Video/Photo guestions before I depart for Canada

Hi there folks!

I leave for my trip to Canada in three days and I have a quick question. Can anybody here give me some good ideas for doing video of GO and VIA trains in the Toronto area? Please bear in mind that GO and the TTC will be my only means of transport for this trip, so anything close to downtown or a quick train ride away will be sufficient.

And does anybody think I will have any problems filming out the windows of a GO train? I'll be arriving in Toronto on a Lakeshore West train and I want to open my video by filming as we pass by the VIA and GO yards at Mimico.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

A few suggestions:

1. The Skywalk: At the west end of Union Station downtown, the Skywalk (to the CN Tower and Skydome (now named the Rogers Centre)) crosses the interlocking tracks with good views of GO and VIA trains coming and going.
2. Take a GO Lakeshore train to the Mimico station and walk a few blocks west, or TTC to the Islington subway station and the Islington South [110] bus to the Islington Ave overpass over the tracks, where the VIA Toronto yard (southeast) and GO Willowbrook yard (northwest) are spread all around underneath.
3. Take the Queen [501] streetcar to Long Branch at the west end where the GO station is.
4. Ride the GO Lakeshore line to any stop and enjoy the view from the platform. On weekdays, Burlington West and Pickering-Oshawa also offer a lot of freight action.

When using GO, I highly recommend purchasing a Day Pass which allows unlimited travel between any two points for the price of a return ticket.

Also, don't limit your travel to GO and TTC, there are connections to many other transit services.

Now, for what I think was your most important question: "does anybody think I will have any problems filming out the windows of a GO train?". You should have no problems regarding security issues. Other difficulties may be dirty windows and advertising wraps that totally mess up the view.

Thanks and very much appreciated!

I'll be posting my thoughts and observations when I return.

I'm back from my Canadian trip, and I have to say I am quite impressed with VIA in general, and depressed about the "what-ifs" that Amtrak could have done...

I rode the Ocean from Moncton to Montreal, departing last Wednesday (the 7th). I purposely chose that date in order to ride the last Budd set on the Ocean (if equipment stayed in cycle) and sure enough, my gamble paid off.

The consist was F40PH's 6509, 6420, a baggage car, 3 coaches, the Skyline dome, two Chateau sleepers, the diner, three Manor sleepers, and the Park dome on the rear. As I explored the train, I was quite impressed with the work VID did on the cars in the HEP project, right down to the Acela-type vacuum toilet in my coach. I spent quite a bit of time in the Skyline dome, and a late dinner in the diner was excellent. And if I was impressed by the coach and Chateau accomodations, I can only imagine how the Manor cars would have been.

Operation was on time all the way to Montreal. We did NOT combine with the Chaleur at Matapedia and kept rolling along after the station stop. I awakened overnight briefly twice just in time to see the meet with the eastbound Chaleur (an 8-car Budd consist) and about a half hour later for the meet with the eastbound Ocean with a Renaissance set, approx. 17 cars with a Park car on the rear....that looks SO weird!

I connected in Montreal with Corridor train #57 to Toronto. The consist was an F40PH, a baggage car, an LRC VIA-1 car, and five HEP-2 coaches, of which I was crammed into the rear car with all the Toronto and Windsor passengers. They actually had overbooked the train a tad, as after preboarding a huge group of seniors, they found that they were all heading to Toronto and points west, and upset their coach assignment plan, as they wanted all Toronto and Windsor passengers in the rear coach. Thus, about 30 Toronto passengers had to be accomodated in the coach they were holding for local intermediate stops (had I been at the back of the line, I'd have been one of them). Instead, I ended up squeezing into the last available seat in the rear car, a window seat facing backwards as a set of 4 facing seats. Not a comfortable ride when I can't stretch out. There was nowhere else to move, as the train was fully loaded out of Montreal. But it was still a good ride, and I did plenty of standing at the rear window, looking out the back for most of the trip. Arrival in Toronto was about 12 minutes down, due to getting stabbed by a freight enroute.

Those HEP-2 coaches, and the Budd fleet in general are perfect examples of what Amtrak could have done with their Heritage fleet, if only they had the money and a "can do" attitude, instead of dumping everything and finding themselves in the equipment shortage they now have today. On the other hand, I do wish VIA had a cafe car setup similar to Amtrak on the Corridor trains...at least then I'd have a reason to get up and wander through the train.

Overall, one very satisfied VIA passenger here. Next time, I'll get a sleeping compartment...LOL!!

Silverliner II wrote:I'm back from my Canadian trip, and I have to say I am quite impressed with VIA in general, and depressed about the "what-ifs" that Amtrak could have done...

I'm happy you enjoyed the trip. I've gone to Halifax from Montreal a few times and have also throughly enjoyed it.

I rode the Ocean from Moncton to Montreal, departing last Wednesday (the 7th). I purposely chose that date in order to ride the last Budd set on the Ocean (if equipment stayed in cycle) and sure enough, my gamble paid off.

The consist was F40PH's 6509, 6420, a baggage car, 3 coaches, the Skyline dome, two Chateau sleepers, the diner, three Manor sleepers, and the Park dome on the rear.

What a catch! Manor sleepers RARELY appear east of Toronto. (The locomotive was probably 6409 -- all of Via's F40sPHs are numbered 64xx.)

As I explored the train, I was quite impressed with the work VID did on the cars in the HEP project, right down to the Acela-type vacuum toilet in my coach.

This was not part of the original HEP program. Retention toilets on HEP1 cars started making their appearance two years ago. Via is slowly converting its entire HEP1 fleet to have such toilets, rather than the old-style dump-on-the-track types.

I spent quite a bit of time in the Skyline dome, and a late dinner in the diner was excellent. And if I was impressed by the coach and Chateau accomodations, I can only imagine how the Manor cars would have been.

Operation was on time all the way to Montreal. We did NOT combine with the Chaleur at Matapedia and kept rolling along after the station stop.

If you departed Moncton on a Wednesday, then there would not be a Chaleur connecting from the east. The Chaleur only operates ex-Montreal on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. (As you mention below, you had a meet with the eastbound Chaleur later on.) In any case, Via sometimes chooses not to run the Chaleur and the Ocean together, especially if one train is severly behind schedule.

I awakened overnight briefly twice just in time to see the meet with the eastbound Chaleur (an 8-car Budd consist) and about a half hour later for the meet with the eastbound Ocean with a Renaissance set, approx. 17 cars with a Park car on the rear....that looks SO weird!

It's too bad the Park cars won't be on the Renaissance sets in the off season.

(...) Those HEP-2 coaches, and the Budd fleet in general are perfect examples of what Amtrak could have done with their Heritage fleet, if only they had the money and a "can do" attitude, instead of dumping everything and finding themselves in the equipment shortage they now have today.

But flip the argument around: the HEP1/HEP2 rehabilitation program was an example of what Via had to de because it COULDN'T afford to buy Superliners. (The federal government at the time didn't want to spend all that money.)

On the other hand, I do wish VIA had a cafe car setup similar to Amtrak on the Corridor trains...at least then I'd have a reason to get up and wander through the train.

Via probably got it right by not having café-cars in the Corridor. It would have been bad for the bottom line to operate non-revenue cars in a semi-dense environment. Besides, the vast majority of routes are less than 3 or 4 hours (Montreal-Toronto being the exception), and even in coach, the seats are FAR more comfortable (and have more legroom) than a regular highway coach.

Overall, one very satisfied VIA passenger here. Next time, I'll get a sleeping compartment...LOL!!

Well, I have some egg on my face here, and I have to make not one, but TWO corrections to my above post...

First, I DID mean F40PH-2 6409. My typo! LOL!!

Second, I just reviewed the tape from my video that I took from the Skyline dome as we arrived in Montreal, and I see (from the window configuration) in my rearward shot.....the three sleepers I said were Manor sleepers were actually an additional three Chateau sleepers. My mistake there!!

So, the retention toilets are a seperate program, eh? Still, a great job done on those bathrooms too!

A thought: If VIA had the funding to purchase Superliners, I'd bet they'd be on the Canadian today, and the Budd fleet working East....the high-level platforms in Montreal would make Superliners impossible to board there...

Makes sense about the lack of a seperate cafe on the Corridor trains...especially Montreal-Ottawa. But that brings up another question: How in the world does it take the Enterprise all of 7 to 8 hours to run Montreal-Toronto when the rest of the trains on that route seem to do it in 5 hours or so?

Silverliner II wrote:How in the world does it take the Enterprise all of 7 to 8 hours to run Montreal-Toronto when the rest of the trains on that route seem to do it in 5 hours or so?

The train took a two-hour long break halfway through the trip. Westbound, the train sat in a siding in Kingston. Eastbound, the train took a siding somewhere east of Kingston, I don't remember.

I use the past tense because, as of today, the Enterprise is cancelled. The final runs of #50/51 departed last night. Replacement trains #650/651 will cover the "commuter" portion of the run, from Kingston to Toronto. This "new" train actually pre-dates the Enterprise and has always been popular.

Silverliner II wrote:How in the world does it take the Enterprise all of 7 to 8 hours to run Montreal-Toronto when the rest of the trains on that route seem to do it in 5 hours or so?

As downbeat said, the trains sat in a siding for a few hours, about half way, during the night. This made the morning arrival times more reasonable for those sleeping on the train overnight and the early morning departures on the last half of the route not too early.

downbeat wrote:This "new" train actually pre-dates the Enterprise and has always been popular.

The commuter run between Kingston and Toronto, once named the Ontarian, was indeed popular, but the overnight Cavalier, which VIA inherited from CN, was also popular in its time. The Cavalier left both Montreal and Toronto at 23:30 and arrived at the opposite end eight hours later, albeit without any long stop along the way.

Thanks. I never thought of that as a possibility. Oh well, it's a moot point now, eh?

I wonder if the same crew that works 650 out will work 651 back, with that 3-hour break at Kingston. Is there a wye there, or will they have to run the train pull-pull with a locomotive at both ends?

VIA crew have told me there is a wye at "Queens", just east of Kingston, where the late Enterprise rested on its westbound trip (and sometimes on the eastbound, although it was more often at a siding just west of Brockville.)

The Enterprise rolled along at quite a speed most of the time. The two-hour rest was much appreciated. Normally I wake up on a long-distance train when it stops during the night. But on each of my 17 trips on #50 & 51, I slept right through the stop. The westbound train would pull into Kingston station at 0315 and, after discharging any passengers, would back up into the siding at Queens. It departed Kingston station at 0530.

Along with a friend, I was on the last westbound Enterprise. As we wanted to be on the "last run" we chose the westbound because its arrival in Toronto is 10 minutes later than the arrival in Montreal, so our train, #51, would be the last one. Of course, I don't know if the last eastbound arrived on time, but from my experience it was usually up to 10 or 15 minutes early into Montreal. The last westbound arrived at Toronto about two minutes late (0822) giving passengers connecting to the 30-car Canadian plenty of time to cross the platform and walk perhaps a quarter of a mile or so.