I heard through the grapevine that passenger service was going to be reintroduced from Calgary to Edmonton. Any truth to this rumour?
Heard the same rumour every year since 1978, never happen unless they want to travel at 39 miles per hour, to convert to high speed would cost more than constructing the tar sands.
Land is/was being assembled with the intention of an HSR line being built. also certain road structures on the south side of Edmonton were built with an eye to this service. But a new HSR line would have to be built on a "greenfield’ route as it would not be compatible with the existing route, designed and built in 1892, with the best practices of RR engineering at that time. Including something like 200 grade crossings. Over one per mile on that route.
Land conditions north of Calgary present another problem, as there are a number of locations where it is too soft too support an HSR route. Airdrie, north of Calgary, at one time had the thickest file of complaints against the CPR, in the Montreal fileroom, of any jurisdiction in Canada. They were insisting on a commuter service to Calgary, long before its population could justify such a service, in the hopes it would attract the necessary number of people. When this didn’t pan out, they redeveloped their central area to include no provision for any type of railway activity at all, including businesses that might ship goods by rail. Since 1980 their municipal footprint has also increased significantly.
This expansion has really bottlenecked the choice of routes outside the north end of Calgary. The line would follow the CPR Red Deer Sub. alignment from downtown Calgary up to about Balzac, but then have to run almost due west for a considerable distance before it could head north past the west side of Airdrie, but east of Cremona. We are talking a route from there that would then parallel Highway #2 that in some places would be 50 miles to the west. Red Deer passengers would have to travel west of Sylvan Lake to catch a train. It would come back toward the Leduc
Bruce, who ran this passenger service in the past?
When was it discontinued?
Dayliner service was run by Via with CP crews until sometime in the 80’s. I rode it in 79 0r 80, on a trip on which the Dayliner died pulling out of South Edmonton and was replaced by a CP road switcher.
The service had problems with a couple of very nasty level crossing incidents and an accident involving a mainline switch left in the wrong position but like the rest of the Canadian passenger rail network was killed by government cuts.
Passenger service discontinued in Sept. 1985, Called the Calgary-Edmonton Railway, the CPR took over, the corridor is still referred to by C&E because of it’s history. For years the train was called the Chinook and was pulled by a 4-4-4 Jubilee type, F-2-a, only 5 were built in Montreal, reports of this locomotive travelling at 100mph were not uncommon, they had 80 inch drive wheels, their regular speeds were usually 60mph but unofficial accounts of the F-2 travelling at almost twice that rate when making up time or under exceptional circumstances. Dayliners were used after steam and were very successful.
The high speed rail discussions are now in the hands of the GOVERNMENT so you can imagine in what century this will be discussed again. You can be assured the C.P.R. has no intention in getting in the hi-speed business.
It was an RDC service from the late fifties to the end. Twice daily until the mid-seventies, and one round trip after that. Unfortunately, because it was the only scheduled train on an otherwise freight line, it began to attract an number of people who committed suicide at the many grade crossings. It was after two or three of these crashes in Aug-Sept of 1985 that caused the Federal Government to agree to allow for the discontinuance of the service. They recognized the stress this was placing on employees. Ridership numbers were not good, but as far as I know this was the only case for discontinuance that ever involved another reason. There was a divided highway between the two cities. If you pushed it, the trip could be done under three hours, whereas the train’s schedule was four and a half.
This train’s discontinuance was significant for our family. The line was still TT&TO dispatched. With no more passenger service, the government allowed CP to switch to a forerunner of OCS (Occupancy Control System), US TWC. This allowed the company to lay off 12 men from the Operator/Dispatcher Seniority list. Rather than lay the bottom 12 off, only to have to retrain others later, CP offered the top 12 men on the list 70% of their pay until they were 65, if they would resign immediately. My Dad’s last day of work was November 15, 1985. He retired from what he considered to be the best job on the railway, 1st trick East Dispatcher, which was the transcontinental mainline from Calgary to Swift Current, SK, and the remaining branch lines running off of it. Most importantly to him though, was that only the first 60 miles east of Calgary out to Gleichen
There were still two scheduled passenger trains each way (except only one on Saturday) even at the end in 1985. By then of course they were VIA trains, although I believe CPR provided the operating crew. They left Calgary and Edmonton about 08:30 and 17:00, taking roughly 3 hours to cover the 190 miles, including numerous flag and regular stops at most of the towns along the line.
Each train was a single RDC. As already noted, one of the factors influencing their discontinuance was the number of grade crossing accidents. But in the last year or so, all too often “mechanical issues” meant VIA ran a bus instead of a train, perhaps 30% or more of the time. I suspect the poor availability was a result of systemic problems, more than just aging equipment.
It is hard to build up ridership when you don’t provide the advertised service. A traveller who is satisfied with a bus environment will make that his first choice.
John
John
That didn’t seem right to me. The newest TT I could find when CP still ran the service was for 1970. By then it was already one train each way, taking 3 hrs. 40 mins. And the running times slid as the years progressed, due to the equipment issues you cited. The equipment barely met the minimums required by law, and the passenger comforts were bad. One RDC left Edmonton each morning at 8:30 and another left Calgary at 15:30…I’m guessing they had two RDC’s in service, based in Alyth and it would overnight in Edmonton.
I’m not sure if old VIA TT’s are on the web, but it is too late to look for them now anyway. I might try tomorrow.
Bruce
I shouldn’t post so late at night. I did find TT’s for 1971, '72, and '73. Service was back up to two trains a day, with a running time of 3 hrs. 30 mins. NB, and 3 hrs. 25 mins. SB. Do you suppose it is because they were running with the prevailing wind?
Bruce
I checked my CPR passenger system timetables for that era, and it appears that the frequency changed dramatically around 1970.
The summer 1969 had three daily trains each way. The fall/winter timetable (1969/70) cut it back to a single daily train, and that was still the case in the 1970/71 timetable. I am missing a couple of timetables, but by the summer of 1972 it had reverted to two trains during the week, and only one each way on Saturday and Sunday.
Up until the fall of 1972 they went into downtown Edmonton. Then they stopped using the High Level bridge and trains terminated at South Edmonton
John