Planes, Trains and Automobiles

[mrrnice2 157005]

OK, OK, I know the country boy is showing in me now as I write this, but......

 

I just arrived in Kingston this afternoon by car, after leaving from PEI yesterday morning. I LOVE to drive, and the fact that my gas guzzler and being a single solo person in the car is probably not economical or environmentally friendly, but......

 

I could not help but notice a slightly higher traffic density (to put it gently) as I moved farther away from my home, but.......

 

From Quebec City, through to Kingston and I know from past driving it goes all the way to Toronto and beyond, it was transport trucks. Trucks, trucks, and more trucks. I thought to myself as my mind never stops while I drive, why aren't all of these cargos going by train? Surely it is more environmentally friendly. This brought me to pondering our rail infrastructure and images I have seen of high speed passenger trains in Europe and Japan, and wondered to myself.

 

For those international travellers here, are we in Canada way behind the times? Would a multi-million (billion) upgrade to rail not be a good initiative to embark upon? I have travelled by train from Halifax to Kingston and throughly enjoyed the relaxing means of travel. Would anyone else consider that or is speed of the essence?

 

Those are my musings for today.

[LeeRichards 177238]

I agree...it would be a great idea and most likely very well recieved.... and used.

 

I live on the US border and trains from North Dakota to Minneapolis and also Michigan I believe are used very frequent. Quick, easy, relaxing and very affordable. Can't see a big change happening with our Gov't spending but would luv to see it !

 

and MrNice....I hope you don't put your hands between two pillows tonight in Kingston ;) perhaps a little Martin / Candy humor ;)

[Leber 1328]

Canada is unlike the other countries. It is not as populated. Transport goods by rail is not as economical in cities/towns other than Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. After trains arrive at the stations, biz will still need to pick up the goods. With trucks, they can deliver the goods directly to the buyers.

[backrubman 64800]

...

For those international travelers here, are we in Canada way behind the times? Would a multi-million (billion) upgrade to rail not be a good initiative to embark upon? I have travelled by train from Halifax to Kingston and throughly enjoyed the relaxing means of travel. Would anyone else consider that or is speed of the essence? Those are my musings for today.

 

Yes, I have thought the same thing myself. Train service in other counties (particularly Europe) puts ours to shame, always has, seems it always will.

 

I think there are a couple of factors here. One is that Canada is a VERY large country that is sparsely populated (compared to Europe) and we don't have tracks going in all directions like they do so you have to resort to trucking and when you do, well you might as well resort to trucking. To see this look at a map that shows were there are train tracks in Europe and then in Canada, quite a difference.

 

Another is that everything happens these days in "Internet" time or in the case of the delivery of goods JIT (Just in time) and the railways have always been really good at taking their sweet old time (to the tune of months).

 

If you have to ship 95% by trucking it and can do the other 5% by rail (with the delays and mixture inconvenience), well, why bother?

 

And it's one of those self fulfilling prophecy's, if we used the rails as much as we possibly could it would cost less to do so and we would use it even more but because we don't use it, it costs a lot of maintain those tracks for the volume of goods that travels over them making it cost about the same as trucking it. So given it costs much the same as trucking it, why bother with the slow speed, singular direction and inflexibility of rails?

 

I agree with your environmental concerns and attitudes completely, but most businesses couldn't care less about the environment if it costs more and it can cost more just by being slower and less flexible.

[Athos 108589]

It does seem to me that Via has a way of scheduling trains at times that just won't work for most people, then cancels them for lack of passengers. I've never understood why they'd pursue a self-fulfilling prophesy that erodes their customer base.

[SamanthaEvans 166767]

I wish we had high-speed transit options available for longer distances. Taking the train from Toronto to Ottawa or Montreal is popular and not overwhelmingly expensive. But taking the train from Vancouver to Toronto is a whole other matter! I would really love to take the train all the way to Halifax sometime. The fare isn't much more than it would cost to fly, but that's without a cabin or a sleeping berth and it takes almost five days. It quickly becomes a luxurious way to go, unfortunately.

 

Here in Vancouver, we still have a huge amount of train traffic, bringing in wheat from the Prairies and picking up cars and heavy manufactured goods from Asia to ship across the country. It does seem that things that are small enough to be sent by courier go that way because it's cheaper and faster. I ordered a dress last week that came from India and reached me in two days thanks to FedEx.

[Guest N***he**Ont**y]

I worked for the Hudson Bay Company in a very small NorthWestern Ontario community. The only way out was the Canadian or the Continental back to the city. I caught the train at 3 am and arrived safely at 10 I was woken up at 8am and had breakfast at 9a m in the dining car on fine china with silver ware. Having booked a CABINET for the evening I was very refreshed and ready for my 48 hours of r and r chasing the ladies getting drunk and then back on the train back to work. As far as I am concerned we need to get back to rail travel that matches my European travels many years ago.

[Boomer 33202]

Get idea for the long sparsely populated runs for commodities, grain oil, coal and iron ore. Look at some of the mile or so long trains going through the Rockies.

 

Then there's the politics. The railway just spent a pile of money here in Ottawa to upgrade the signals and level crossings. Via announced a new high speed rail service from downtown Ottawa to Union station in Toronto. Enter the local councilor, needs to have a study, the one they did doesn't count. Heaven forbid they go through Barrhaven at more than 20 kph. Four and a half hour trip competes with the airlines if you start counting security and getting to and from Pearson. Outcome, via cancels the service.

[Phaedrus 209521]

Two problems that rail freight has, that road doesn't.

 

Firstly, rail doesn't go door to door. Even if you do the bulk of the journey by rail, you've still go to get the container to the train on a truck, and then get it off the train and onto another truck to get it to its final destination. This takes time and effort, and therefore money; at present, it's cheaper to send most things by road. And that's assuming there *is* a viable rail link for most of the journey. The only things that are likely to change this are massive investment in rail infrastructure (hugely expensive in a country the size of Canada), massive congestion on the roads, or rising oil prices.

 

Secondly, passenger and freight trains don't mix. Those mile-long trains carrying coal or ore or whatever don't move fast; passenger services can't afford to get held up by them (at least, not if they want to have any passengers). And that means you have to have multiple parallel tracks; again, expensive.

 

As for passenger services... last time I investigated, going from Ottawa to Toronto or Montreal by train cost around the same as driving... but you have to get to/from the station at each end (hassle, expense), wasn't much faster, and the trains just weren't leaving at convenient times. And that was from central Ottawa to central Montreal/Toronto, which is pretty much the ideal case; if I'd been looking at going to/from suburbs it wouldn't have been even a remotely close call.

 

The huge advantage of the car over almost everything else is convenience and flexibility. Rail can only compete with the car under two circumstances: when there's a lot of trains, and cars have additional costs associated with them (e.g. the daily commute into large cities), or when the speed of rail is enough to overcome its other downsides (long trips). If you had enough track and ran enough trains to make rail a viable alternative to the car in most cases, it'd require massive initial investment and huge subsidies to run.

 

And long-distance, if you're not taking too much luggage with you, planes are cheaper, for the simple reason that you don't need the infrastructure. You just have to build airports; there's no need to lay track between them. This also means that air routes can be added and removed and changed as the market dictates, in a way that rail can't, so you don't get stuck maintaining unprofitable infrastructure.

[Kiara Kinkz 160]

Personally ,

 

I could travel by train and have done it multiple times. It is a nice scenic ride , love it honestly. My only problem is , I travel for business purposes usually and dont have days to spare in the middle of the woods on some railroad tracks lol