Mal and Tris’ Great Train Adventure

In a few hours, Malcolm and I will board The Canadian for a 4 night, 3 day odyssey across hills, prairies and mountains. We’ve prepared ourselves with nerdy beers, Argentinian wine, and a huge bottle of whiskey. We have cameras, computers, and if all goes well, ways of connecting to the internet and publishing updates of the goings on from our adventure. Stay glued to Northern Song, Oregano Trail Perspecting, and our facebook feels for posts, photos, and perhaps videos of our trip.

Transit fares and Inflation

Transit fares seem to go up all the time, especially if you live in Vancouver or Toronto. But, doesn’t everything get more expensive? I thought I’d do some preliminary checking on how transit fares have gone up compared to other products.

In 1983 BC transit (precursor to Translink) did not have zones – you could travel throughout the whole system with a simple ticket, similar to Toronto’s system today. A ticket cost 75 cents, which according to this American Consumer Price Index inflation Calculator , is equivalent to 1.68$ today. But if you live in Vancouver you know that the current cost to transverse the entire translink system is not 1.68 or 1.75, but 5$. Moreover, even a single zone ticket costs 2.50.

In Toronto, an adult ticket to ride the TTC in 1981 cost 65 cents. According to that same inflation calculator, a ticket should cost 1.60$ today. But it doesn’t – it costs 3$. Nearly double the rate of inflation!

I wonder if similar increases in fares since the 80s have plagued other North American cities. If anyone knows of a comprehensive study on this topic, or even just other examples that interest them, please comment below.

London to Bangkok by Train in 9minutes and 30 seconds

I was listening to Rush’s 2112, feeling inspired after recently seeing the new Rush documentary, “Beyond the Lighted Stage“, and the song “A Passage to Bangkok” made me wonder whether it is actually possible to travel from Europe to Bangkok today by train. Well, turns out it is – this guy has done it and you can watch his journey in a 9 minute film. His voyage isn’t exactly on “The Bangkok Express” mentioned in the Rush song – he passed through Moscow and Beijing on his not very direct route. Quite an adventure!

Norwegian Train Film – a moving photograph?

This footage really interests me. It’s beautiful, it’s long, it’s continuous. It’s over 7 hours long. It’s been made available for free, under a creative commons license. Now, I tend to have simple ideas, or at least ideas which don’t require a lot of work – and my idea here is to display it as a continuous art piece. Ideally, it would be on a wall, in an electronic photo frame, playing in a loop.

Canadian Railway Journey – poorly edited travel films

Inspired by a film Milan made about his bus trip, I made my own travel films during my cross Canada journey on the train. It isn’t very good, but, it is at least quite long. There is quite a lot of footage of scenery, as well as self-interviews – which don’t make very much sense. On the upside, it probably gives quite a good idea of what it is like to be on the train.

Parts one, two, and three are on youtube.

Electrify the mains? A perspective from a former CPR executive

The Montreal Gazette has printed a version of a paper presented by former CPR executive Glen Fisher which discusses the advantages of electrifying Canada’s railway mainlines. He claims it would save 5.2 billion liters of diesel annually, and while it would cost 7.5 billion dollars, it would save the railways over a billion dollars a year in operating costs. Apparently a lot of the research and development associated with electrified rail in Canada was already done in the 80s for the BCR Tumbler Ridge branch line.

7.5 billion dollars does seem a dubious estimate for electrifying 25 thousand kilometers of mainline track. Apparently the GO electrification will cost 2 million per kilometer – which would mean 50 billion for 25 thousand km, but that price is deflated by access to used equipment – apparently a lot of the equipment from the tumbler ridge line is still for sale. 7.5 billion for the whole 25 thousand km means in the order of 300,000$ per kilometer – hugely less than GO’s estimate and, presumably, all the equipment would need to be new (although with such a massive project, there could presumably be economies of scale).

You can read the Gazette article here.

EDIT: After researching this further, I find Fisher’s price estimates more believable. The GO electrification is so expensive because its lines are in cities, and there is many difficulties associated with installing high tension canaries when there are lots of other things about. The Tumbler Ridge line is a better guide – and it was built for 300,000$ per km, albeit in 1980′s dollars. On the one hand, you’d expect it to cost more today with inflation, but on the other hand, there may be economies of scale associated with building 25 thousand kilometers of track compared to building, in the case of Tumbler Ridge, about 100.

Canadian Railway Adventure – Day 5

This last update is arriving a little late. I didn’t write anything at the time, but I think it’s worthwhile to recall the rest of the trip and draw some concluding remarks.

On day 5 we had breakfast somewhere around Sudbury Junction. Normally we’d be having breakfast just out of Toronto, but we were running about 7 hours late due to the track cracking in Reddit. Breakfast occurred with a kind of familiarity which likely exists on no other passenger trains – over four days the train becomes a little insta-community on wheels. People are at ease with each other. As usual, I had the oatmeal.

Ontario in the snow is beautiful, and I spent most of the day in the dome car. I spent a lot of time talking to other passengers – this is something that gets easier and easier as the trip goes on. Partially because one has simply sat and ate with so many people, and partially because as the trip goes on everyone realizes there is no reason to keep to yourself. In everyday life, we are pretty reclusive around the “public”, and rightfully so – opening up to everyone would be tiring and perhaps dangerous (I hope I’m wrong on this point, by the way). But on the train, the “public” quickly becomes homely. A ready-made small town. Everyone has a lot in common – they’ve been on this train for too long.

This last update is arriving a little late. I didn’t write anything at the time, but I think it’s worthwhile to recall the rest of the trip and draw some concluding remarks. On day 5 we had breakfast somewhere around Sudbury Junction. Normally we’d be having breakfast just out of Toronto, but we were running about 7 hours late due to the track cracking in Reddit. Breakfast occurred with a kind of familiarity which likely exists on no other passenger trains – over four days the train becomes a little insta-community on wheels. People are at ease with each other. As usual, I had the oatmeal. Ontario in the snow is beautiful, and I spent most of the day in the dome car. I spent a lot of time talking to other passengers – this is something that gets easier and easier as the trip goes on. Partially because one has simply sat and ate with so many people, and partially because as the trip goes on everyone realizes there is no reason to keep to yourself. In everyday life, we are pretty reclusive around the “public”, and rightfully so – opening up to everyone would be tiring and perhaps dangerous (I hope I’m wrong on this point, by the way). But on the train, the “public” quickly becomes homely. A ready-made small town. Everyone has a lot in common – they’ve been on this train for too long.

We finally pulled into Union Station in Toronto around 3:30pm. The trip ended without much song or dance. I tipped the car attendant (I saw someone else doing it), said goodbye to my new friends, but didn’t exchange facebooks with anyone. Most of the folks I met were older, I suppose they don’t have facebook. To any accord, it didn’t come up. The train becomes its own community to be sure – but there is no need for that community to go on existing after arrival. No need for Via to create a “January 1st Canadian Eastbound” facebook group. (Although – I have the feeling this is the kind of thing they would do). I paid a red-cap to carry my luggage out to a cab, and took the easy way home. In principle, I’d prefer to take transit – but I had far too much luggage for that.

It was good to arrive home, to get back to school, to see my housemates again. I had a good visit in Vancouver, but now it is time to get back to work. As for the trip – it was wonderful. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Canadian Railway Adventure – Characters

I’ve met some pretty interesting characters on this trip. I’m no good with names (I’ve forgotten most of the names already), but as that will preserve their anonymity perhaps its a good thing. One couple I had breakfast with on I think the third day, outside of Reddit – the man had spent his career working in IT for banks. He’d been part of installing automated teller machines back in the 70s, and at the same time automated cash drawers for the human tellers. There was so much going on that at one point he was part of operation Slumber – which consisted of temporarily mothballing all the automated cash drawers for two years because there was simply too much electric infrastructure to maintain. Back then ATMs required a lot of human maintenance, so he was always running around working on machines. Alright, it doesn’t sound like much to say now, but at the time I found it a very interesting conversation.

Another man I spoke with quite a bit was a former OPP officer, who had worked for the railway during the early 60s – what he calls the end of the glory days of rail. From what I can figure “glory days” meant there were a lot more people working (even after the demise of steam, a freight crew was 5 people – now it’s 2), and that there was a lot more drinking (in the bunkhouse, during the turnaround time, the standard thing was to get plastered). It was certainly an era of transition – due to a strike in the 50s which the union largely won, the firemen did not lose their jobs at the end of steam – nor did the excess engineers. You see, steam trains needed a lot more engineers and crew than freights – because a double or triple header diesel freight still needs only one crew, whereas two steam engines require two engineers and firemen.

As a child, his father had worked for the railway, which meant they had a family pass. This entitled them unlimited free travel, but only on the slower train – the Dominion. The Dominion ran old heavy weight steel coaches. The train was so heavy that in the mountains it was split into two sections pulled by separate locomotives. The second class section (which he was on) had an outdoor observation car! He did not ride the Canadian much as a child because the pass did not entitle free travel upon it. However, he did say he saw the Canadian being pulled, albeit partially, by a steam engine in the late 50s. Apparently CPR claims the Canadian has never been pulled by Steam – but he saw a steam engine behind two diesels pulling it up a grade near Thunder Bay. For reasons I don’t entirely understand, the steamer had to be positioned behind the diesels, so it did not have the classic steam engine out front appearance. But still – remember these cars are the same as are in service today, and it is neat to think that they have been in service since before the end of steam.

Two obvious characters on the train were Melanie and Christianne, the two girls who volunteered to fly to B.C. and take care of Fred the Dog. Fred the dog, when his master passed away on Vancouver island, stayed by his side for three days before the body was discovered. His master had no family in the region – only a sister in Montreal. The dog could not be flown because it was too big, so Via Rail offered to transport him along with two handlers from Vancouver to Montreal free of charge. The trip itself was not without traumatic moments, both for the dog, the handlers and the crew. The delay coming into Toronto wreaked havoc with their arrival plans – and also created a visual embarrassment for Via because it’s tardiness became part of the national press coverage it was presumably trying to purchase by giving the dog free passage. But, in the end everything seems to have ended well.

I also met a guitar player by the name of Kori Kameda. We picked him up in Sioux lookout, a few hours from his home in Dryden. The fact the train was 7 hours late meant he arrived at the station (there isn’t actually a station in Sioux lookout. Well, there is an old “CNR” station building, but it is condemned – but with a big sign pledging money for a renovation). I wasn’t planning on getting my mandolin out on my own, but when I saw him playing his guitar, and he said he was game for jamming, I grabbed my instrument and we had a fantastic jam. The bar car attendant suggested to both of us that Via rail offers free passage to musicians travelling on the Canadian in exchange for playing a few shows a day, divided between the Park car (first class lounge) and Skyline car (lounge and dome car for coach passengers). This option highly interests me, and I think I will pursue it next time I need to travel across country.

Canadian Railway Adventure – Day 4 Afternoon

It feels late in the day, but it’s only 4:25 in the afternoon. Today was strange – we were meant to arrive in Sioux lookout at 6 in the morning, but we didn’t actually arrive until the afternoon. We’re eight hours behind on paper, but since that means we arrive in Toronto in the evening rather than the morning, it feels like we’re a day behind. Sioux lookout, or “the Soo”, or “the little Soo” to contrast it from “the big Soo” – Sault Saint Marie – is named after a hill from which the local indian band would watch for their enemies the Sioux. It’s really a town in the northern reaches of  nowhere, hundreds of miles north of Thunder Bay. The most interesting thing about Sioux lookout is that it has an LCBO and a Beer Store, and that if the train is significantly late, passengers have time to run to purchase liquor.

Right now we’ve just momentarily stopped in Ennis, which is even smaller. The town seems to ha ea. hotel and a grocery, but not much many houses. These northern towns are supply points for northern ontario, but since there isn’t much in northern ontario, they are not very big ones.

Along the way the train often stops for no apparent reason.There is of course, a reason – it has to do with the track up ahead. The track is sectioned off into blocks, and the rule is, no two trains can be in one block at the same time. When the train comes to a block there are two lights, one over the other, which can each be either red, yellow or green. If there are two green lights, it means the section of track the train is entering is clear, as well as the one after that. If the lights show green over red, the section the train is entering is clear, but the next one has a train in it. Green over yellow indicates that the section is clear, and that the next section may be clear by the time our train reaches it. Or at least this is what I was told by one of the staff.

The basic reason that progress is so slow has to do with the style of rail freight in this country. To maximize profits, the railway runs freights which are as long as possible. This is not more efficient from an energy standpoint, because a train twice as long requires twice as many engines to push it. However, it means less crew is required – because a train twice as long has the same crew as a shorter one. And, when freights are longer than sidings, it is the shorter train which must pull over to let the longer one pass. This is not a matter of priority per say, rather it is simply impossible to give the passenger train priority over trains too long to pull over for it. The simple solution would be to run shorter freights, but that would mean more people would have to have jobs, which would reduce profits, which would be unacceptable. The expensive solution is to build longer sidings, and more double track sections of mainline. However, the cheapest solution – which I think will likely happen – is put into place the CN/CP reciprocal running agreement I mentioned earlier. This really would be the best use of our existing rail infrastructure in Canada – although it would also mean the end of “The Canadian”. Sure, they could keep the name and the equipment, and potentially do the run much more quickly – but it would lose its usefulness to the communities alongside it.

Canadian Railway Adventure – Day 4 afternoon

It feels late in the day, but it’s only 4:25 in the afternoon. Today was strange – we were meant to arrive in Sioux lookout at 6 in the morning, but we didn’t actually arrive until the afternoon. We’re eight hours behind on paper, but since that means we arrive in Toronto in the evening rather than the morning, it feels like we’re a day behind. Sioux lookout, or “the Soo”, or “the little Soo” to contrast it from “the big Soo” – Sault Saint Marie – is named after a hill from which the local indian band would watch for their enemies the Sioux. It’s really a town in the northern reaches of  nowhere, hundreds of miles north of Thunder Bay. The most interesting thing about Sioux lookout is that it has an LCBO and a Beer Store, and that if the train is significantly late, passengers have time to run to purchase liquor.

Right now we’ve just momentarily stopped in Ennis, which is even smaller. The town seems to ha ea. hotel and a grocery, but not much many houses. These northern towns are supply points for northern ontario, but since there isn’t much in northern ontario, they are not very big ones.

Along the way the train often stops for no apparent reason.There is of course, a reason – it has to do with the track up ahead. The track is sectioned off into blocks, and the rule is, no two trains can be in one block at the same time. When the train comes to a block there are two lights, one over the other, which can each be either red, yellow or green. If there are two green lights, it means the section of track the train is entering is clear, as well as the one after that. If the lights show green over red, the section the train is entering is clear, but the next one has a train in it. Green over yellow indicates that the section is clear, and that the next section may be clear by the time our train reaches it. Or at least this is what I was told by one of the staff.

The basic reason that progress is so slow has to do with the style of rail freight in this country. To maximize profits, the railway runs freights which are as long as possible. This is not more efficient from an energy standpoint, because a train twice as long requires twice as many engines to push it. However, it means less crew is required – because a train twice as long has the same crew as a shorter one. And, when freights are longer than sidings, it is the shorter train which must pull over to let the longer one pass. This is not a matter of priority per say, rather it is simply impossible to give the passenger train priority over trains too long to pull over for it. The simple solution would be to run shorter freights, but that would mean more people would have to have jobs, which would reduce profits, which would be unacceptable. The expensive solution is to build longer sidings, and more double track sections of mainline. However, the cheapest solution – which I think will likely happen – is put into place the CN/CP reciprocal running agreement I mentioned earlier. This really would be the best use of our existing rail infrastructure in Canada – although it would also mean the end of “The Canadian”. Sure, they could keep the name and the equipment, and potentially do the run much more quickly – but it would lose its usefulness to the communities alongside it.