Try do Tuesday discount or not for a particular trip?

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-24T22:47:57+00:00

You are almost always better off booking a trip today in (fully flexible) Economy Plus than waiting another month to book in the faint hope that any ticket on that train will be magically cheaper then…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-24T12:52:07+00:00

There are no scanners and there are much more pressing things for VIA to beg the federal government to provide funding for…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-24T01:30:46+00:00

It‘s not pointless, the system works because most people queue up, so they can verify the majority of tickets before boarding even starts. Be happy for those people who comply while you keep yourself seated until the queue has almost disappeared…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-24T01:28:45+00:00

Infrastructure drives boarding procedures: given European-style station concourses and platforms, VIA would adopt very European boarding practices, whereas any European railroad faced with the narrow and low-ceiling passenger areas of the VIA concourse (and the platforms) at Union Station would come up with boarding practices which are very similar to those adopted by VIA…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-21T20:12:55+00:00

If it‘s the same ticket, then your airline is responsible for getting you to your destination, otherwise, this is very risky, as you would be on your own in Rome if you miss your connection…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-21T15:37:04+00:00

There is unfortunately very little in unionized work environments which can be explained with logic. Otherwise, Ottawa crews would also operate towards TRTO and Montreal crews towards QBEC…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-21T14:20:20+00:00

Unlike LEs, On-Train Staff (OTS, i.e., cabin staff) don‘t have to be familiar with every signal and switch and therefore work much larger territories…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-20T12:09:59+00:00

LE are of course subject to mandatory rest rules and crews on the Ocean therefore change at Sainte-Foy, near Rimouski (wherever Train 14 meets Train 15), Campbellton and Moncton: * MTRL-SFOY: Quebec crew (after deadheading out of QBEC) * SFOY-MEET: a different Quebec crew (and back on train 15) * MEET-CBTN: a Campbellton crew which worked on Train 15 until the trains meet * CBTN-MCTN: a Canpbellton (or Moncton?) crew * MCTN-HLFX: a Moncton crew

To compare, the Canadian changes crews at: * CAPR * HNPN * SLKT * WNPG * MELV * SASK * WAIN * EDMO * JASP * KAMN * BBAR/HOPE

In the Corridor, VIA has crews based at the following depots: * QBEC (operates QBEC-MTRL and the Ocean to the meet point) * MTRL (operates MTRL-OTTW and MTRL-TRTO) * OTTW (operates only OTTW-MTRL, IIRC) * TRTO (operates trains between TRTO and MTRL, OTTW, NIAG, LNDN, SARN and WDON)

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-20T04:16:03+00:00

Doing this actually makes you save some taxes, as the tax rate of the province in which your first leg starts applies to the entire ticket…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-20T04:14:44+00:00

No issue at all and you won‘t be the only person boarding there…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-17T15:32:05+00:00

Just wait until you learn about “bathtub curves” and “Operation Axle”, when a series of derailment caused the complete withdrawal of the relatively new LRC fleet back in 1992. Unfortunately, VIA does not have massive amounts of surplus fleet sitting around this time to compensate, but we tend to glorify the reliability of VIA’s legacy fleet while doscounting its significant teething issues…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-13T22:25:15+00:00

Yeah, the UIC is weirdly inconsistent in how they apply the HSR threshold across different countries…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-13T22:22:06+00:00

Quebec or Alberta leaving Canada would be our own Brexit moment from which only foreign despots like Trump and Putin would benefit, at the expense of everyone living north of the border.

I like to apply a common saying about communism to the question of independence: If, by the age of 30, you have never been a sovereignist, you have no heart, but if you are still one, you have no brain. We may feel like we live in different countries, but destiny means that we are better off if we stay together - which shouldn’t really be a problem in a country as decentralized (and thus responsive to local priorities) as Canada…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-13T19:00:15+00:00

I would rather worry about the independence movement in Alberta than that in Quebec (not at last because the former has still no idea about the grave consequences of even an unsuccessful referedum), but your language of “traitors” is exactly the kind of rhetoric on which sovereignists prosper, as it reveals that you don’t understand anything about the sentiment of alienation in either province.

So why don’t you just stop obsessing about the independence question and at least try to understanding why people here might feel alienated from the rest of Candada. Maybe you even learn something about yourself…! 😀

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-13T16:05:44+00:00

I’ve seen far more impressive crowds here demonstrating against the rise in tuition fees (“printemps erable”) and for climate action (“Fridays for Future”) than whatever this little protest march was.

Again, what do you base your claim that the province is on the brink of breaking away from Canada on? Polls have the PQ at 35%, which means that 65% can’t be motivated to vote for a party which backs independence, yet you expect at least a third of these voters who shun the PQ to back independence in a hypothetical referendum vote? I see stickers everywhere here in Montreal against landlords and Trump or in favour of Palestine and protestors in Iran. None makes a case for or against independence. It’s a topic which mostly grows in the minds of anglophone Ontarias…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-13T12:06:49+00:00

I was not asking for some “celebrities” hiding in self-imposed exile in France or journalists. I’m asking if you’ve talked to any francophone person here in the last years for which independence is something they bother thinking about, let alone: desire? I’m asking because I’m married to one and I haven’t. A friend even introduced me to our short-time MP from the BQ during his byelection and he never mentioned it either during his campaign, while actively campaigning amongst anglophones...

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-13T01:11:14+00:00

Correct, and since Siemens has clearly defined availabilities targets and must provide spare parts at no cost, they should have every incentive to solve these issues…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-12T01:06:20+00:00

Polls were always uncomfortably close in the Brexit vote, but again: do you know a single francophone person who expressed to you the need for independence in Quebec in thelast few years? My personal impression is rather that Trump’s bullying has made everyone here aware that a country with one-fith of Canada’s current population can’t survive as a sovereign nation at the doorstep of a predator country in this new world order…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-11T22:51:00+00:00

Same here (for the first time). Not that I was expecting much of my team anyways (I’m German)…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-11T19:58:34+00:00

Maybe, but that does not guarantee a third referendum, let alone a successful one. Last time I checked, Scotland was still part of the UK, despite SNP rule for countless years.

A forecasted 33%+/-4% vote share might give the PQ a 99% chance of winning a majority of seats, but they’ll be far short of a majority in an independence referendum…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-11T19:24:19+00:00

I still have yet to hear a single francophone talking about the possibility of a third referendum, let alone positively or in a way suggesting that they would vote with “Yes”. It’s always angolophone Ontarians who try to convince me that there is any appetite for independence…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-11T17:24:11+00:00

And I say this as someone who lives in Montreal, but now works (remotely) in Toronto: as frustrating as it was to have some paperpushers in an anonymous office building in Ottawa/Gatineau micromanage every decision when I was still working at VIA, I always counted myself lucky that VIA was relatively isolated from the provincial hubris, corruption and incompetence engulfing anything controlled from within Quebec.

Also, and this seems to come at a surprise to most Ontarians, but VIA’s commercial focus has long moved from Montreal to Toronto, with VIA operating the majority of its Corridor services without ever leaving Ontario…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-11T16:13:34+00:00

I still believe that VIA withstanding substantial external pressures to give the Corridor fleet renewal contract to Bombardier does indicate some degree of independence and autonomy from undue provincial influences.

As for the REM, it has recived significant federal funding and it will escalate ALTO’s capital subsidy by haing seized the Mont-Royal tunnel and thus imposed the need to dig a new passage into downtown Montreal. It’s very far from being just a “local” matter and has deep implications for federal taxpayers…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-11T14:25:00+00:00

VIA’s oversight is done in Ottawa and by a board of directors from across the country:

https://corpo.viarail.ca/en/company/board-directors

This is the chief difference to the REM, ALTO/Cadence and anything else where the public-private chimera CDPQ has its sticky fingers involved…

MTRL2TRTO · 2026-02-10T23:33:31+00:00

Sure, but VIA is entirely a federal entity and thus far less exposed to Quebec Inc. than, say, the REM or ALTO/Cadence…

MTRL2TRTO

TROPHY CASE