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My personal takeaway is that even sources within VIA I see as absolutely trustworthy can only be as dependable as the information they have to rely on… As a map concerned about the limits of properties and structures, there is no need to place railway tracks. As with any good map, it is...

It indeed seems that the information I had received turned out to be unreliable, as Jasper Station indeed seems to have survived the fire and I couldn’t be any happier that the information I had shared here previously appears to have been factually wrong:

Identifying such consequential and geographically dispersed targets and attacking them simultaneously requires a lot of intelligence and resources (including manpower). Have a look at the article below and you will see that it was expected that Russia would try its best to stir chaos at the...

It’s too early to tell, but personally, I would bet money on (Russian) state actors. The attack required too much coordination for some leftist fringe groups and rather resembles low-key terrorism, but we will see…

Yeah, I already adjusted my initial post to clarify that the information I had received this morning has turned out to be quite possibly wrong, but forgot to write a new post to alert people who had already taken that information as a comfirmed fact. Let’s hope that most of the buildings and...

I’ve received confirmation from a usually reliable source within VIA that the station building in Jasper has burnt down, which would undoubtedly delay the resumption of services between AB and BC. Edit: the information I am getting now is conflicting, please take the above with a grain of salt...

Wildfires in Northern Quebec last June briefly earned Montreal the questionable title of the metropolis with the worst air quality on this planet:

Train 14’s departure this Friday was terminated due to a hydroelectric water damn break near Drummondville. The train returned to Montreal and was rescheduled for yesterday on the same schedule (i.e., 24 hours later than originally scheduled). Consequently, the departure of Train 15 had to be...

Congratulations, you’ve successfully identified the inherent strength of trains, which is its scalability, where you can add cars to transport hundreds of people! This is called “Economies of Scales” and works in favor of the train in busy corridors (like the Quebec-Windsor Corridor), where...

Even the data for 1988 is of very poor quality, just compare the 1988 ridership-data-by-route provided on page 17 with those on pages 65-70. Similarly, page 17 provides no breakdown of Quebec-Montreal (i.e., into Quebec-Drummondville-Montreal and Trois-Rivières - Montreal), whereas pages 65-70...

I didn’t comment on how financial viability should be measured, but on how politicians and fiscally conservative parts of the public often measure it. Road users pay fuel taxes and aviation passengers pay airport fees, therefore it is possible to calculate cost-recovery rates also for these...

Thr Atlantic was indeed slated for the chopping block in January 1990, but survived thanks to intense lobbying along the route, with 3 frequencies per week each on the Ocean, Atlantic and Chaleur (overlapping to 6 frequencies Montreal-Matapedia and for [Montreal-]Moncton-Halifax). In the end...

The point of the Mulroney government was not whether these services were well-used, but whether they were a good use of taxpayer money. And as much as I disagree with the severity of these brutal cuts, at a farebox-recovery rate of less than one-third and an annual operating deficit above one...

Back then, the Montreal-based crew went all the way to Jonquièrre, whereas the Senneterre-bound crew boarded the rear train in Shawinigan and took over at Hervey Junction. My understanding is now that the Montreal crew operates the Senneterre train until La Tuque from which the Senneterre-bound...

Unless VIA or the federal government have any legal guarantees regarding certain minimum track quality standards and speed limits, it will be very difficult for either party to compell CN without opening their chequebooks…

Baggage storage in Toronto (or at other major stations where such service is offered) is not at the Business Lounge, but at the baggage reclaim, when you descend the ramp from the main hall to the departure area, to the right: https://www.viarail.ca/en/plan/baggages/station-checkroom...

As a German rail fan and timetable nerd who left his home country only 15 years ago, I am very aware of this. Nevertheless, by 2000, the rail infrastructure in Eastern Germany had been modernized to more than adequate standards and still only enabled travel times (in excess of 6.5 hours)...

The Turbotrain was only scheduled at 3:59 for its first launch (which only lasted a feww days) and then returned with minimum travel times of 4:10-4:15. 3:59 was only scheduled over longer periods for the 5pm LRC train (today’s 68/69). and long after the Turbotrain had been retired. Considering...

My favorite comparison point is Berlin-Munich, as it’s virtually an identical distance as Toronto-Montreal (504 km or 313 miles “as the crow flies”): https://x.com/jutattatw/status/1548466456181895171 Basically, it took the opening of a 48 mile long 186 mph HSR segment (Nürnberg-Ingolstadt) to...

I have seen the following values posted last month at Groups.io: They are almost certain to change when the new adjustments take effect on July 4, but they are the best I‘ve seen at the moment…