run by E. Hunter Harrison, who decreed that trains should be about 10,000 feet long. Never mind that on single track lines, the passing sidings were only about 5-7,000 feet. He also imposed various other practices that look good on paper but not in reality.

Then don't put the long trains on sidings. The really long trains are usually single point to single point: mine to mill, inland grain elevator complex to port, etc. They run straight through. The passenger trains fit just fine on the sidings, however.

After he hit CN's mandatory retirement age, activist investors took over the board of CP and hired him to be president there. Guess what he did? Yup, the exact same stuff.

I know, it is hard to believe some people like money more than they like running trains in the classical way. ;)

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The length of the train in that picture is just ridiculous!!!

Up until the 1990s, the average freight train in Canada was about 5,000 feet (1.54 kilometres) long and weighed 7,000 tons. But it is now not uncommon to see these trains stretch to 12,000 feet, sometimes as much as 14,000 feet (more than four kilometres), weighing up to 18,000 tons.

Are Canadian railways that close to financial ruin that they have to run stuff like this to save money and survive?

No, but they're run by people who care more about profits than anything else.

Legally, that is what they HAVE to do.

CN used to be run by E. Hunter Harrison, who decreed that trains should be about 10,000 feet long. Never mind that on single track lines, the passing sidings were only about 5-7,000 feet. He also imposed various other practices that look good on paper but not in reality.

Then don't put the long trains on sidings. The really long trains are usually single point to single point: mine to mill, inland grain elevator complex to port, etc. They run straight through. The passenger trains fit just fine on the sidings, however.

That's fine for the passenger trains, but what about when you have two 10,000+' trains going in opposite directions? I'll tell you what happens: the passenger train gets stuck in the short siding and has to wait there while the freights meet 50 miles away at a siding that can handle one of them.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.