# Edmonton <> Calgary......A Future Corridor?



## NS VIA Fan

jiml said:


> We should start a new subject "Edmonton to Calgary train" and have some fun with this.




I will.....and I'll start by quoting my post in the other thread......




NS VIA Fan said:


> If there is anyplace for a new rail service outside of the eastern corridor it's Calgary <> Edmonton and even then.....they're really not large cities: Calgary 1.4M and Edmonton 1.3M....about 300km/180mi apart. There's a lot of travel between the two and for years when the Edmonton Municipal Airport was open close to downtown...PWA operated an Eastern Airlines style Shuttle......the 'Chieftain Airbus' between the two.
> 
> Perhaps initially the CPR track between the two cities could be upgraded but if an entirely new HSR route was built.....the Queen Elizabeth II Highway is relatively flat and straight with a wide median that could possibly accommodate a rail line.
> 
> And what stations would be used? CP Rail/Calgary Tower that hasn't seen a daily train in 31 years and Strathcona? There is no easy route to the VIA Edmonton Station and even that is in an out-of-the-way location.
> 
> Build new glass and aluminum stations (a la Brightline) downtown portraying a contemporary image with easy access to the LRT in each city. Something to grab the public's attention. Not old railcars arriving at an old heritage station!
> 
> (And would it even have to be run by VIA??)




I rode between Edmonton and Calgary several times back in the '70s and '80s. Here's VIA Train #196 for Calgary at South Edmonton on July 7, 1980......and looking no different than the CP Rail 'Dayliner' that had been on this route for years. Even back then....a single RDC-3 (half passenger/half baggage-express) was sufficient to handle the passenger traffic.




Note the grill/bars across the front windows. No this is not a rough neighbourhood.... just protection from the pheasants and other birds that were like projectiles when encountered on the flat prairies. There were also about 300 grade crossings through farmer's fields along the route.

And these trains were fast: 190 miles in 3 1/2 hrs and back in the '60s the 'Dayliners' would make it into 'Trains' Magazine's annual speed survey of the fastest runs in North America.





Going back to the 50s.....there were even overnight sleepers:





CN also had a 'Railiner' on a longer route: Edmonton-Camrose-Calgary but the big competition was an almost hourly bus service and Pacific Western Airline's 'Chieftain Airbus'...........




Just show-up and go, no reservations and modelled on the Eastern Air Shuttle. Back then the Edmonton Municipal Airport was near downtown. (It's been bulldozed and is a Business Park). Now all flights use the International Airport well south of the city along the highway to Calgary. There's really no advantage to flying now as you can almost drive as fast when you take into consideration the early check-in/security requirements. Greyhound has exited the market but there is still some bus service between the cities.

Perhaps it's time to look at restating a rail service.....and do it right! New trains and new glass and aluminum stations (a la Brightline) downtown with easy access to the LRT in each city portraying a contemporary image! Something to grab the public's attention. Not 70 year old railcars arriving at old heritage stations!

This is a busy Canadian Pacific rail line so I'm sure CP will require a lot of government funding for upgrades.


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## Urban Sky

It was already stated in a different thread that “Mulroney was an Easterner who cared little about the West”, but I’d like to note that it was politicians from Alberta who let service between Calgary and Edmonton die:



> On January 15, 1984, Transport Minister Don Mazankowski announced the indefinite suspension of Edmonton-Calgary service. Eleven Dayliner accidents in the previous two years led Edmonton's mayor of the day Laurence Decore to state "It's a seedy, tacky service used by very few people. Its 200 level crossings make it an absolute calamity that has caused too many deaths." Even with $1,000,000 in Alberta government spending and the elimination of 12 grade crossings, the Dayliner made its last run on September 6, 1985. The unsuitability of the South Edmonton station, four miles from the VIA (ex-CN) Edmonton station, as well as competition from road and air travel contributed to the service's demise.











VIA's Calgary-Edmonton RDCs, Part 1


Often referred to as the 'Death Train', CP's perilous Calgary-Edmonton passenger service was a quick dash at speeds reaching 90 mph. For...




tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com





Also, given that apart from the Quebec-Montreal service via Trois-Rivières (which was at that time slower and less popular than the Drummondville route serving the same two terminal stations until this day) all Corridor routes survived the 1990 cuts, I would argue that it’s reasonable to believe that Calgary-Edmonton would still operate today, had it not been abandoned by Mazankowski, the MP of Vegreville/AB who later served as Deputy Prime Minister during Mulroney’s 1990 cuts...


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## jiml

Urban Sky said:


> It was already stated in a different thread that “Mulroney was an Easterner who cared little about the West”, but I’d like to note that it was politicians from Alberta who let service between Calgary and Edmonton die:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> VIA's Calgary-Edmonton RDCs, Part 1
> 
> 
> Often referred to as the 'Death Train', CP's perilous Calgary-Edmonton passenger service was a quick dash at speeds reaching 90 mph. For...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Also, given that apart from the Quebec-Montreal service via Trois-Rivières (which was at that time slower and less popular than the Drummondville route serving the same two terminal stations until this day) all Corridor routes survived the 1990 cuts, I would argue that it’s reasonable to believe that Calgary-Edmonton would still operate today, had it not been abandoned by Mazankowski, the MP of Vegreville/AB who later served as Deputy Prime Minister during Mulroney’s 1990 cuts...


You raise two interesting points on this subject. The salient one has to do with the number of grade-crossing accidents and deaths involved - something that wouldn't have "made the news" far outside Alberta. If that situation is still as much of a problem it could preclude service with anything like a Dayliner, which would include contemporary cab cars, and possibly service altogether without significant construction. So good point.

The political argument is a little lame however, and disputed in the same article by the fact that the Alberta government had already invested $1M in that era's dollars and eliminated some grade crossings. That actually indicates significant political support. Mazankowski would have been in no position to dispute Mulroney's wishes (it's called cabinet solidarity) despite any local bias he may have held. Just ask any of the cabinet ministers Justin has turfed for disagreeing with him. 

The Quebec route is no less fascinating...


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## Urban Sky

jiml said:


> The political argument is a little lame however, and disputed in the same article by the fact that the Alberta government had already invested $1M in that era's dollars and eliminated some grade crossings. That actually indicates significant political support.



If you take the table with VIA’s per-route financials in 1988 I posted on Urban Toronto, work out the total operating subsidy of VIA’s Corridor services in that year ($190.9 million, or $365.9 million in 2019 prices, i.e. 32% more than VIA’s _entire_ operating subsidy of $276.5 million in 2019) and then divide it by the roughly 8.08 million scheduled timetable-km for the Corridor in 1988 (refer to my VIA timetable collection on Timetable World to work out the exact mileage), you receive a per-train-km figure of $23.62 ($45.28 in 2019 values).

Now multiply that figure with 210,032 km (309 km * 13 round trips per week * 2 directions * 366 days / 7 days per week) and you can roughly estimate the federal subsidy for Calgary-Edmonton at $4.9 million per year ($9.5 million in 2019 values). This back-of-the-envelop suggests that the provincial government was only willing to spend the equivalent of 2.5 months of federal subsidies to keep the service alive, which I would hardly call “significant political support”.

Alberta spent what it was willing to afford to save the rail service and since that amount turned out to be insufficient to solve the challenges that service was facing they let the federal government kill it.



> Mazankowski would have been in no position to dispute Mulroney's wishes (it's called cabinet solidarity) despite any local bias he may have held. Just ask any of the cabinet ministers Justin has turfed for disagreeing with him.


As the SNC-Lavalin affair shows, the resignation of cabinet members in protest of the government’s actions can expose embarrassing gaps between its rhetoric (championship of gender equality, first nation relations and of the rule of law without political interference) and its actions, which will happily be exploited by the political opponent, which does give minister a certain level of leverage (while risking their careers, of course). As explained and shown in a map here, the 1990 cuts disproportionally affected Tory seats...


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## jiml

I acknowledged your positive contribution above, but have no interest in debating some of your selective interpretations and spin. There is a counterpoint to virtually every item mentioned, however I'm going to focus on the subject of this thread - restoring a lost service.


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## Skeena_PG

Having lived in Alberta - including both in Edmonton and Calgary - for the first half of the 2010s, I could provide some of my own perspectives on a passenger rail service between Edmonton and Calgary could be (re)started. 

Regardless of whether one would use the existing CPR ROW or building a new ROW (whether in the middle of, or alongside the QEII highway), these would be the logical minimum stops for such a service:

Central Edmonton (whether the old South Edmonton station in Old Strathcona or Downtown)
Suburban Edmonton/Nisku (connections to YEG) 
Red Deer
North Calgary (near the intersection of Deerfoot Trail (Hwy2) and Airport Trail - close connection to YYC)
Downtown Calgary (old CPR/VIA station

You can also add the small communities along the route, if you were also planning on running a "milk run" service and using the CPR ROW (as, with the exception of Red Deer, the QEII highway bypasses several of these communities. 

With the exception of Downtown Calgary, (and the Old Strathcona/South Edmonton) stations, you would likely need to build new stations from scratch. Any stations near YYC/YEG, and Red Deer would need to be newbuilds. YEG would be easier, theoretically, as the CPR right of way at Airport Road is beside a parking lot, whereas the CPR right of way north through Calgary travels along a creek and a nearby park near the intersection with Airport Trail. 

Downtown Calgary, one could reuse the old CPR/VIA station downtown near the Calgary Tower and the Fairmont Palliser, assuming CP would be agreeable to it. That location is also walking distance to the 7th ave (C-Train Red & Blue Lines). While grade separation may not necessarily be needed for the route through Calgary, additional tracking would be needed (parts of that ROW are still single track, at least, as of the last time I was in Calgary in 2015). This would also be well position for connections to any future train from Calgary to Banff/Lake Louise (and running a train from near YYC to Banff/Lake Louise would almost be too logical). 

Edmonton is the trickier aspect - while the old South Edmonton building may still be usable, its location is not as convenient to Edmonton's LRT or to downtown Edmonton (although Whyte Ave does have frequent bus service connecting to the existing Capitol Line and the Valley Line under construction), and LRT expansion along Whyte Ave is proposed by the City within the next 20 years or so). The theoretical ideal station is a station right across the river above Grandin LRT station (right across from the Alberta Legislature), across the High Level Bridge (with tracks and ROV still here, used by the Edmonton Radial Railroad Society for seasonal heritage streetcar service), the rail connection across Gateway Blvd (and even Whyte Ave if Google maps is accurate) was removed/paved over and would need to be restored in some fashion - this would very much require the track to be tunnelled under Whyte Ave (esp. if we're using any equipment apart from DMUs/EMUs) and Old Strathcona, coming out near the High Level bridge to go along top level rail ROW (the bottom deck of the ROW is 109st). However, this would likely be very expensive, not only for the grade separation requirements, station costs/land acquisition (that area would likely not have enough room for more than single track/platform so the train would also have to back out and be serviced at a suburban facility). Doable, but costly. Not to mention the High Level Bridge is over 100 years old (built in 1913), and it may be politically and environmentally challenging proposing a new crossing of the North Saskatchewan River (nearly the entire length of the river on both sides within City of Edmonton boundaries is protected parkland). Given the age of the bridge, the trains would need to be light enough to cross.

Regardless of the route/ROW one does, you will very likely need to grade separate it to reduce (if not eliminate) level crossings along the route. Even though passenger trains have long departed the rails here, you still have vehicles trying to beat the train (and losing), and crashes still happen. If you're gonna grade separate with a dedicated ROW, you might as well go the full way to an electrified bullet-train/HSR (which would then allow one to buy existing HSR 
equipment off the shelf from Europe or Asia, either brand new or second-hand). I once had a fleeting thought years ago that a start-up using the CPR ROW could have bought/leased the Wisconsin Talgos to run along the route, but imagine how the ride would feel on jointed rail. 

Anyways, my two cents' worth.


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## Urban Sky

jiml said:


> I acknowledged your positive contribution above, but have no interest in debating some of your selective interpretations and spin. There is a counterpoint to virtually every item mentioned, however I'm going to focus on the subject of this thread - restoring a lost service.


I feel you, as normally I am the one who gets annoyed when rail fans volunteer their personal theories about why passenger rail services (especially in Western Canada) disappeared, so thank you for killing off that needless discussion! 

Nevertheless, I find it a curious twist of history that Alberta's main passenger service disappeared in the same year (1985) as when all across the country services originally cut in 1981 were revived: from the Atlantic over the Montreal-Sherbrooke and Toronto-Havelock services to the Western half of the Super Continental...

In any case, Alberta's provincial government will have to invest orders of magnitudes more than what $1 million from the mid-1980s is worth today (roughly: $2 million), for inter-city passenger rail to become viable again between its two largest cities, but I do agree with everyone who thinks that it would be a good investment for the province and the country!


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## jiml

Urban Sky said:


> In any case, Alberta's provincial government will have to invest orders of magnitudes more than what $1 million from the mid-1980s is worth today (roughly: $2 million), for inter-city passenger rail to become viable again between its two largest cities, but I do agree with everyone who thinks that it would be a good investment for the province and the country!


No argument! That million ($3.2M in today's dollars) wouldn't scratch the surface of what is needed, and in fact investment by Alberta (who are not in the best shape right now) was going to be my opening comment when I put together my proposal.


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## Urban Sky

jiml said:


> That million ($3.2M in today's dollars)


Thank you for correcting me, I accidentally used the conversion rate of 1988 values into 2019 Dollars (192%) rather than early-1980s values into 2020 or 2021 Dollars...


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## jiml

I used 1981, since I guessed that's when the money had been allocated or spent. It doesn't matter, since the final amount is a drop in the proverbial bucket.


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## Siegmund

Urban Sky said:


> Nevertheless, I find it a curious twist of history that Alberta's main passenger service disappeared in the same year (1985) as when all across the country services originally cut in 1981 were revived: from the Atlantic over the Montreal-Sherbrooke and Toronto-Havelock services to the Western half of the Super Continental...



I would suggest that that is _why_ it disappeared: the Super Continental came back so the Regina-Saskatoon, Saskatoon-Edmonton, and Edmonton-Calgary local service that "replaced" it and allowed Edmonton and Saskatoon passengers to reach the Canadian was no longer needed.

I rather suspect that absent the 1981 bloodbath, Calgary-Edmonton was going to die a natural death in 1981 or 1982, just like Edmonton-Drumheller and Saskatoon-Prince Albert already had, and the only reason it survived a few more years was because Edmonton had no other service.

As others noted earlier in the thread, ridership was plenty low already in 1980. Between airline shuttles and running parallel to the then-fastest highway on the continent, even a 3½ hour service didn't have much appeal.

I had not considered the grade crossing and pheasant risk before - but that part certainly hasn't changed much in the last 35 years.


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## Urban Sky

Siegmund said:


> I would suggest that that is _why_ it disappeared: the Super Continental came back so the Regina-Saskatoon, Saskatoon-Edmonton, and Edmonton-Calgary local service that "replaced" it and allowed Edmonton and Saskatoon passengers to reach the Canadian was no longer needed.
> 
> I rather suspect that absent the 1981 bloodbath, Calgary-Edmonton was going to die a natural death in 1981 or 1982, just like Edmonton-Drumheller and Saskatoon-Prince Albert already had, and the only reason it survived a few more years was because Edmonton had no other service.
> 
> As others noted earlier in the thread, ridership was plenty low already in 1980. Between airline shuttles and running parallel to the then-fastest highway on the continent, even a 3½ hour service didn't have much appeal.
> 
> I had not considered the grade crossing and pheasant risk before - but that part certainly hasn't changed much in the last 35 years.


As you noted yourself, Edmonton was still served by a daily Saskatoon-Edmonton service _and_ the thrice-weekly Skeena - and both through the actual downtown station, not the CP station in South Edmonton. If the blog post I quoted is correct, the suspension of the Calgary-Edmonton service was announced in January _1984_, thus just a few months before the Panorama was introduced as a daily sleeper service between Winnipeg and Edmonton (merged with the Skeena three times per week), but more than a year before the Panorama was extended back to Vancouver as the return of the “Super-Continental”, thus obviating the need for a connecting service out of Edmonton to reach the Canadian. I would find it rather odd to announce the withdrawal of a service a few months or even a year before announcing the (re)introduction of a service which mostly obviates the need for the service you want to withdraw...


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## jiml

I wanted this to work, I really did, so I studied it from several different angles, reached out to people I know in the area, crunched numbers, etc. I was unable to convince myself that this service was actually viable, so good luck convincing anyone else. There is no insurmountable obstacle to restarting service between these two cities - and from some points it makes perfect sense. If the Alberta government wanted to throw buckets (heck, barrels) of money at this for a Brightline-style service it would probably work. Does it necessarily involve VIA - no, I don't think so. This is basically just a very long commuter run that likely won't connect to anything. (Not to say that it couldn't, but its success does not depend on it.) Here's what I learned, and please feel free to correct, interject or add to these observations.

The cities aren't that far apart, there is a decent highway that is seldom congested and frequent, cheap air service that with security lines and other airport hassles probably times out around the same as driving. In order to be successful a train would have to be fast, have limited stops and connect downtown to downtown. In other words Brightline. Then you look at equipment - would Brightline-style trains be suitable for all that wide-open space with unpredictable weather, blowing snow, etc.. then there's all the level crossings - already cited in a couple of articles as the bane of RDC's? (Safety concerns aside, those Siemens' nose cones can't be cheap.) This sounds like conventional trains, with a locomotive on each end or at least an NPCU on one.

Once I found out you can fly for as little as $100, that means the train has to be less than that. My guess - around $60 each way, but I didn't spend a lot of time on this aspect. The highway only becomes congested in the cities at either end. (This is much further out for Calgary - more like Airdrie, but this screams commuter train not intercity, and they don't have one so maybe not a local concern.) The highway tends to be problematic in winter, so in those cases people fly or stay home. (Obviously weather can impact flying too, but without a rail alternative those are the only options.) 

As far as routes go, the traditional CP one is obvious but not without small hurdles that tend to add up. Not the least of these is the inability to reach either downtown without significant construction and cost. Even smaller mid-points like Red Deer are problematic - the tracks have been relocated west of the town and no longer serve the historic station. Yes, there is probably room on the CP site near their wye, but would they agree and is there value to a station there? It's the only other major population base on the route. Add in that if serving VIA's Edmonton station is necessary, that results in a significant detour as outlined previously by @NS VIA Fan. All the tracks and connections seem to be in place, so construction would be minimal, but would the time needed be worth the effort? (Sub-note here that a two-ended train on the CP trackage could easily serve both VIA and Strathcona - just not sure it's worthwhile.) Serving VIA Edmonton opens up the possibility of using CN trackage last used by Railiners in 1971, but it's a fairly circuitous route compared to CP and still doesn't reach either Calgary downtown (in a practical way), the airport there or their RT system. 

Several studies have been done on a separate rail link between the two cities - some high-speed, others not. Most parallel the CP route, the QE highway or parts of both. Obviously if there were actual demand at least one of these would have progressed past the study stage. Unless the Alberta government is looking for a post-pandemic infrastructure project to fund with their currently limited resources, short of a bond issue or tax increase, there's not going to be a shovel in the ground for some time. If a regular speed train is sufficient there are options, but none that could start in the near future. Too much time has passed since the last service.

At least it was an interesting research project.


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## Siegmund

Urban Sky said:


> If the blog post I quoted is correct, the suspension of the Calgary-Edmonton service was announced in January _1984_, thus just a few months before the Panorama was introduced as a daily sleeper service between Winnipeg and Edmonton....



I had the impression that there was some sort of temporary suspension for a short time in early 1984, but that regular service had resumed before the spring 1984 timetable was printed, and continued until fall of 1985. (The Super Continental appears in the June 85 timetable and Calgary-Edmonton disappears in the October 85.)

I don't know what portions of 1984 and 1985 the train actually ran; I had relatives in both cities but none of them had ever ridden a train.

The 1981-84 situation is weird. I can't imagine they saved much money, or much equipment, running Winnipeg-Regina-Saskatoon and Saskatoon-Edmonton day trains, requiring 2 trainsets each, and hoping passengers would overnight in Saskatoon to connect eastward, vs. running Winnipeg-Edmonton with 3 sets. Perhaps that is why they tried the Panorama. 

As for the current situation... Airdrie-Calgary commuter service would be an amazing start. That isn't a real fun drive except in the middle of the night. (Of course it also doesn't give the impression of being suitable for passenger service without major upgrades, either - the tracks in Balzac and Airdrie have a 'rural secondary line' vibe to them, and driving back and forth say 20 times spread over 8 days didn't ever happen to see a freight train.)


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## jiml

A minor clarification on my earlier post:



jiml said:


> Serving VIA Edmonton opens up the possibility of using CN trackage last used by Railiners in 1971



Although CN stopped serving Calgary from Edmonton in 1971, VIA did continue service on the same line as far as Camrose, before diverging to Drumheller. It was pointed out to me that there may be more local support for restoring that service than to Calgary. VIA took 4 hours to cover the 291 km (181 mile) route with an RDC, but did so daily with the train overnighting in Drumheller. The first leg - between Edmonton and Camrose - was faster than driving.


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## Seaboard92

Now what would happen to your study if you extended further south of Calgary to Lethbridge. Not that Lethbridge is that strong of an anchor point.


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## Siegmund

jiml said:


> Although CN stopped serving Calgary from Edmonton in 1971, VIA did continue service on the same line as far as Camrose, before diverging to Drumheller. It was pointed out to me that there may be more local support for restoring that service than to Calgary.



I have doubts that Edmonton-Camrose is a big enough market for commuter service... and the rails are gone most of the way from Camrose to Drumheller. (If you meant using CN all the way, well, I suppose one could - but I can't see any upside to making the trip an hour longer and bypassing all the population centers.)

Relaying 1000 feet of track in Strathcona to be able to get to the streetcar bridge from CP seems rather easier than most of the alternatives. A long detour to come into Edmonton from the east would be quite time-consuming.


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## jiml

Siegmund said:


> I have doubts that Edmonton-Camrose is a big enough market for commuter service... and the rails are gone most of the way from Camrose to Drumheller. (If you meant using CN all the way, well, I suppose one could - but I can't see any upside to making the trip an hour longer and bypassing all the population centers.)
> 
> Relaying 1000 feet of track in Strathcona to be able to get to the streetcar bridge from CP seems rather easier than most of the alternatives. A long detour to come into Edmonton from the east would be quite time-consuming.


I wasn't advocating for Edmonton-Camrose, but someone told me it would have more support than Edmonton-Calgary. Is Camrose a new "bedroom community" for Edmonton? I have no idea. I only checked out the all-CN route to see if there was a way to connect it at the Calgary end, since the VIA part was already in place. I agree that it would take _at least_ an hour longer than the CP route, but thought it was important to exhaust every possibility. It's a really circuitous route. Other than as a connection to other CN trains I'm surprised it ever had service.


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## NS VIA Fan

Seaboard92 said:


> Now what would happen to your study if you extended further south of Calgary to Lethbridge. Not that Lethbridge is that strong of an anchor point.




Perhaps waaaaay in the future! Lethbridge has a pop of around 100,000 and is 200km south of Calgary. The last passenger train was a RDC 'Dayliner' in 1971....50 years ago.


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## Willbridge

jiml said:


> I wasn't advocating for Edmonton-Camrose, but someone told me it would have more support than Edmonton-Calgary. Is Camrose a new "bedroom community" for Edmonton? I have no idea. I only checked out the all-CN route to see if there was a way to connect it at the Calgary end, since the VIA part was already in place. I agree that it would take _at least_ an hour longer than the CP route, but thought it was important to exhaust every possibility. It's a really circuitous route. Other than as a connection to other CN trains I'm surprised it ever had service.


Camrose has commuters but I suspect that most commute to Refinery Row rather than Downtown Edmonton or Government Centre.

Camrose in RDC history is known as the junction where the Railiner for Drumheller and the one for Calgary were combined to run as a single train between there and Downtown Edmonton. The CN line to Calgary was built by the Grand Trunk Pacific to double as a very indirect access from their main line to Calgary, rather than being meant to serve Edmonton<>Calgary well. It was 66 miles from Edmonton to Camrose back then. After CN integrated the GTP and CNR (Canadian Northern Railway) the shorter route on the CNR made Edmonton<>Calgary ALMOST viable.

As discussed elsewhere the main value of the CN Railiner was as a connection in Edmonton for transcontinental trains and the other CN Railiner services that converged on the CN Tower Station (North Battleford, Drumheller, Grand Centre). That helps to explain the 1971 CP schedule shown above. When federal subsidies began, the CP kept the turn that connected in Calgary with the _Canadian_ and the Lethbridge trains and the CN kept the turn that made Edmonton connections.

The problem with that was that the two railways had completely different tariffs and completely different stations some distance from each other on both ends. The set-up completely destroyed the corridor effect in the period when the bus and air shuttle set-ups were getting established.

Subsequently the CN train was withdrawn and the CP Dayliner service was made ALMOST a useful corridor service, hampered by not running the trains Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning, and cut back to South Edmonton. VIA picked up that pattern. It was a sore point when they introduced one-day excursion fares with national publicity because they couldn't be used on the Alberta corridor. 

My son and I checking the train times at Camrose after the Calgary CN train was discontinued....


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## Willbridge

jiml said:


> A minor clarification on my earlier post:
> 
> 
> 
> Although CN stopped serving Calgary from Edmonton in 1971, VIA did continue service on the same line as far as Camrose, before diverging to Drumheller. It was pointed out to me that there may be more local support for restoring that service than to Calgary. VIA took 4 hours to cover the 291 km (181 mile) route with an RDC, but did so daily with the train overnighting in Drumheller. The first leg - between Edmonton and Camrose - was faster than driving.


When the service was threatened in the late 1970's we (Transport 2000 Alberta) suggested that VIA Rail should consider turning the Edmonton <> Drumheller schedule around so that it departed Edmonton in the morning and returned from Drumheller in the evening. That could have been done on weekends and holidays given the surplus of RDC's at that point. The rationale was the growth of tourism in that area. Instead it was included in the 1981 hit list.


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## Willbridge

Siegmund said:


> I had the impression that there was some sort of temporary suspension for a short time in early 1984, but that regular service had resumed before the spring 1984 timetable was printed, and continued until fall of 1985. (The Super Continental appears in the June 85 timetable and Calgary-Edmonton disappears in the October 85.)
> 
> I don't know what portions of 1984 and 1985 the train actually ran; I had relatives in both cities but none of them had ever ridden a train.
> 
> The 1981-84 situation is weird. I can't imagine they saved much money, or much equipment, running Winnipeg-Regina-Saskatoon and Saskatoon-Edmonton day trains, requiring 2 trainsets each, and hoping passengers would overnight in Saskatoon to connect eastward, vs. running Winnipeg-Edmonton with 3 sets. Perhaps that is why they tried the Panorama. ....



The transcontinental changes in 1981 and the patch-up in 1984 were completely separate from the Edmonton<>Calgary case. Not that they should have been. VIA in Alberta was caught completely off-balance by the sudden explosion of ridership and the station complications in Edmonton vs. South Edmonton and the fact that no checked baggage was handled on the Edmonton<>Calgary trains (so checked bags went to the CN Tower Station while the passengers arrived at South Edmonton). The attached photo shows the pedestrian route from the CP South Edmonton Station to the Edmonton Transit bus stop to the downtown stop near the CN Tower.

I have a few documents that will help to explain this and when I dig them out they may help with this puzzle.



Baggage was self-service, not checked. Not too big a problem till 1981 when the route inadvertently became Edmonton's transcon connection.


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## Willbridge

As mentioned above, between 1981 and 1985 two different things were going on at the same time: the transcon service was through a very Canadian "order in Council" being restructured and restructured again and new equipment was being discussed. In the same time period CP Rail was in an old-school CTC process to rid itself of the Dayliners between South Edmonton and Calgary. Here are some documents to help. I'll try to keep these in chronologic order.


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## Willbridge

I blew up the key paragraphs from this letter and they're below. I presume that the other equipment manufacturer referred to was Bombardier. Later, a set of Superliners was used in service on the _Panorama _and passengers loved them.


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## Willbridge

As the late-night tv pitchmen say, "but wait! There's more." There's a blown up excerpt below the full letter.


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## NS VIA Fan

Willbridge said:


> Here are some documents to help. I'll try to keep these in chronologic order.......



Interesting! Thanks for posting. (I knew you'd chime in on this one!  )


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## Willbridge

It was interesting. Suddenly with no planning CP South Edmonton was an important station. The AM northbound train, now transformed into a Railiner instead of being a Dayliner, connected in Calgary from Train 1. The PM southbound connected in Calgary to Train 2. (VIA had gone to the old _Dominion _schedule of four nights instead of the three night _Canadian _schedule.) VIA's local staff at CN Tower Station tried selling travel to and from the west via Prince George but that didn't work very well. At some point they put on a chartered bus to Calgary for westbound and from Calgary for eastbound. Of course that offered miserable hours at Edmonton, especially if the eastbound was late.

VIA put RDC-1's and 2's on to provide more seats and began to run a 2-car train, but it still was sold out at times. As many of the new customers were long-haul passengers they demanded food service. And when they arrived, where was their checked baggage? It was going to be about 5 km away when it arrived at the CN Tower Station. At this point we were being told that VIA was negotiating with CP to cross the High Level Bridge and use the existing junction to run Calgary trains into the CN Tower Station.


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## jiml

Willbridge said:


> VIA put RDC-1's and 2's on to provide more seats and began to run a 2-car train, but it still was sold out at times. As many of the new customers were long-haul passengers they demanded food service.


Before the demise, didn't VIA introduce a mid-point food stop to meet this need, or did that date from the CP era?


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## NS VIA Fan

jiml said:


> Before the demise, didn't VIA introduce a mid-point food stop to meet this need, or did that date from the CP era?



Note in the VIA 1980 Timetable posted at the top there were Vending Machines available in the Red Deer Station.


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## Willbridge

jiml said:


> Before the demise, didn't VIA introduce a mid-point food stop to meet this need, or did that date from the CP era?


Yes, the vending machines in Red Deer were CP's contribution that carried on. There also was a bakery in South Edmonton across 103 Street that had some terrific products including sausage rolls. Full service restaurants were nearby on both ends of the line. That bakery was near my office so I found reason to be at or within sight of the station at train times, experiencing flashbacks to a konditorei in Berlin.

When VIA finally started the "use it or lose it" service upgrade they had a snack bar in an RDC-1, which was great but cut into the desperately needed seating.

Continuing the saga, besides the snack bar they provided a Yellow Cab van between South Edmonton and CN Tower Stations. They had given up on getting the CP to let them into downtown.

The excursion fares boosted ridership on both trains but the One-Day Return fare that the ad mentions could not be used on Sundays.


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## NS VIA Fan

Willbridge said:


> View attachment 21324




Looks like a CP Air ad cut off on the right of the VIA ad above. Did CP Rail do much advertising for the 'Dayliner' prior to VIA?


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## jiml

Willbridge said:


> There also was a bakery in South Edmonton across 103 Street that had some terrific products including sausage rolls.


One of the staple treats of my childhood and found nearly everywhere, including the chain bakeshops that seemed to be on most corners back then. Now to get a proper one you have to go to a British specialty shop and pay a much higher price, but I still buy them when I can.


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## Willbridge

jiml said:


> One of the staple treats of my childhood and found nearly everywhere, including the chain bakeshops that seemed to be on most corners back then. Now to get a proper one you have to go to a British specialty shop and pay a much higher price, but I still buy them when I can.


South Edmonton was also the German neighborhood. A colleague who spoke German and I used to go to lunch a couple of blocks from the CP station, so we could listen to the German farmers talking shop. I think those customers liked savory pastries.

We bent over in laughter when SCTV did a parody of _Chinatown _with John Candy as the hard-boiled detective. It was titled _Polynesiatown _and in the closing scene (I won't spoil the hilarious ending) a CP Diesel engine and the South Edmonton Station are in the background.


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## Willbridge

NS VIA Fan said:


> Looks like a CP Air ad cut off on the right of the VIA ad above. Did CP Rail do much advertising for the 'Dayliner' prior to VIA?


Not while I was following it (from roughly late 1971). That fits with them dropping the three Lethbridge routes in July 17th, 1971. I know that the agents at South Edmonton complained when T-2000 Alberta bought some small classified ads in the _Edmonton Journal_ under "Transportation" with their phone number. They started to get calls and it disturbed the peace. That was before the ridership boom in 1981.


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## jiml

There is apparently renewed interest in this route:









Prairie Link High Speed Rail







www.prairielink.ca


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## Willbridge

jiml said:


> There is apparently renewed interest in this route:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Prairie Link High Speed Rail
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.prairielink.ca


Thanx! In 1985 when almost all of the infrastructure was in place we (T2000) supported an evolutionary approach but now that so much is gone they might as well start over.

It's been interesting to me to see how many hits there have been on my YouTube video of the broken promises in the West. The sound is too low, so turn the volume up.


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## jiml

This seems to be an undertaking by two reputable companies - _no SNC Lavalin "sweetheart" deals._ It may actually get built and if it were running tomorrow it wouldn't be soon enough for locals. Apparently the connecting highway has gotten horrendous (even with Covid-reduced traffic levels), especially when approaching either endpoint. There isn't sufficient diversion infrastructure for accident or weather problems and people just wind up stuck on the highway.

I am hoping to be in the area in September and have to drive the entire length at least twice and daily in the Calgary area, so should get some perspective.


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## danasgoodstuff

I suppose the chances of Saskatoon to Regina service are substantially less (much smaller population; they can accurately be described as small cities, unlike Calgary and Edmonton which are pretty good sized by my standards). That's a shame since the only time I've ever been to Regina (grade 8 field trip long ago) we took the railliner. Unfortunately I don't remember all that much about the trip except how few members of the legislature were actually in their seats.


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## Willbridge

jiml said:


> This seems to be an undertaking by two reputable companies - _no SNC Lavalin "sweetheart" deals._ It may actually get built and if it were running tomorrow it wouldn't be soon enough for locals. Apparently the connecting highway has gotten horrendous (even with Covid-reduced traffic levels), especially when approaching either endpoint. There isn't sufficient diversion infrastructure for accident or weather problems and people just wind up stuck on the highway.
> 
> I am hoping to be in the area in September and have to drive the entire length at least twice and daily in the Calgary area, so should get some perspective.


I haven't been on that highway since 1997 but from looking at the development along it in Google maps I would guess that it has far more local traffic on it than it was meant to handle (like I-25 through Colorado Springs).


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## jiml

danasgoodstuff said:


> I suppose the chances of Saskatoon to Regina service are substantially less (much smaller population; they can accurately be described as small cities, unlike Calgary and Edmonton which are pretty good sized by my standards).


Yes, and that's an unfortunate fact. It's another natural corridor and there isn't even a straight-line major highway connecting the two. Then again, if Edmonton wasn't the capital of the province we might not even be having the Alberta discussion, since it isn't that large either.


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## danasgoodstuff

jiml said:


> Yes, and that's an unfortunate fact. It's another natural corridor and there isn't even a straight-line major highway connecting the two. Then again, if Edmonton wasn't the capital of the province we might not even be having the Alberta discussion, since it isn't that large either.


Hwy 11 is about as straight as it's going to get, and I think it's 'twinned' the whole way now as the Canadians would say. Still a dangerous drive in the winter.


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## jiml

A similar rail route in other parts of the country would be deemed essential.


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## danasgoodstuff

jiml said:


> A similar rail route in other parts of the country would be deemed essential.


Whether we're talking about Calgary & Edmonton or Saskatoon & Regina, both pairs are by far the biggest things in their respective provinces as well as more than half of each province's population if you take the metro area figures. In other words, substantially bigger than they were when they had regular passenger rail service, whether you figure in absolute terms or relative.


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## Willbridge

danasgoodstuff said:


> Whether we're talking about Calgary & Edmonton or Saskatoon & Regina, both pairs are by far the biggest things in their respective provinces as well as more than half of each province's population if you take the metro area figures. In other words, substantially bigger than they were when they had regular passenger rail service, whether you figure in absolute terms or relative.



Here are some promotional items from the last year of the Railiner Regina<>Prince Albert service. In the subsequent 1981 Pepin cutbacks Regina<>Saskatoon was included in a daylight coach train from Winnipeg. That duplicated the _Canadian_ Winnipeg<>Regina. When the _Panorama_ was introduced it traveled Winnipeg<>Saskatoon on the CN main line.


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## danasgoodstuff

I sometimes wonder in folks in eastern Canada have any clearer notion of where things in western Canada are than Americans do, i.e. not much.


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## jiml

danasgoodstuff said:


> I sometimes wonder in folks in eastern Canada have any clearer notion of where things in western Canada are than Americans do, i.e. not much.


While that may apply in some areas such as politics, history is history and if one is a student of railway history you look at the whole country. From that perspective western Canada is far more interesting. I also have a significant number of friends and family members in Alberta and BC. 

If you change the word "folks" to "decision-makers" then I'm with you.


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## Bob Dylan

jiml said:


> While that may apply in some areas such as politics, history is history and if one is a student of railway history you look at the whole country. From that perspective western Canada is far more interesting. I also have a significant number of friends and family members in Alberta and BC.
> 
> If you change the word "folks" to "decision-makers" then I'm with you.


Good post, but sadly this isn't generally true in the US anymore due to lack of interest by most sheeple in these subjects, and the fact that they are no longer being mandated in Public Education, ( which is being forced by Politicians to only Teach PC and Big Lie "approved" information)and the instant gratification obtained from being " entertained" by Screens.


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## Willbridge

Having grown up with a fair amount of interest in western Canada and having worked in Alberta I've concluded that the knowledge and understanding is organized on a grid. jiml has east-west friends in the West, people in the West follow news from Ottawa, etc. At the same time we find BC-flagged sailboats in the San Diego harbor, petroleum engineers traveling between Calgary and Denver, etc. Back when newspapers had bigger budgets the _Oregonian _had a correspondent in Victoria. In my college the Poli Sci students made an annual field trip to watch the uproar in the BC legislature.

Bob Dylan has a good point about education. When I was in 6th grade in Portland we studied Canada and Latin America. We watched two CPR films - one with the _Princess Patricia _on the Inside Passage and the other showing the all-new _Canadian _traveling from Montreal to Vancouver. When my son was in 6th grade in Denver they only studied Latin America and the kids got the impression that everyone there spoke Spanish.


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## west point

danasgoodstuff said:


> I sometimes wonder in folks in eastern Canada have any clearer notion of where things in western Canada are than Americans do, i.e. not much.


The revelations about native children's "schools" is an example. The RRs' use in this has not yet become common knowledge.


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## Seaboard92

That is something we often forget actually about the midwest it isn't just a east west thing like a large portion of our population looks at it. It is a north south thing as well. Part of this east-west mindset comes from the era of the railroad construction and manifest destiny which was pushing as far west as you could possibly go. And every railroad wanted to have a line to the Pacific when you think of how many railroads had Pacific in their names. 

The USA had quite a few north south lines back in the 1950s that made a lot of sense. 

~Twin Star Rocket (St. Paul, MN-Houston, TX) hitting Des Moines, Kansas City, Topeka, El Reno, and Ft. Worth. This is a route I could see being important today as it was back then. And almost all of it is still in service however I would probably opt to run it via Oklahoma City. This was a Rock Island train and operated on one railroad for the entire length. 

~Texas Zephyr (Denver, CO-Dallas, TX) hitting Colorado Springs, Amarillo, Wichita Falls. A Burlington train that ran on two of Burlington's wholly owned subsidiaries. 

~Zephyr Rocket (St. Paul, MN-St. Louis, MO) a short distance night train operated via Cedar Rapids and Quincy on the Burlington and Rock Island. 

~Texas Chief (Chicago-Galveston) via the Santa Fe routing via Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Dallas, and Houston. 

~Southern Belle (Kansas City, MO-New Orleans, LA) via the Kansas City Southern routing hitting Shreveport on the way. 

~Kansas City-Florida Special (Kansas City, MO-Jacksonville, FL) via the Frisco and the Southern Railway via Birmingham, Atlanta, and Macon. This is one everyone seams to forget even existed. 

Canada doesn't have a lot of north south lines but that is partially just due to the population density basically north of the CN Mainline out west there really isn't a large population. I can't even think of any large population centers above it except for Prince Albert. 

However you have had cross border traffic from western Canada. You've had both the Northern Pacific, and Great Northern operating some version of a Twin Cities to Winnipeg service. The Canadian Pacific and Soo Line fielded the Mountaineer or the Soo Dominion depending on which season between Chicago-Regina-Calgary-Vancouver. However the CP/SOO train really is not a north south train. 

Now that does lead you to some interesting things one could do. 

In theory you could run a Calgary-Denver train via Great Falls, Billings, Casper, and Cheyenne. That actually would be an interesting service because both Calgary and Denver are very similar culturally. It isn't unheard of as the Burlington had a service from Billings to Denver up into the 60s as well as the Great Northern having a train down from Shelby to Billings. It would definitely be a train with a higher subsidy than the other routes but that doesn't make it any less worthwhile. Amtrak is a public service and it needs to be seen as such. You invest in it for the public good. The same thing can be said for VIA Rail however Parliament has lost sight of that especially out west. 

Western Canada in reality Midwestern Canada (Calgary-Thunder Bay) actually had some really interesting rail services back in 1952. You had service on both CN and CP between all of the major cities like Winnipeg-Saskatoon-Edmonton on CP, or CN Winnipeg-Calgary. Couple that with all of the branch lines that created little rural hubs between rural population centers you had a fascinating network. It is a real shame most of that has crumbled away. 

Honestly I've wondered why we don't reroute the Canadian onto the more northernly CN route from Edmonton to Winnipeg that has significantly less freight traffic. The route may be a bit longer and not be the historical passenger route but it would be faster without the freight interference and it isn't too far away from Saskatoon. Of course the other viable route at that point becomes the CP between Edmonton and Winnipeg as well. Even less freight traffic and it still hits Saskatoon. 

Honestly it still makes a lot of sense to run something between Calgary and Edmonton you are talking about two decent sized cities in a climate where the roads are treacherous at least half the year. A Piedmont style regional service would do really well in that corridor in my opinion. Red Dear would be very much similar to Greensboro on the Piedmont as well.


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## jiml

west point said:


> The revelations about native children's "schools" is an example. The RRs' use in this has not yet become common knowledge.


I'd be very cautious heading down that road. While Canada is currently in the spotlight in this matter, the technology used to make these discoveries has been shared with US native groups. What has been reported so far is likely the "thin edge of the wedge" continent-wide.


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## Urban Sky

Seaboard92 said:


> Honestly I've wondered why we don't reroute the Canadian onto the more northernly CN route from Edmonton to Winnipeg that has significantly less freight traffic. The route may be a bit longer and not be the historical passenger route but it would be faster without the freight interference and it isn't too far away from Saskatoon. Of course the other viable route at that point becomes the CP between Edmonton and Winnipeg as well. Even less freight traffic and it still hits Saskatoon.


What makes you believe that the current travel time could be matched (or even beaten) on these secondary routes which haven't seen passenger service in 60 years? Have you checked the current speed limits or the siding lengths and spacing? Who is going to pay for upgrading these tracks to satisfy the minimum requirements for operating passenger trains at an acceptable speed? And why would it be more worthwhile than investing the same amount in upgrading the CN main line where it would benefit much more trains than just 4-6 passenger trains per week?



> Honestly it still makes a lot of sense to run something between Calgary and Edmonton you are talking about two decent sized cities in a climate where the roads are treacherous at least half the year. A Piedmont style regional service would do really well in that corridor in my opinion. Red Dear would be very much similar to Greensboro on the Piedmont as well.


Why should anyone spend a single tax dollar on restoring a rail service which wouldn't stand a chance to compete with the downtown-to-downtown travel time of either driving, busing or flying?


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## danasgoodstuff

Last time I rode it, a couple of years ago, the Canadian did take the CN route through Saskatoon and Edmonton, so I'm confused about which routes exactly we're talking about here. Since I lived in Saskatoon for years and visit on a regular basis I like to think I know this geography. A map might help.


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## NS VIA Fan

danasgoodstuff said:


> Last time I rode it, a couple of years ago, the Canadian did take the CN route through Saskatoon and Edmonton, so I'm confused about which routes exactly we're talking about here. Since I lived in Saskatoon for years and visit on a regular basis I like to think I know this geography. A map might help.



This is CN's secondary route across the prairies and was the original Canadian Northern Railway mainline between Winnipeg and Edmonton. VIA's Churchill trains use the eastern end today through Dauphin and Canora. This line continues west through Humbolt, Warman, North Battleford and Lloydminster.

Saskatoon would have to be served by a new stop in Warman....20 km north of the city.

CN lines are in blue. You can also see that CP route (red) between Winnipeg and Edmonton passing through Yorkton, Saskatoon and Leduc (south of Edmonton)


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## jiml

You just beat me, although I didn't have a map that was as readable. As stated, CN has two roughly parallel routes between Winnipeg and Edmonton, and I'd describe CP's route as more of a network of shorter connected lines - well illustrated in the first map, where they couldn't be described as straight west of Saskatoon. CP's main is the one most are familiar with to the South.


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## NS VIA Fan

NS VIA Fan said:


> This is CN's secondary route across the prairies and was the original Canadian Northern Railway mainline between Winnipeg and Edmonton.




Back in the early '60s.....the _Continental_ used CN's secondary route between Saskatoon and Edmonton via North Battleford. The _Super Continental_ stayed on the mainline through Biggar....the same route the _Canadian_ follows today.


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## Seaboard92

Urban Sky said:


> What makes you believe that the current travel time could be matched (or even beaten) on these secondary routes which haven't seen passenger service in 60 years? Have you checked the current speed limits or the siding lengths and spacing? Who is going to pay for upgrading these tracks to satisfy the minimum requirements for operating passenger trains at an acceptable speed? And why would it be more worthwhile than investing the same amount in upgrading the CN main line where it would benefit much more trains than just 4-6 passenger trains per week?
> 
> 
> Why should anyone spend a single tax dollar on restoring a rail service which wouldn't stand a chance to compete with the downtown-to-downtown travel time of either driving, busing or flying?



For starters a route where you can consistently move 40-60 MPH is much better than one where you are stopping every thirty minutes for thirty minutes while waiting on freights moving at 80 MPH. On the busy mainline even if track speed is high you can't really obtain it because you are always riding on the approach or slowing down to enter the next siding. So in reality your 80 is 40-60 at best. So lets take that further if you stop for thirty minutes that effectively cuts your average speed down to 20-30 MPH because you figure that you are sitting for half of that hour it takes to get up to the 40-60 range. 

Meanwhile you have two under utilized routes that run to the north between Saskatoon and Winnipeg that appear to be both in the CN looks to be about a 40-60 MPH line, vs the CP which looks like it is 60 MPH to 80 MPH looking at the track condition. But for simple cases lets just say both are 60 MPH. Yes both routes are slightly longer than the current route but they also serve higher populations as well. So while the CN mainline you are averaging in that 20-30 Mile range you could have covered twice the territory on the line with far less freight service. So you could shorten the timetable back up, or even if you left the insane amount of padding in it you could at least be guaranteed of departing Winnipeg east reasonably close to schedule. 

Going west out of Saskatoon I would still be tempted to use the CP route at least as far as Camrose before taking the CN line into Edmonton at that point. Again less traffic means you are spending more time moving covering territory than you are when you are crawling between siding to siding. 

At this point it is about service reliability to make it justifiable to put an actual investment in the train. You already have problems in Ottawa with people thinking this train runs just for foreign tourists, partially because it is so unreliable the people who live out west can't count on it. Why would I take a train that doesn't run every day, runs up to 20 hours late regularly to go between Saskatoon and Edmonton. When I could drive it in a few hours and be guaranteed to arrive on time. If you want VIA Rail to be healthy in the future it has to be more than about tourists out west and it has to loose its corridor centric mindset. We have the same problem in the USA we pit the "successful" Northeast Corridor against the National Network trains when in reality the two should be working hand in hand with each other as both need each other to survive. What you get when you take the western provinces or the maritimes out of the equation is the question "why should I fund a train in Montreal or even better yet Senneterre that I do not use, that I will never use?" 

So lets focus on making the Western provinces at least have reliable enough service that it can be counted on by the population that lives there. I'm not saying that some place like Unity or Biggar needs the equivalent service level of Dorval or Drummondville that would be insane to service those small towns with the same frequency. But we can improve their service to more than twice a week and make the train not so unreliable schedule wise that it actually makes it a usable train for them instead of their automobile. The people who live in these towns are just as important as the ones who live inside the corridor and it's time we start treating them with the same level of services and support in proportion of their population as those who live in more populated areas. 

Next thing VIA needs to do is drastically shorten the Canadian and expand the service to being more frequent. Do you really need to run 8-12 sleepers on one run. If you shorten it and use the Chateau fleet which is relatively unused you could provide a much better service to the west. 

What is up with this obsession with "well if it isn't competitive with flying or driving then why should I fund it"? Amtrak's Piedmont isn't competitive with flying for starters. And I should know that I fly the GSO-CLT, and RDU-CLT routes for work. It also 40 minutes faster to drive than the train is end to end. Yet the train manages to have 211,887 passengers which isn't even the whole picture as it doesn't count the Carolinian's ridership on the same corridor. And the southeastern USA has far worse transit connections than Calgary or Edmonton. Amtrak and the State of North Carolina have made this service successful there is no reason you can't copy it's formula to any other corridor in the USA and Canada. 

Then you have some other trains like the Carbondale-Chicago, or Quincy-Chicago that also don't make sense using your metric as the rural areas are at the end of the route but yet the routes are doing just fine. It isn't always about the effective drive time or flight time as you will never be able to truly beat those. 

Now for some fun on the Corridor (Toronto-Montreal) it takes 5 hours 10 Minutes on VIA, 5 Hours 14 Minutes by driving, and the plane does it in a fifth of the time and is much more frequent than VIA. Ottawa is thirty minutes faster to drive to Toronto and 12 minutes slower to drive to Montreal. So should we stop funding these trains because Air Canada and WestJet can beat them by substantial times? Of course not because they aren't competing in the same marketplace. 

Rail is a public service and it's time we stop treating it as a business but more as a service for the publics benefit. 

And if you would like to see why the Piedmont formula is a success I would be happy to host you and give you a guided tour of the Piedmont service both on board, and in each community it serves. I live in the area and I can arrange that really rather easily. 



jiml said:


> You just beat me, although I didn't have a map that was as readable. As stated, CN has two roughly parallel routes between Winnipeg and Edmonton, and I'd describe CP's route as more of a network of shorter connected lines - well illustrated in the first map, where they couldn't be described as straight west of Saskatoon. CP's main is the one most are familiar with to the South.



CP's line is a bit like that but it's still one cohesive line that even at one time had a name train the "Great Western" that operated Winnipeg to Edmonton. So it wouldn't be unprecedented either. Most people forget those two Northern lines remain aside from the CN Main line.


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## Bob Dylan

Whatever happened to VIAs Plan to reroute the Canadian on the "Southern" Route through ThunderBay and on to Vancouver through Calgary and Banff instead of North through Edmonton and Jasper?( the Rocky Mountaineer isn't running/ its in the US so there should be a Slot for the Canadian!)


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## danasgoodstuff

OK, thank you, the map was very helpful and now I can see what we're talking about clearly. My initial reaction was 'Warman!?' But it's not like the current VIA station at the CN's Chappell yard is exactly convenient to most of the city anyways, and changes to the roads haven't made it any more so. Warman might work, and it would be a net gain I think to pick up the Battlefords and Lloyd. I'm sure my brother in Aberdeen would like it. Folks would hate you in Biggar ("New York is big, but this is Biggar" Yes, I've driven out there just to have my picture taken by the sign.) Of course, I would LOVE the irony of bring rail passenger service back to downtown S'toon after 50+ years, but I'm not sure that's even doable, much less easily. My one thought for your consideration, is why think in terms of putting the whole run Winnipeg to Edmonton wholly on one freight line or another? VIA can use a combo of CN & CP lines to piece together the best route, as I think they do elsewhere in the system. And, one last thing, I totally agree that making it reliably on time is far more important than some theoretical schedule that's never actually achieved.


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## NS VIA Fan

Bob Dylan said:


> Whatever happened to VIAs Plan to reroute the Canadian on the "Southern" Route through ThunderBay and on to Vancouver through Calgary instead of North through Edmonton?



Here a link to discussion back in 2015 about rerouting on CP through Thunder Bay between Toronto and Winnipeg but I don't think there was any consideration given to going all the way to Vancouver on CP via Calgary. 






Changes Coming For The Canadian?


Well the rumour mill is rolling.....and it's something that even VIA's President has previously alluded to.....that the Canadian will be moving to CP in 2016 between Sudbury and Winnipeg via Thunder Bay and the scenic north shore of Lake Superior. Something had to happen with the horrendous...




www.amtraktrains.com


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## Bob Dylan

NS VIA Fan said:


> Here a link to discussion back in 2015 about rerouting on CP through Thunder Bay between Toronto and Winnipeg but I don't think there was any consideration given to going all the way to Vancouver on CP via Calgary.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Changes Coming For The Canadian?
> 
> 
> Well the rumour mill is rolling.....and it's something that even VIA's President has previously alluded to.....that the Canadian will be moving to CP in 2016 between Sudbury and Winnipeg via Thunder Bay and the scenic north shore of Lake Superior. Something had to happen with the horrendous...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.amtraktrains.com


Thanks, that's the route I liked the best when I first rode years ago!


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## Willbridge

Seaboard92 said:


> CP's line is a bit like that but it's still one cohesive line that even at one time had a name train the "Great Western" that operated Winnipeg to Edmonton. So it wouldn't be unprecedented either. Most people forget those two Northern lines remain aside from the CN Main line.



The _Great West _even had a dining car before WWII.


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## Willbridge

danasgoodstuff said:


> OK, thank you, the map was very helpful and now I can see what we're talking about clearly. My initial reaction was 'Warman!?' But it's not like the current VIA station at the CN's Chappell yard is exactly convenient to most of the city anyways, and changes to the roads haven't made it any more so. Warman might work, and it would be a net gain I think to pick up the Battlefords and Lloyd. I'm sure my brother in Aberdeen would like it. Folks would hate you in Biggar ("New York is big, but this is Biggar" Yes, I've driven out there just to have my picture taken by the sign.) Of course, I would LOVE the irony of bring rail passenger service back to downtown S'toon after 50+ years, but I'm not sure that's even doable, much less easily. My one thought for your consideration, is why think in terms of putting the whole run Winnipeg to Edmonton wholly on one freight line or another? VIA can use a combo of CN & CP lines to piece together the best route, as I think they do elsewhere in the system. And, one last thing, I totally agree that making it reliably on time is far more important than some theoretical schedule that's never actually achieved.


As I posted once before, the CN ran the Royal Train via North Battleford in 1978 instead of on the main line. I'm sure that confirmed to the ever-picky British media that things are pretty primitive in the colonies.

In a re-play of Potemkin's village/s, the CN repainted the stations along the route. In some places they only painted the sides facing the track.

One political argument against using the Canadian Northern line was that Greyhound Lines paralleled it. At the time the last passenger train was discontinued (North Battleford<>Lloydminster<>Edmonton Railiner) GL even ran the "Lloyd Local" into Edmonton in the morning and back as far as Lloydminster in the afternoon. I worked out a stop to discharge passengers at the Coliseum LRT station. After the train was discontinued, predictably the Lloyd Local disappeared, too.


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## danasgoodstuff

NS VIA Fan said:


> Back in the early '60s.....the _Continental_ used CN's secondary route between Saskatoon and Edmonton via North Battleford. The _Super Continental_ stayed on the mainline through Biggar....the same route the _Canadian_ follows today.
> 
> View attachment 23587


It would appear that these two routes were about the same on time, at least back then.


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## danasgoodstuff

Google Maps


Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.




www.google.com




CPR station in downtown Saskatoon, now a restaurant. A few blocks from where the CN station used to be - the rail yards in the middle of town that cut off Riversdale from the rest of town needed to go, but there's no reason passenger service needs to follow freight especially now that it's not run by the freight railways.


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## danasgoodstuff




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## danasgoodstuff

Now back to Edmonton - Calgary - Lethbridge - wherever


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## danasgoodstuff

Ideally, this should all be part of a network that has daily LD going east/west along at least two corridors and intercity going north/south in both provinces. And maybe a connection to the Empire Builder, say Lethbridge to Shelby or Cutbank? No idea what cross-border rail lines still exist, much less their condition. There used to be some croos-border passenger rail in the west, but all I can think of now is the Mlwk Rd and that track is probably torn up.


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## Seaboard92

Well the thing is you would pick up some decent population centers with that like you said. I mean if you really thought about it and used CP the whole way from Winnipeg to Edmonton you could in theory get a station in downtown Saskatoon which would also be a net gain. We aren't reinventing the wheel at all. Then we could take some money that would be needed to fix the CN on that section and put it on Jasper-Edmonton. At that point you should also consider extending the Skeena into Edmonton as it's really rather strange it doesn't do that already. Jasper has no form of public transit aside from VIA Rail Canada, Rocky Mountaineer (not really transit), and Brewster Bus Lines (which is more of a tourist bus than anything else). So it makes sense to extend the train down to Edmonton. 

Honestly I wonder if there would be a Calgary-USA option. The rail line goes down to Shelby on the Empire Builder. Could possibly turn and go to Chicago. Or better yet take the original Mountaineer route and you also gain Regina at the same point in time. There is room to grow our cross border connections.


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## danasgoodstuff

Seaboard92 said:


> Well the thing is you would pick up some decent population centers with that like you said. I mean if you really thought about it and used CP the whole way from Winnipeg to Edmonton you could in theory get a station in downtown Saskatoon which would also be a net gain. We aren't reinventing the wheel at all. Then we could take some money that would be needed to fix the CN on that section and put it on Jasper-Edmonton. At that point you should also consider extending the Skeena into Edmonton as it's really rather strange it doesn't do that already. Jasper has no form of public transit aside from VIA Rail Canada, Rocky Mountaineer (not really transit), and Brewster Bus Lines (which is more of a tourist bus than anything else). So it makes sense to extend the train down to Edmonton.
> 
> Honestly I wonder if there would be a Calgary-USA option. The rail line goes down to Shelby on the Empire Builder. Could possibly turn and go to Chicago. Or better yet take the original Mountaineer route and you also gain Regina at the same point in time. There is room to grow our cross border connections.


The route that jumped out at me was Moosejaw to Minot. But even though it has tracks, it probably isn't viable. Rail service to Waterton over the Lethbridge trestle is a nice thought but who knows if that's even possible - was there ever rail service to Waterton and/or over the Crows Nest into the BC interior and down to Spokane? Now I'm doing map fantasies for sure. Havre is the biggest town on the Builder in MT east of the Rockies, but it's not anywhere near much of anything on the CND side. 2 or 3 cross border connections in the west should be enough, right?


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## Willbridge

danasgoodstuff said:


> Now back to Edmonton - Calgary - Lethbridge - wherever


The issue of safety would have to be addressed due to the vague memories of crossing accidents and the Carstairs crash. Solving all of the "potential" issues that opponents would raise is one argument for just starting over with the high-speed proposal.

When I was offered the job in Denver I had just started to piece together the puzzle of what was going on, so I never prepared a study. I was puzzled by the details of crossing accidents in which the lone motorist pulled up to the crossing, stopped, then pulled onto the track in time to be hit by the train. A UofA professor came out with a study of suicide "accidents" that was revealing. He showed a correlation between the one-man crash into abutments, poles, trees. etc. and the economic turndown. He found that the Mounties who provided rural and small-town law enforcement were reluctant to label these as suicide because then life insurance would not be paid. And the RCMP contract with the small town might not be renewed if good old Dmitri's widow was left impoverished.

I had been wondering why the transcontinental trains were safer and it occurred to me that the punctuality of the _Dayliners _was their curse (the evening northbound whistling for the Ellerslie crossing was the signal for my son to head to bed). Waiting for a transcon even back then would have offered time for second thoughts.

Since then I've come across more accident stories that I was not looking for where a man clearly had reasons to feel depressed and apparently made poor choices that authorities labeled as accidents.

The Carstairs crash brought out a number of failings and weaknesses that no one committed to correct. Instead, the Minister of Transport, a Vegreville car dealer, ordered the discontinuance on safety grounds, pre-empting the CTC.


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## Willbridge

danasgoodstuff said:


> The route that jumped out at me was Moosejaw to Minot. But even though it has tracks, it probably isn't viable. Rail service to Waterton over the Lethbridge trestle is a nice thought but who knows if that's even possible - was there ever rail service to Waterton and/or over the Crows Nest into the BC interior and down to Spokane? Now I'm doing map fantasies for sure. Havre is the biggest town on the Builder in MT east of the Rockies, but it's not anywhere near much of anything on the CND side. 2 or 3 cross border connections in the west should be enough, right?


Minot to Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat to Spokane was the "Soo-Spokane Route". There were various combinations over these lines. Seasonal resort traffic was the strong point of these trains. There wasn't much business traffic on the Moose Jaw<>Medicine Hat segment.


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## Urban Sky

Seaboard92 said:


> For starters a route where you can consistently move 40-60 MPH is much better than one where you are stopping every thirty minutes for thirty minutes while waiting on freights moving at 80 MPH. On the busy mainline even if track speed is high you can't really obtain it because you are always riding on the approach or slowing down to enter the next siding. So in reality your 80 is 40-60 at best. So lets take that further if you stop for thirty minutes that effectively cuts your average speed down to 20-30 MPH because you figure that you are sitting for half of that hour it takes to get up to the 40-60 range.
> 
> Meanwhile you have two under utilized routes that run to the north between Saskatoon and Winnipeg that appear to be both in the CN looks to be about a 40-60 MPH line, vs the CP which looks like it is 60 MPH to 80 MPH looking at the track condition. But for simple cases lets just say both are 60 MPH. Yes both routes are slightly longer than the current route but they also serve higher populations as well. So while the CN mainline you are averaging in that 20-30 Mile range you could have covered twice the territory on the line with far less freight service. So you could shorten the timetable back up, or even if you left the insane amount of padding in it you could at least be guaranteed of departing Winnipeg east reasonably close to schedule.
> 
> Going west out of Saskatoon I would still be tempted to use the CP route at least as far as Camrose before taking the CN line into Edmonton at that point. Again less traffic means you are spending more time moving covering territory than you are when you are crawling between siding to siding.


I'm still not sure on what you base your lofty claims, but they appear to me as the result of mere speculation, daydreaming and an over-reliance on fiction than of any serious attempt at research and analysis. I randomly clicked on a piece of blue line along the Prairie North Line, identified its subdivision name as "Aberdeen" and googled "_CN "Aberdeen Subdivision" timetable_", which yielded within 20 seconds the CN timetable for said subdivision, including the sections with the sidings and speed limits:





Source: Extract from CN Timetable uploaded by the Canadian National Railways Historical Association

It doesn't take any knowledge of advanced maths to work out the number (5) and minimum length (6490 ft or 1978 meters) of the sidings, their average (147.7 miles / (5+1) = 24.6 miles) and minimum spacing (95.5 - 65.4 = 30.1 miles), the theoretically achievable minimum travel time (4.5 miles / 20 mph + 34.0 miles / 25 mph + 34.3 miles / 30 mph + 74.9 miles / 40 mph = 4.6 hours or 4:36) and the theoretically achievable maximum average speed (147.7 miles / 4.6 hours = 32.1 mph), which means that whatever average speed is actually possible within the constraints of real-world railroading will be a far cry from "a route where you can consistently move 40-60 MPH".

I can't be bothered to do the same superficial analysis for the other Subdivisons of the North Prairie Line, but you can find their timetables here (to spare you from having to needlessly repeat my 15 minutes long Google research):

Gladstone Subdivision (from Portage-la-Prairie to Dauphin)
Togo Subdivision (from Dauphin to Canora)
Margo Subdivision (from Canora to Humboldt)
Aberdeen Subdivision (from Humboldt to North Battleford)
Blackfoot Subdivision (from North Battleford to Vermilion)
Vegreville Subdivision (from Vermilion to Edmonton)
And if you want to compare the Prairie North Lone with CN's main line, you can find those timetables here:

Rivers Subdivision (from Winnipeg via Portage-la-Prairie to Melville)
Watrous Subdivision (from Melville to Biggar)
Wainwright Subdivision (from Biggar to Edmonton)

One remark about the Gladstone and Togo Subdivisions: in the almost six years I worked for VIA, I have not come across any segment in VIA's entire network which has remotely as notoriously caused excessive delays and even frequent partial cancellations as these two subdivisions. Incidentally, the Gladstone Subdivision was also the scene of one of only two (thankfully non-lethal) derailments of revenue trains I recall during my time at VIA (The derailment of VIA 692 on 31 December 2019), whereas the other one took place on the Newcastle Subdivision (The derailment of VIA 14 on 4 April 2019), so again the kind of underutilized secondary line bypassing the much busier transcontinental main line onto which you so desperately want to divert the Canadian (or the pathetic rests which would remain from this national symbol if anyone would actually act on your "advice" regarding that service)...


***


Seems like I've already reached the character limit, but I'll try to find the time to also debunk the second half of the mostly counter-factual post you wrote...


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## Seaboard92

Urban Sky said:


> I'm still not sure on what you base your lofty claims, but for me, they sound like mere speculation, daydreaming and fiction. I randomly clicked on a piece of blue line along the Prairie North Line, identified its subdivision name as "Aberdeen" and googled "_CN "Aberdeen Subdivision" timetable_", which yielded within 20 seconds the CN timetable for said subdivision, especially the sections with the Sidings and Speed limits:
> 
> View attachment 23591
> 
> View attachment 23592
> 
> Source: Extract from CN Timetable uploaded by the Canadian National Railways Historical Association
> 
> It doesn't take any knowledge of advanced maths to work out the number of sidings (5), their average (147.7 miles / (5+1) = 24.6 miles) and minimum spacing (95.5 - 65.4 = 30.1 miles), the theoretically achievable minimum travel time (4.5 miles / 20 mph + 34.0 miles / 25 mph + 34.3 miles / 30 mph + 74.9 miles / 40 mph = 4.6 hours or 4:36) and the theoretically achievable maximum average speed (147.7 miles / 4.6 hours = 32.1 mph), which means that whatever average speed is actually possible within the constraints of real-world railroading will be a far cry from "a route where you can consistently move 40-60 MPH".
> 
> I can't be bothered to do the same for the other Subdivisons, but you can find their timetables here (to spare you from having to needlessly repeat my 15 minutes long Google research):
> 
> Gladstone Subdivision (from Portage-la-Prairie to Dauphin)
> Togo Subdivision (from Dauphin to Canora)
> Margo Subdivision (from Canora to Humboldt)
> Aberdeen Subdivision (from Humboldt to North Battleford)
> Blackfoot Subdivision (from North Battleford to Vermilion)
> Vegreville Subdivision (from Vermilion to Edmonton)
> And if you want to compare the Prairie North Lone with CN's main line, you can find those timetables here:
> 
> Rivers Subdivision (from Winnipeg via Portage-la-Prairie to Melville)
> Watrous Subdivision (from Melville to Biggar)
> Wainwright Subdivision (from Biggar to Edmonton)
> 
> One note about the Gladstone and Togo Subdivisions: in the almost six years I worked for VIA, I have not come across any segment in VIA's entire network which has remotely as notoriously caused excessive delays and even frequent partial cancellations as these two subdivisions. Incidentally, the Gladstone Subdivision was also the scene of one of only two (thankfully non-lethal) derailments of revenue trains I recall during my time at VIA (The derailment of VIA 692 on 31 December 2019), whereas the other one took place on the Newcastle Subdivision (The derailment of VIA 14 on 4 April 2019), so again the kind of underutilized secondary line bypassing the much busier transcontinental main line onto which you so desperately want to divert the Canadian (or the pathetic rests which would remain from this national symbol if anyone would actually act on your "advice" regarding that service)...
> 
> 
> ***
> 
> 
> Seems like I've already reached the character limit, but I'll try to find the time to debunk the second half of the mostly counter-factual post you wrote...



You know what I'm done arguing with you so don't even bother. We do not see eye to eye and I'm tired of you constantly coming after me when I'm actively trying to change the way of thinking about the organization. And I for one am incredibly tired with it. If VIA does not start thinking outside of Quebec and Ontario box there won't be a VIA in three decades left outside of that small section. And the thing is I see the current system is broken when the train only works for end to end tourists because everything in the middle is so horrifically unusable as a public service that it has little to no utility left. Tourists have the luxury of planning their trip around the two days the train actually manages to run, whereas locals going to doctors appointments in winter, or going to visit family and friends in further off localities don't have that ability. Yes they can chose to take it but people have to be able to return home relatively easily at the same time because it's not like Unity, Biggar, Portage, Watrous, or Melville. Plus it needs to run relatively close to on time. Yes I would take the train and throw it on the CP routing which would mess up Watrous and Melville but the general region would still benefit. And it would only be thirty minutes away but it would still be more usable if the train was reliable. 

Also when I said good for 40-60 that is going on the Canadian Track Classifications which states that 40 MPH for Freight is allowable without improvements for 60 MPH for passengers. I would know this because it's similar to the FRA Track Classes here and my local line has a 40 MPH limited on freight and Amtrak clocks along at 60 MPH. 

You fail regularly to grasp the fact that the current system is broken for the more rural areas of the country. Maybe I'm more sensitive to rural areas because I come from one in the USA that is seen as a vast flyover country. Rural areas deserve reliable service. 

You know I am getting really tired when you insinuate that I am stupid. I for one have not ever insinuated that you are stupid when it comes to things and I am tired of feeling like I am being called that. And maybe you have time to research things more through but then remember my life here too. I'm on the road five days of the week with varying hours so the two days of the week I get with family I try not to occupy with this website. That I even come here at all is strictly for the people on this website I do like. So with that goodnight.


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## jiml

danasgoodstuff said:


> It would appear that these two routes were about the same on time, at least back then.


I have a vague recollection reading of directional running on this route during "wheat season".


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## jiml

Not the train to Edmonton that has been previously discussed, but this project is gaining momentum:








Calgary-Banff Passenger Rail Project Advances - Railway Age


A proposed 150-kilometer (93-mile) Calgary-Banff passenger rail project is moving ahead, following the release of a detailed MOU (memorandum of understanding) from Invest Alberta Corp., Alberta’s Ministry of Transportation (Alberta Transportation) and Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB).




www.railwayage.com





Where this is of interest to both railfans and passenger train followers alike is that it will utilize the CP ROW out of Calgary previously used by the Canadian, although with some new track construction, plus provide some of the needed infrastructure to support more passenger service to/from Calgary such as the original subject of this thread.


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## Willbridge

jiml said:


> Not the train to Edmonton that has been previously discussed, but this project is gaining momentum:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Calgary-Banff Passenger Rail Project Advances - Railway Age
> 
> 
> A proposed 150-kilometer (93-mile) Calgary-Banff passenger rail project is moving ahead, following the release of a detailed MOU (memorandum of understanding) from Invest Alberta Corp., Alberta’s Ministry of Transportation (Alberta Transportation) and Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.railwayage.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Where this is of interest to both railfans and passenger train followers alike is that it will utilize the CP ROW out of Calgary previously used by the Canadian, although with some new track construction, plus provide some of the needed infrastructure to support more passenger service to/from Calgary such as the original subject of this thread.


Yes. If it goes from downtown to the airport it is on its way to Edmonton.


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