43 Replies to “Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting Omar Alghabra To Drive Your Train”

  1. Apparently Mussolini couldn’t even make the trains run on time. Must have been a bullet shortage. It must have been run like the Alberta Health Care system. The more money you put in, the worse it gets. The more problem solvers you hire, the bigger the problem gets.

    1. That is TOO TRUE but the very hardest concept to get across even to the smartest among us. As I’ve mentioned here a few times, Milton Friedman once did a study of hospitals and found that ouput decreased with increased inputs ($$$).

      But it’s very simple. Making do with less enhances creativity and innovation.

  2. a friend had a couple visit in T.O on Christmas eve.
    the next day their flight was cancelled. to get home to Calgary they got on a Via train to Edmonton, 60 hr trip, then 3 hrs south.
    turkey supper served onboard Christmas day,

  3. Solve the problems Scar? If they actually solved the problems, then they are no longer needed. Their first priority is job security. Their second priority is more rank. Their third priority is building an empire, and having lackeys to do their bidding. Solving the actual problems is about priority #11,000.

    1. ” Their first priority is job security. Their second priority is more rank. Their third priority is building an empire, and having lackeys to do their bidding. ”

      I have heard it said, by more than one government employee, that you measure success by how many people are “under you”.

      More more people under you, the more important you are.

  4. Via Rail is a disgrace. When something goes wrong they just leave their passengers sitting in the dark like prisoners.
    If a train was the Titanic everyone except the crew would go down with it.
    But via was broken long before the Keebler Orc came along although he probably just made it worse.
    They always blame not owning the tracks on delays yet knowing there will be delays they have no procedures in place to alleviate issues.
    And yet Via typifies the state of Canada: dysfunctional, expensive, insulting, mendacious & rude.

    2. VIA rail doesn’t own the tracks it runs on (mostly) and they don’t pay the costs required to build and maintain those tracks, so their priority is considerable less than the stuff that pays the bills.

    3. Years ago, I took the train from Geneva to Paris. While waiting to board, an announcement came on the PA that one of the arriving trains would be 1 minute late. VIA considers itself to be on time if it arrives the same day.

  5. Canadians love standing in line almost as much as they love mandates and lockdowns.. You didn’t get the memo?.. Our leaders? know full well that identity politics hiring practices is going to make everything stop sooner or later anyway.. What they have done is adjust their political platforms to account for the obvious stuff.. You cant fly, travel or ship a container.. Well that’s zero carbon.. Your sitting in the dark?.. That’s zero carbon as well.. Collapsed healthcare, that’s Covid..

    If its noticeable, if its measurable they have a ready made excuse for Canadians to think about while they are waiting in line..

    1. Canadians love standing in line…

      Combine their willingness to stand in line with their hatred of America and all things American; and Canadians would make great Soviet Citizens. A real credit to the Motherland!

      1. rd-
        Back in 2007 a bunch of us took a motorcycle ride from Flagstaff to Prudoe Bay. On the way back we went east and looked at the glaciers and Lake Louise. The only place in Canada where I didn’t feel any resentment or dislike was in Calgary. That was when I realized that most Canadians don’t like Americans.

        1. It’s Canada’s other other national sport unfortunately. I’m Canadian and after the last few years i realized i don’t like a lot of Canadians, smarmy wankers who’ll talk trash about you the second you leave the room.

        2. “That was when I realized that most Canadians don’t like Americans.”

          And most of that dislike can be attributed to jealousy, in my experience.

  6. L – To lessen the suffering of the hours of delay, Via Rail could:
    1. Offer passengers a Mike Lindell ‘My Pillow’ to rest their head on while trying to sleep.

    2. Provide passengers with free snacks e.i. chips made from cricket flour. This so when
    MPs ask if they had passenger complaints. Via Rail/Min. of Trans. Algebra:”No, only crickets”

    Note- Is the above is satire? Those w/o a sense of humour are prohibited from reading the comments section. If you don’t get it. That’s you.

  7. Never let them take away your internal combustion powered car.
    Those who want to run our lives know the best feature of electric cars is
    remote deactivation.

    1. Good Point WALTER..!!

      And that likely applies to any Late Model Gasoline and Diesel vehicles as well.
      Keep driving anything older than 2010 vehicles…
      Mines an 06 Duramax… Paid for with NO web connectivity whatsoever….not even OnStar.

    2. Someone had posted earlier that Germany is proposing to control thermostats (remotely) to keep energy use in check.

  9. Lesson learned … we should have DRIVEN our car from SF to LA for Christmas … because Southwest CANCELLED our flight from LA to SF tomorrow. So we had to scramble and couldn’t get a flight till Sunday … for $450.00 base fare for two of us … 4x our original fare. Yeah … great business move by Southwest … give ALL their staff the Holidays off … then gouge their customers who need to get home in a hurry.

    It’s a brutal 8hr drive … but at least I’m in control

    Meanwhile … Pete Buttigag is taking it up the rear, while his/his twin girls sleep in the bassinet.

  10. They will take your privately owned cars the same way they took your once cheapo cigarettes, via some sort of burdensome “road user miles recorded” taxes or an equivalent clone. In case no one has noticed, the majority of today’s gasoline powered, short lived, car-appliances are of plunging quality and increasingly unrepairable complexity.

    1. The same way they’ve taken our home energy use … just keep cranking up rates. Either turn off the lights and turn down the thermostat … or go into intractable poverty. The left has learned that economic punishment … economic disincentive … is the BEST way to FORCE behavior. And the voting sheep keep electing their own punishers

  11. Problem with VIA:

    1) They lose money every year, on every trip.
    2) they don’t have enough crews, so if problem occurs, recrewing trains is a problem
    3) they don’t run on tracks that they own, thus they are a lower priority than both GO Trains and CN/CP trains
    4) they are reliant on third parties to rescue their trains if their trains have a problem (VIA train hit a tree, had to wait for third party to clear the track, and then for a recrew since the crew ran out of hours of service)

    Driving is often faster and more comfortable, but the transport minister can’t say that, ever

  12. Rumour has it that Omar Alghabra will be organizing camel trains to transport goods and passengers.

    Passengers will be expected to pick up camel dung so it can be used for heating if you arrive at your destination.

  13. There are only a few routs in North America where passenger rail could, under superb management, break even. You need tons of passengers to equate with freight and that means mega cities on either end with few alternatives.

  14. Rail used to be a mesmerizing experience….when I was young and it was affordable.
    emphasis on “used to be”
    Ya couldn’t pay me to ride the rails today.

    W/310 Litres on board fully fueled up…I can drive to Kenora from Calgary without fill up – doing ~110/115 kmhr…in about 14 hrs given a few p stops & Food breaks, listen to my own tunes and stop – go when I want – eat better…..for far far less than what used to b e CN/CP Rail.

  15. My dad worked for CN for over 40 years. One benefit was free VIA passes for family. I used it to travel from Kitchener to Union Station in Toronto to visit from university on a regular basis. At some point the government decided to tax this type of benefit, and I realized too late that dad knew when I used the pass to visit my girlfriend (now wife of 36 years) instead of visiting them. He would see a small extra deduction on his pay cheque

  17. I took Via Rail from Toronto to Ottawa a number of years ago. I found it very expensive and when I reached Ottawa I didn’t have a car (you need a car in Ottawa). The latter is the real problem. In most European countries I’ve visited, having a car is a pain – nowhere to park, expensive to park, impossible to get through traffic. In most Canadian cities (Vancouver is an exception) you can’t get anywhere without a car so why even take a train to get there?

    1. I considered doing that for a business trip to Ottawa many years ago and after factoring in the cost of a rental car and time to get to Ottawa and back as well as the Via fare, figured it would be cheaper and more pleasant to drive ( I love driving!). I had ZERO regrets.

  18. Why was VIA’s “The Canadian” moved from the CP route to the CN route?
    So one of our “conservative” Prime Monkey’s friends could have the rail monopoly through the scenic Rocky Mountains….
    It’s in an older “TRAINS” magazine somewhere in my stash.

    1. That was Joe Clark, the most Progressive of any Conservative ever. He was transport minister at the time and MP for Edmonton/Yellowhead. The VIA line through Calgary was actually making money. So he decided to give everything to Edmonton and shut down Calgary. Mulroney didn’t need the Western vote anyway so he didn’t give a sh*t about what happened.

      Normal Joes cannot afford the Rocky Mountaineer. It’s a novelty for the extremely rich.

      1. Yes, the Rocky Mountaineer, splendid train though it is, is a sightseeing train, not a passenger service.

        One of my old friends was a transport economist, specializing in rail, and he once told me that Canada gets about 1/10th the train service it pays for. (This was back when we still had train service; most of it’s now gone, though I doubt that we pay any less.) Get a couple of beers into him and he’d muse about how much money you could make if you took one of several lines in Canada and just ran it properly. Probably just the beer talking.

  19. Whatever.

    Canadians want it this way.

    I can’t wait to see how the summer travel season handles the cattle.

  21. If the three wise men had been Liberals, they never would have met Jesus. They would be stuck half-way in a sandstorm.

    Or possibly they would have taken out a contract with Herod.

    But Peter, you ask, what if they were New Democrats.

    Let me explain. Wise men. New Democrats. Do you see the error of logic you just made?

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