One morning on one of my daily pre-heatwave hiatus walks down by the VIA Rail mainline out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the bobcat that for years has been rumoured to be slinking through the fields and forests of Ottawa. But no, on closer inspection it turned out to be a Bengal cat, which is a cross between an Asian leopard cat and a domestic cat.
It's odd to see one on the loose given how much they cost, and this one looks in good shape for a cat living rough.
Over the weekend I was chatting with a neighbour who lives near the tracks and asked him if he'd ever seen the cat. Indeed he had, and the cat has a name: Gaspar (yes, with a G and not a C as was emphasized to me) !
It turns out Gaspar has a long and complex backstory, but suffice it to say some cat loving people are trying to catch him so he doesn't get into trouble in the wild. He's wily though, and so far attempts have been unsuccessful. For various reasons it's suspected he's already got a living arrangement with somebody and doesn't want to get snagged by anyone else.
Stay tuned to this cat channel for more breaking cat updates :-)
Ok, come to think of it, after our last trip there is one thing that should be easy for VIA Rail to update since I assume all that's involved is computer programming (oh, is that all :-) ): the in-car journey status display. You can see them attached to our car's ceiling in the photo above.
Here's a close up. Yeah, the clarity of my zoom isn't the greatest, and there's a bit of in-car motion to further shake things up, but the key thing is clear: the static VIA logo takes up a lot of space and crams the important upcoming destination status information to the bottom of the display. Also, that little arrow supposedly showing where we are doesn't move so it doesn't actually give an indication of where the train is. The train's speed is almost illegible in the lower right corner.
That's my black-and-white sketch for a slightly updated journey status display. The little red arrow is meant to move as the train gets closer to the next station, and ETAs are shown under the upcoming stations. Lots of refinement is possible and needed of course, but that is the basic idea to make the display a little more readable and a little more informative.
Before I go, this wouldn't be one of my VIA posts if it didn't include a video. This time though I'll mix things up and leave you with a TTC video that'll take you to the far reaches of Scarborough:
We made a short trip to Toronto last week to visit a friend and Christmas shop. As usual we took the train. And we loved the way.....
...but the speed, not so much.
I was going to go into a whole nerd-a-palooza thing and analyze the bejesus out of our trip's distance, speed profile, average speed, top speed, trip time, delays, and so on, and so on. Forget that. Let's just say the quality of the trip was excellent - again, we loved the way - but our arrival in Toronto was 45 minutes late, and our return was 43 minutes late. Average speed either way, 88 km/h.
Sadly, this is not that out of the ordinary in our experience, even before VIA imposed speed reductions. However, nothing serious caused those delays, just the usual slowing for level crossings, waiting for other freights and passenger trains to pass, and we even stopped for the CPKC Holiday Train (ok, that was a pleasant stop). I eventually went with the flow and used the stoppages to squirt post cataract operation eye drops in my eye instead of trying to do so while the train was in motion, which invariably resulted in me squirting more drops on my face instead of in my eye. Who woulda thought those delays would have medical benefits :-)
And the other thing that's not out of the ordinary in our experience: good onboard service, good food, a friendly crew, and a good environment. And no, I'm not paid by VIA Rail to say that. So far so good in this department.
Look, maybe those VIA Rail commercials I don't like actually work. From my completely anecdotal, unscientific eavesdropping I heard some interesting comments from neighbouring passengers. Outward bound there was a small group of twenty-something women on a business trip, and upon arrival in Toronto one asked another, who apparently was riding the train for the first time in her life, what she thought of the trip. Her reply was an enthusiastic, "It was relaxing." On the return trip a twenty-something businessman told his seat mate this was the first train trip he'd taken since childhood, that he splurged to ride business class and was quite happy he did. Ok, so maybe VIA Rail does know its target market. I hope they can convince lots of young people to take the train using whatever messaging they think will work.
If anyone from VIA is reading this, look, you've got to make the travel time thing reliable, predictable, and so set-your-watch-to-it boring that every passenger takes arrival times for granted. You've got a lot of the other pieces of the puzzle in place, but that big one is one you desperately need to figure out.
In an April 20, 1975 letter to Railroad Modeler editor Denis Dunning, E. L. Moore had this to say about his recent cataract surgery:
Right now I'm trying to get used to wearing cataract glasses . . . had one eye castrated, (and at the price, $1250, the expression is apt), and now one to go.
I recently had cataract surgery on one eye. I'm fine. And now one to go.
And speaking of going. Continuing in the vein of retro ad campaigns for VIA Rail, might I suggest the legendary Gino Vannelli be given the marketing portfolio. It's a passenger rail service after all, and an excellent slogan is built into one of Mr. Vannelli's greatest hits: People Gotta Move. His qualifications include appearing on Soul Train:
In this rare footage Mr. Vannelli explains how he got the Soul Train gig, and got to work with Stevie Wonder:
I saw this VIA Rail ad pop up in my YouTube recommendations yesterday. In some respects it's charming, but in others it's ripe for satire. It comes at a time when VIA is experiencing considerable problems with its new train sets, the ones being promoted in the video. The most chronic being that travel times along the Québec-Windsor corridor are longer because the trains have to reduce speed on the approach to many level crossings in order to trigger the signals. According to VIA's website they say this translates into a 15 to 45 minute delay, although I have experienced longer ones because the problem with triggering crossing signals isn't the only event that can cause delays. Eric Gagnon has written extensively about VIA's woes and his posts are worth reading if you want all the details (see here and here for example; all his VIA related posts can be found here).
Into this troubled scene the federal government recently announced they want to introduce high-speed rail to Canada. Given the state of passenger rail travel in Canada, from VIA on down to numerous city rail systems, combined with the lack of seriousness in the elite classes, I'd be surprised if high-speed rail appeared in my lifetime, if ever. Believe me, I would very much like to see high-speed rail here for many reasons.
And I would very much like to see something like what's shown in this ad by Japan Rail that Galen forwarded to me not long ago.
I've enjoyed that video more times than I care to admit. Even though I don't understand Japanese the message is loud and clear. On the VIA side, this video is typical of its messaging:
People who know us know we take VIA a lot. Most think we're crazy to do so. The ones who are curious don't ask us how VIA is dealing with society's ills, but things like how much do tickets cost, how long does a trip take, have we ever been stuck in a remote area in a broken down train, is the Wi-Fi any good, and so on. Whether young or old the questions seem to be the same.
VIA usually emails me a post-trip survey, and I even recently received a questionnaire about services they should offer in the future (and how much extra I'd pay for them!). The questions always focus on amenities and social problems, never on the things I'm actually asked.
Well, I know all this is marketing and messaging on VIA's part to counteract the not wholly undeserved negative press it's getting. Is it working? I have no idea.
My preference is for more subtle, positive, forward looking, or even sentimental ads instead of the bonk-you-on-the-head while proselytizing ones we're getting. Something with vision. Only slightly tongue-in-cheek might I suggest something based on either of these Aretha Franklin masterpieces:
Or if you're looking for maybe a more train-like rhythm, I suggest this instrumental by Thom Rotella. You could cut and mix sections from it to create a video called, 'VIA's Ready', but only if you are :-)
When we went to Nova Scotia we took VIA Rail's The Ocean. The service runs from Montréal to Halifax and takes 22 hours. For us, living in Ottawa as we do, the trip took a bit longer than that once you account for the train trip from Ottawa to Montréal, a couple hours or so of layover in Montréal before The Ocean's 7pm departure, and around 3 hours of delays on The Ocean part of the trip. I can't complain though because it was a great experience.
We booked a cabin in one of the sleeper cars. They're small, but comfortable for two. There're two seats, two fold down bunks, a fold down table, cubby holes for storage, and a toilet room - it's hidden behind the open door to the corridor in this photo.
Speaking of corridors, here it is. There were a few sleeper cars in the train. Maybe 4 or 5, I lost count walking through them all. A crew member told us the train was 19 cars long.
As well as the chair and sleeper cars there was a dining car, which if you're staying in a sleeper, eating here is included in your ticket. This meant dinner on the night out, and breakfast and lunch the next day. I think my Uncle Bill would have enjoyed this.
Contrary to the image on the menu, there isn't a dome top observation car - the so-called 'Park' car - attached to this train. According to Wikipedia and the crew VIA got rid of it a couple years ago due to some operational problem with no longer having access to track they needed to turn the train around. I can appreciate the technical issues, but look, if there is anyone from VIA reading this, you really need to figure out how to bring that car back. The views from this train are one of its draws, so I suspect you're losing out by not having it. Think about this: it only took us 1 hour and 25 minutes to fly on Porter airlines on the return trip from Halifax to Ottawa, so it isn't travel time that attracts the long distance traveller.
Ok, so enough grousing :-) The dining car has a lounge car attached to either end. One has an operating canteen and the canteen in the other car is closed. That photo up there is of the one with the closed canteen.
Here's that same lounge car, but looking towards the other end. It turns out Wifi seems to be only available in these two cars. It might be available in the chair cars, but it certainly didn't work in the sleepers.
And here we are in the second lounge car during the night leg after I had had a couple of 'beverages' from the canteen :-)
The most unusual car had to be this 'Transition' car. Basically it's used to couple dissimilar cars. For such a prosaic car it's very nicely appointed with wall-to-wall carpeting and framed pictures on the walls.
I didn't get any photos of the train when we got in to Halifax station as it was late and cold and we were focused on getting to our hotel. But, the next morning I got that shot of the train in Halifax awaiting its return to Montréal.
Would I do it again? Probably not, but I had to do it once and enjoyed it very much. Although, VIA Rail, if you're listening, I'd be glad to return and do a 22+ hour build of some sort of railroad model streamed on YouTube live from The Ocean, with proper sponsorship of course :-)
The rain, sun and heat mix we've been getting so far here in very late spring has been in just the right proportions to make the landscape intensely green. That small stretch of track near the Pleasant Park level crossing is part of the same line Debra and I travelled back in January on our trip to Toronto. It's nowhere near as bleak as it was 6 months ago. The wild flowers in our backyard are reaping the benefits too.
