Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Trains in Canada slower now than 40 years ago

This is really frustrating.

In 1968, CN's Turbo Train started service and easily reached 269 km/h on its first commercial Montreal-Toronto run. Despite some technical issues, the trains operated until the 80's and the express Montreal-Toronto trip took 4 hours and routinely hit 160 km/h.

In 1982 the Turbo Trains were replaced by LRC trainsets (operated by VIA). The engines have been replaced, but the passenger cars remain in use today. They achieved a maximum speed of 208 km/h. In commercial service, however, due to limiations of the tracks and wear caused by these trainsets, they are limited to 160km/h. Today, an express Montreal-Toronto trip takes 4 hours and 30 minutes.

Does anyone else see a problem here? And this doesn't even address the fact that passenger service doesn't really even exist east of Ontario.