Bedroom Rebuilds

Is VIA still moving forward on rebuilding sleepers to include more double bedrooms?

Not if they don't get some capital investment from the federal gvernment, in addition to their modest operating subsidy.

A significant amount of money was promised a few years ago by then Prime Minister Chretien and Transport Minister Collenette. But when Paul Martin assumed the position of PM, he cancelled that - reportedly due to the animosity between he and Chretien. A VIA manager I met on a train told me that once all the "huffing and puffing" was over, there would be a lesser, but still considerable, investment from the feds. However, requests for funding from the new government have had no results. VIA in its annual report (available on their Website) has cautioned the government that without significant investment the railway cannot maintain service at the present level for much longer.

There is some relatively minor interior refurbishment taking place with the 10 HEP-2 VIA 1 cars. I travelled to London yesterday in car 4005, which looks very attractive with the LRC-type interior.

Capital funding aside, the plan to convert upper/lower berth sections to full bedrooms on some Chateau series sleepers is still in the works, but it may take a while. I first heard of the idea to upgrade the Budd fleet to HEP years before the work actually started.

Does anyone have any sketches of the new bedrooms? It would seem to me that if they are to take the length of the car formerly taken by two side by side sections and turn it into a bedroom the floor area will actually be closer to that of a compartment.

I think the space would accommodate two regular bedrooms (occupancy for two). The problem is - where is the shower to be relocated? The bathrooms at the end of the sleepers would be not needed, so would that be converted into the shower (hallway continues through the current shower area and bedrooms are extended adjacent to existing bedrooms etc.)?

Or retain the shower and current hallway configuration and just have the bedrooms to the right and left of the hallway - where the sections are and have the bedrooms occupy part of the current bathroom area at the end of the car. Not sure how the beds would be configured though. I believe there are two bathrooms at the end of the car.

I thought the single bedrooms of the Chataeu cars would be converted into bedrooms and the sections into roomettes. This would give you more bedrooms on the car than converting the sections.

I hope they do get the funding for the renovations!