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I'm curious about which train routes can essentially do through-running in central station. In my mind, it seems like it would make sense for several of the long distance Via Rail routes* to at extend to Ottawa. This would seemingly make sense to have a direct one seat ride to the national capital and it'd extend train frequencies along that route without adding much total trip time.
I took the Adirondack back in January, down to NYC. It needs major upgrades. It got stuck at customs for nearly two hours due to border agents having to get on board and check every single passenger's docs. For some reason, the train station in Montreal doesn't have border agents? Or was it just a one-off thing and I was unlucky?
Second, the train conductors were... quite bad. I understand that Amtrak doesn't use assigned seating, but every time I've used it (which has been quite often as we love to ride when time permits) the conductors form separate lines, one for solo riders and another for parties of two or more, that way it ensures parties are kept together. I boarded with my son, and were it not for one friendly old lady who gave up her seat, we would have been stuck sitting in separate cars. He is 12. Not acceptable.
Third, the ride was beautiful, sure, but from Montreal down to Albany, it was PAINFULLY SLOW! I'm talking like 30mph. And despite going that slow, the ride was still quite rough. How old are those tracks?? It took 7 hours to get to Albany! It's a 3 hour drive. Greyhound does it in under 5 hours.
Once we hit Albany, of course, there things got MUCH better, as they switch locomotives and run on modern tracks, so they can reach speeds of I think 120mph or so.
But yeah... I really hope they do something about this, and soon. Too many people travel the I-87 corridor between Montreal and NYC for it to be this bad.
Night and day difference between Via from Montreal to Toronto and Amtrak from Montreal to NYC.
Via from Montreal to Toronto is 5 hours
Amtrak from Montreal to NYC is 11 hours.
I took the Adirondack back in January, down to NYC. It needs major upgrades. It got stuck at customs for nearly two hours due to border agents having to get on board and check every single passenger's docs. For some reason, the train station in Montreal doesn't have border agents? Or was it just a one-off thing and I was unlucky?
Two hours at the border is quite normal, even more if one of the passengers has an immigration issue. It's been like that for decades. Amtrak is probably the worst rail service in the world. They don't own the majority of their tracks and they rely on freight lines, who have priority. The Boston-Washington DC corridor is "fair" but the rest of their network is terrible.
"Amtrak, when you absolutely don't have to be there on time."
I'm curious about which train routes can essentially do through-running in central station. In my mind, it seems like it would make sense for several of the long distance Via Rail routes* to at extend to Ottawa. This would seemingly make sense to have a direct one seat ride to the national capital and it'd extend train frequencies along that route without adding much total trip time.
I may be misunderstanding your post, but Viarail trains do indeed travel to Ottawa. (?)
I mean it as in serving the station and passing through it rather than terminating or starting the service in Montreal. There are several train services that terminate in Montreal Central Station and I'm wondering if there's a track diagram that shows the geometry and direction in which they're terminating in Central Station as I think it'd make some sense to extend these out a little bit to not terminate in Montreal but instead to extend just a bit further.
Maybe this answers the question partly, but Montréal (Gare Centrale) is not configured as a "pass-through" station. It is an "in-and-out" station so trains coming from the west (Ottawa and Toronto) would still need to turn northwards into Centrale, and then come back out (with a change in locomotive?) to continue their way eastwards across the St Lawrence River and its south shore towards Quebec City.
Ottawa Station on the other hand is a "pass-through" station.
So is Toronto (Union) I am pretty sure.
At least they're configured that way. Especially in Ottawa's case, not sure if any VIA trains actually pass through there with only a stop, as opposed to having Ottawa as the end of the line.
Maybe this answers the question partly, but Montréal (Gare Centrale) is not configured as a "pass-through" station. It is an "in-and-out" station so trains coming from the west (Ottawa and Toronto) would still need to turn northwards into Centrale, and then come back out (with a change in locomotive?) to continue their way eastwards across the St Lawrence River and its south shore towards Quebec City.
Ottawa Station on the other hand is a "pass-through" station.
So is Toronto (Union) I am pretty sure.
At least they're configured that way. Especially in Ottawa's case, not sure if any VIA trains actually pass through there with only a stop, as opposed to having Ottawa as the end of the line.
In the United States, an “in-and-out” railway station is called a “stub-end terminal”.
In the United States, an “in-and-out” railway station is called a “stub-end terminal”.
I actually made up the lingo so don't take that as definitive Canadian terminology.
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