Yeah building a high speed rail line on a earthquake prone state is not common sense.

California was a boondoggle. Billions spent and nothing to show for it. It's almost like they want to fail.

And Miami to Tampa

FYI- after 6 billion, California tapped out, with nothing to show for it

@@odochartaighofodonegal2351 it is still well under construction, construction has not stopped, it will be built

This is because it's not a true passenger service. It's a "lets squeeze a few passengers through the freight routes" which apparently isn't what normal countries do with passenger trains. The freight trains have priority on our routes because those routes are made for freight.

@@MegaMech The rail network was originally built for both freight and passenger use. Passenger service responsibilities were transferred to VIA Rail in the 1970s, as freight began to struggle with competition from "free" highways, but now freight makes large profits.

@@transportactioncanada but the train is stuck to slow freight train speeds. Which means nobody but tourists wants to ride them or use them for fun.

Is Via Rail worst than Amtrak?

@@jasonn4597always

By design.

Roads, trains, buses, subway cars, tanks, fighter jets, all of them are outdated

Including the morals and sensibilities of Trudeau's in-laws that we keep importing into the country

Just like Trudeau

We don’t need roads where we’re going….cue music….

I agree and same to the US

What more are you willing to pay to simply not feel "embarrassed"? Me, not one nickel thanks.

i took a train from ottawa totoronto every month and loved it. I thought the service's good until one day I took one from ottawa to Vancouver for vacation.

@@NoahSONG oh man that’s all bad, that’s why flying is better if time is more important

Korea is a much smaller country, though. China and Russia are much larger and have high speed rail.

_“Canadians love their car and road infrastructure so much they don't realize politicians are bought out by big oil.”_ **NEWSFLASH** “Big oil” can't donate to federal political parties or candidates in Canada. They-businesses, corporations _and_ unions-haven't been able to make political contributions to federal political parties and candidates, since 2006/07. Only individuals eligible to vote can donate to federal political parties and candidates, and those contributions for 2024 are strictly limited to 1'725$ total between a single or multiple political candidate(s); plus 1'725$ to each political party; plus 1'725$ total to a single or multiple political party leadership contestant(s). The contribution limit increases by 25$ annually. So your assertion _‘politicians have been “bought”’_ is misinformation (1'725$ is not going to buy you a lot of influence over your political candidate). Notwithstanding, there are ways in which businesses can influence federal government policy, through lobbying the government. But unlike in the U.S., sitting Canadian federal politicians CANNOT accept “gifts” (or ANY gratuity) from lobbyists or constituents, least they find themselves removed from public office and thrown in jail.

Politicans just do what gets them re-elected...by fools. Blame us.

You must be a fan of ‘Not Just Bikes.’ Me too!

Im uncomfortable with no security measures

Yes. Here in the US Amtrak switched to electric heat in the 1970s. Parts for steam heat were becoming harder to find. They copied the commuter trains, which all use electric heat. The electricity comes from a generator in the locomotive, called Head End Power. The electricity also operates the air conditioning and lights for the whole train. Private owners of passenger cars had to have their cars converted from steam heat to electric heat or Amtrak won't allow them on their trains.

VIA ditched steam heat for their rolling stock back in the early 1990's. the cars have been electrically powered for decades now.

@@joncalon7508 Then those cars from the 50s must have been converted. They were originally steam. Incidentally, back in the mid 70s, I was on a train in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ontario, when one of the couplers failed. Looking out the window, I could see clouds of steam and the engines going around the curve ahead.

Steam heated cars in service by VIA ended completely in 1996. By that time, all "blue & yellow" cars were retired in SW ont and northern Que, replaced by rebuilt Budd coaches in the "HEP-II" series. F9 locomotives were rebuilt with generators to haul stainless Budd cars to Churchill. Trains on Montreal's Deux Mongates line were replaced by new electric MUs (which were since scrapped a few years ago). It's possible other lines at the time had steam heated cars, ACR, ONR, or the Labrador trains, but that's not a VIA operation.

@@James_Knott indeed they were converted from steam to HEP, back in the early 90’s, with some of the remote operations being switched over by 1996. The HEP-1 program rebuilt the cars interiors and changed out everything steam to HEP for heating and power.

Gordon Lightfoot is probably rolling in his grave!

@@James_Knott, no, he's not, and *_if_* he had an opinion about it, he kept his mouth shut in the later part of his life. Plus, his mind was in a different space back in the '60's and he might have changed how he feels about trains; as well, that song (Canadian Railroad Trilogy) was just something he wrote for a TV special.

@@Neville60001 Actually, he loved trains and wrote a couple of songs about them. Look up "Movin' On: Lightfoot's love affair with trains" which talks about how he liked them and took the train to Moosonee, Ontario.

@@Neville60001 Actually, he loved trains and wrote a couple of songs about them. Look up "Movin' On: Lightfoot's love affair with trains".

Nostalgia has its place, but not when the whole product is antic & old + creaky! At this point of time they are just treating passengers as crap!

@Newmarketsubsteamer Yep you’re right

@@BlackHawkTejas That is true too. I just hope they get put in a museum at least.

Yes indeed try jonquiere

Bombardier doesn't make passenger cars for Amtrak, they haven't since the 2000s, the new cars are made by Siemens, same cars that are being rolled out on the Corridor here in Canada now.

@@coastaku1954 I did say "made", and none of them are here. And yes, they did make the Superliners for Amtrak.

Forget bombardier Siemens have entire train sets that are suppose to go to us as well as the venture passenger cars correct me if I'm wrong but only a small part is bound for canada

Bombardier did make a lot of passenger cars for Canadian customers, it biggest customer for the Bilevel cars was GO transit, and it made the LRC trains and while the locomotives don’t run any more the passenger cars are still used.

Bonbardier at one point was going to make Superliners for VIA in the early 90s as they tested some Superliners from Amtrak but the Canadian gov. pulled the plug on the proposal and decided to pour funds to rebuild the whole Budd fleet instead as it was cheaper that getting a whole new fleet of cars.

If the same people in Ottawa that are tasked with buying new ships for the Navy, new fighters for the AIr force, and pistols for the Army, and they are going to buy new cars for VIA RAIL, God Help Us !

This is because the automotive industry has taken over the inner-city transit infrastructure. Everything is car dependent, while the few railways we have are dedicated for freight, leaving air travel as the only viable long-distance method of passenger travel, only for it to fall into the hands of the AC/WJ duopoly. Rail is the iron veins of a nation, and Canada's are pretty weak, particularly for passenger service.

They've got the private sector bidding at the moment on two options to build - one with a 200km/h speed limit and one without a speed limit. Wish it was a crown corporation building though.

Bruh, they need new rolling stock. So that is first.

@@gamerfan8445 They are getting new rolling stock. These are being used on the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec corridor for now.

@@AirShark95 yeah the chargers (one of my favorites versions of them), but they need to replace their long distance fleet as well.

Because trials actually don't work in mountains.... enjoy your habour air. In general speaking BC has most tunnels and bridges built for trains.

Foreign countries 🎉

Back into your pockets in the form of a stipend. That's basically it.

Most “other countries” have _nationalised_ their rail infrastructure. Not so in Canada or the U.S. VIA “owns” only a small portion of the rail network in the Québec City-Windsor corridor, everywhere else in Canada it leases access to Canadian National's (CN) network and a small portion of Canadian Pacific Kansas City's (CPKC) network-one of the stipulations in the _CN Commercialization Act_ (1995), which saw the government owned (crown corporation) CN sold to the private sector, was that CN would, in perpetuity, allow VIA Rail to use its track with minimum routing delays. Canada should take a page from the U.K. and nationalise its rail infrastructure, so that it can be updated and modernised, making the system available to more users, creating competition (and revenue for the system). Roads and highways are already public assets, so too should railway infrastructure-it will pay for itself if managed correctly. Lease access to the railway network to private commercial freight/passenger services, and prioritise passenger rail use over freight. Then we can electrify the national network and double-track the prairie and Northern Ontario mainlines¹ to make the system more efficient, for everyone. We also need to reclaim abandoned right-of-ways and rebuild our networks, where feasible, to bring services to rural communities. Reconnecting rural communities to passenger rail networks will contribute to their revitalisation, encouraging city-dwellers to move to more livable (and affordable) rural communities while enjoying affordable rail access to larger cities. Rail is by far the most efficient mode of transportation, and when convenient and efficient passenger rail services are provided, most will choose to take the train, than deal with traffic congestion²-particularly high-speed inter-city business travel that would reduce overall travel times when you factor-in the travel time to/from a metropolitan city centre downtown, to a local airport, with its post 9/11 45-60 minute domestic preflight check-in and security screening requirements-no such requirements exist for passenger rail services (arrive at the train station 5-minutes before departure, and off you go). For example: I estimate it takes a business person about 3-½ hrs to travel between downtown Calgary and downtown Edmonton (by air) for an in-person business trip (oddly enough, about the same amount of time it takes to travel between the two cities by car). A high-speed passenger rail line along the Queen Elizabeth II Hwy (Hwy 2) right-of-way, between downtown Calgary (Calgary Tower station) and downtown Edmonton (say, a new underground station at 109th St NW, between Jasper and 102 Ave NW), and with a top speed of 300 km/h (average speed of 200+ km/h, given a 1-2 minute stop at Red Deer), and the trip could be achieved in about 1-½ hrs. - ¹ Most double-track initiatives on CN/CP mainlines begun in the 70s were scaled back in the 90s because it was too costly to maintain them, given the relatively low volume of traffic. Some double-track sections were actually removed and returned to single-track lines. ² The solution to traffic congestion IS NOT wider highways, which invites more traffic. It's getting vehicles off the road, by providing alternative and convenient incentives to travel.

@@MelioraCogito well stated.. I wasn't JUST thinking of public transport in my statement though. Freight services would be cheaper as well. And I absolutely agree with the expanding and bringing back rail. My point is that there is tones of money being collected, with no options, and no plan. There's been a plan for about 13 years to run a 'new' line between Toronto and Ottawa through Peterborough/Perth. The right of way is already there. THey've done nothing but talk and spend money on consultants.

And now they have the most extensive high speed rail network in the world. We've stagnated.

I love this idea! Truly brilliant

The Bud cars are a huge part of the appeal and lore of the Canadian. It will be a sad day to see them gone. You're idea is exactly the way forward. Rebuilding the cars is the way to go.

lol the workers and their union are asking for new trainsets, you make it seem they can’t get modern dome cars because Via Rail has some in storage

Budd built the cars to last alright, and certainly stainless steel construction was beneficial to CP (who ordered the bulk of the VIA long distance fleet today) when they purchased the cars. But even the engineers at Budd never dreamed their cars would still be rolling 70+ years later, and they didn't account for metal fatigue. As much as I love these cars and the nostalgia behind them, the cars will become far more expensive to maintain and keep rolling. They have about 10 years worth of service left, and it takes 10 years to design, build prototypes, test, implement changes and build the rest of the fleet. We _NEED_ to start that process NOW.

@@FridayNightFilmsCA What they could do is hire a company like Bombardier to make new cars that are identical to the Budd cars in terms of appearance and interiors, they could even use the old design blueprints, just with more modern equipment.

You mean, _‘Hold my Canadian beer, which is waaay better than your American beer…’_ 🥴

Americans contend their entire "infrastructure" foundation is crumbling. They have no idea! Even their secondary and tertiary highways have lanes, bridges, signage and exit ramps that are nothing short of stunning.

Shouldn’t say that ! I’m not Canadian but I love the Canadian rails , yes it is sad to see that

GO TRAIN IS THE BEST AS A CANDIAN ASIDE FROM WHEN PEOPLE PUT THEIR BEAR FEET ON THE SEATS

@@ttteproductions7609 Can you recommend where people with "Bear feet" can find suitable paw/footwear for their condition?

Good luck expropriating enough private property to run a new rail line

plenty of abaondoned rail line sections we can could recover. like the grank trunk railways@@juliogonzo2718

Even Africa has high speed rail now. Let that sink in.

@@juliogonzo2718they literally are using a former decommissioned railway which at the moment is used as trail and sharing eighth of ways from other freight companies

Here in the US we have the same problem. Amtrak only owns the track between Boston and Washington, D.C. Everything else is owned by the freight railroads. Some railroads are better than others. BNSF (the old Santa Fe and Burlington Northern) has installed double and triple main tracks across much of their systems, which gives more capacity.

Mulroney Privatised Canadian National, Air Canada, and cut a ignorant portion of Via Rail routes

The tracks being used for freight is not the problem. The problem is our failure to invest in passenger rail ROWs. If we take away freight rail capacity then shipping across our large country turns in to more long distance trucking, which is a massive downgrade too. We really, really benefit from having a strong freight rail network. We can have both, but we need to invest in it. Blaming the freight trains is a distraction from our failure to invest.

Cp owns a few miles of track as well, it's the tracks that are laid rail side up (kidding). The number one and two are priority, it might be that they put the passenger in the hole for a 15000 foot freight,which needs a long sideing and a lot of time and fuel to lift his train again. The via pretty much a sports car, I really want to c the "private sector" run a 200kmh train across the prairies with all the unprotected rural crossings at grade.😂

That’s a really good point. New isn’t always better.

The problem is that these part are extremely old. To replace every worn out part you would probably replace over 90% of the rolling stock. And newer stuff, while having some hiccups, are much easier to maintain. The new Chargers are much better than the old venture cars.

@@Kishanth.J They aren't easier to maintain though. Some train companies are literally locked out of their trains because a cheap part broke and they have to pay to have that part reprogrammed. If they found a manufacturer that isn't evil I'd agree with you.

The tracks have been updated with 139 pound rail (per metre) to be able to carry the heavy loads of coal, wheat, etc. Years ago the rail was only 90 pounds.

Tracks get replaced by Canadian National, the difference is that the tracks aren’t rated for faster speeds like the ones used in Ontario

Loveee old trains !

Yeah the e and f units were sideline by the sdp40f before being supplemented by the pooches before being sideline by the f40s before those were sideline by the genesis and now that's starting to be sidelined by the chargers the gg1 and metrolineers emu made way for the aem7 before that was sideline for the acs64 with the accela being sidelined for the liberty whenever that will be the steam heat coaches made way for the amfleet and now those are planned to be replace by the venture cars amtrak may be rather unreliable and slow on long distance trains but atleast they make a effort

No railway museum in Canada has that kind of money to spend on acquiring these old cars. Most can barely keep the stuff they currently have from being scrapped.

Quebec City and Montreal are onboard with Via Rail HFR, hell they even want it to be HSR. It’s just now Ontario and the federal government to decide

And we have a rail factory in La Pocatière (Alstom, was a Bombardier plant few years ago). Yet that town has a very quaint and barebones rail station for a train that passes twice a week at 4:30 AM.

The US isnt any better and Amtrak will soon have to look for a replacement for it's bi level passenger cars as they have are aging out!

Too wealthy for our own good to the point we'd rather invest money into highways over railways as the auto lobby somehow convinced everyone that roads are cheaper. Privatization of freight and with it, the train tracks did not help either. Neoliberalism isn't good for this stuff.

@@jacksonwhittier3646, Amtrak's already buying and implementing new Viewliner passenger cars from CAF as a part of the modernization effort spearheaded by President Biden; where did you get your info from, your butt? Also, many of the passenger cars that Amtrak got from Budd at least date from the mid-to-late '70's; these cars date from the *_1940's_* , and are past their due date.

Two of North America's largest Class I railways are Canadian: Canadian National Railway (CNR or simply CN) and the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (CPKC). • CNR (est 1919), headquartered in Montréal, PQ, is the 4th largest railway in North America, and owns about 20'400 route miles (32'830 km) of track, of which about 20% is located in the U.S.-including a mainline route between the Gulf of Mexico (New Orleans, LA and Mobile, AL), to the Canadian border at Detroit, Port Huron, Sault Ste. Marie, MI, and International Falls, MN. • CPKC (est 2023), was created when Canada's oldest railway, Canadian Pacific Railway (est. 1881) purchased Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) (then the 7th largest railway in NA) for 31B$ in 2023-it is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. It is now the 5th largest railway in North America, edging out Norfolk Southern with about 20'000 route miles (32'187 km) of track in seven Canadian provinces and several U.S. and Mexican states-it is the only North American railroad that provides direct service routes to all three countries (Canada, Mexico and the United States). The only “losers” are those too lazy to do their own research.

@@MelioraCogito, you nailed it (and them.)

The high speed rail route is not using the same trains for it will be running on electric overhead wires not diesel, and that’s a huge investment compared to new trains millions against billions

I can imagine younger people looking at these cars and saying "Wait... these were used till WHEN?!"

I just hope they do what NJ Transit did when they retired the old commuter cars that were in service since the 30s when they were retired in 1984 hundreds of Museum railroads bought them up by the hundreds which made NJ Transit way more money than they would have gotten from scrapping them ​@@coastaku1954

That is a very good point. I was in Thailand and it took a train 13 hours to go 600km from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.

@@andrewmccoll1582 yeah, we also have summer-season train line between Osijek and Split, cca 600 km, and it takes around 13 hours. But it runs overnight, so that's kind of camouflage ,lol.

News flash for you. VIA Rail Canada is a Crown Corporation that relies on funding from the Government of Canada. The various political parties that have formed government over the past 40+ years have consistently kept VIA alive, but only just, so they wouldn't be blamed for killing the passenger train in Canada. For such a major purchase, they need the funding from their shareholder. (hint, that's the Government of Canada)

⁠​⁠@@joncalon7508Please pardon my ignorance. I am not familiar with Canada. I appreciate your insight and I will learn from this.

That is not a federal issue, that's a provincial one. Ontario has lots of ONroute rest stops on their highways. The other provinces could build their own.

Love them

I mean, if you just want to take the train for fun. Then go for it. Who cares if it's fifty bucks more than car/plane.

Herd of what? Buffalo?

@@cdnmetelhead4013 I dunno, buffalo makes pretty good money. They must mean a herd of camels.

@@MegaMechfifty bucks? The VIA from Toronto to Vancouver starts at about $650 per person, and tops out at over $10,000 per person.

@@DarkpawTheWolf That is like $50 more than flying

We need High Speed Rail, like actual high speed rail, and we should have build it 60+ years ago when Japan built the Shinkansen High Speed Line, but no, Canada funded highways, meanwhile VIA Rail had to deal with experimental trains that were cool, but failed, and had to close down dozens of lines

@@coastaku1954We have been pushing for high speed rail for 50 years and it never comes. Just improve 100 crossings and a dozen bridges on the existing line and stop wasting the 100 MPH track that has already been there for 40 years. A full blown high speed rail is estimated at $12Billion so in reality that would be $20 Billion plus you have to segregate a portion of the existing line to make space for the rail that would only move passengers. Streamlining the existing main line also moves freight and intermodal faster. Maximizing what is there is 1/100th the cost and time.

I thought it was great but they old ones are very outdated. Still much nicer than driving or taking a plane

Years ago passenger trains were subsidized by the Post Office. Every passenger train carried mail. The railroad made money even if there were no human passengers. That ended in the US in 1966, and that's when passenger trains began disappearing. European passenger trains are still subsidized by the governments. That's why they still have good service and we don't.

@@dfirth224European passenger trains are also public and private but the tracks and infrastructure is owned by the government and leased to companies

VIA did look at purchasing Superliners back in the day, and even tested them on a route from Edmonton to Winnipeg back in the 1980's. Back then, we figured that a full-on rebuild of the existing stainless steel fleet would meet needs, and would cost less than equippping the fleet with Superliners. Canadian governments have been historically cheap with passenger rail, and consistently have demonstrated that fact - it's shows. From those 1980 days, we've seen the route network cut in half and then hacked back further as time went on, and the train frequencies on the remaining routes went from daily to tri-weekly. It's now even less than that on the long distance routes where if you want to go from anywhere on the Canadian's route to anywhere else on that route that you have just two departures a week to rely on.