The delay is rolling stock, staffing and infrastructure. Only a few of the already heavily-modified former GO Hawker-Siddeley cars have been updated to current standards. Many were retired, sold or scrapped. The APU's (former F-B units) have not run in several years. ONR does not have surplus locomotives nor the staff to run them. The enroute stations not used by other services are in disrepair or have alternate uses. Then there's the people to do all this - a continent-wide problem. They need to hire people, replace stations and platforms, and acquire new rolling stock. The latter is underway with a view to using GO F59's, although many have already left the property and can be seen in California and Chicago, among other places. (These will remove the need for APU's of course.) Passenger cars are another problem entirely, although some used ones may become available in the timeframe mentioned. If they have to buy new and choose Siemens they'll be at the back of line. For new, I'm told an Alstom product built at their Thunder Bay facility is an option.
Media speculation has ranged widely on the inclusion of several existing GO stops. I'm waiting to see something official.
The previous Northlander ran 6 days a week (no Saturday service), however the reason was an extra northbound on Fridays, returning on Sundays to cover heavier "weekend up north" demand. The frequency mentioned in the article was actually news I hadn't heard before too. All earlier discussions were about daily service. Presumably there would be less service in winter, but not sure how they get to 4 days.
I'm not sure either and the report was a little vague. They had refurbished GO equipment to restart as soon as 2023 if funding and infrastructure improvements were complete. There was also talk of acquiring surplus equipment from elsewhere as a stop-gap until new equipment could be ordered. New equipment was widely expected to be sourced from Ontario (for obvious political/jobs reasons) which narrowed the vendors considerably. Hopefully ONR got a good deal from Siemens, but educated railfans know about the huge orders already in progress ahead of them. Going with VIA-compatible rolling stock does lead to speculation about everything from operation to maintenance.
Sounds like they will simply exercise a few options attached to the VIA order.
I guess that way they get to milk the new customer for all they are worth, keeping them from exploiting the high volume discount
It’s one train north and one south per day in the summer. The winter would be the 4 days of service. How they are going to do this is anyone guess.
