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Cost of rail travel
#1
I am heading to Toronto Friday morning and am staying 2 nights at the Chelsea hotel. I am traveling with my wife and child and returning Sunday.

If I travel from Kitchener to Union Station using Via, my fare is $211 round trip.
If I travel from Kitchener to Union Station using GO to Toronto and Via return (no Sunday GO), the fare is $141 round trip.

If I stayed until Monday and could do a round trip on GO the fare would be $86 (Bus or train)

If I drive my V8 SUV it will cost me ~$30 in fuel and $65 to park or $95. Yes, it is pig and I would like it gone, but my wife likes it ...


Any thoughts on this? In my mind of wild idealism I always thought the train would be cheaper, but I suppose as I add passengers the economy of rail goes down.
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I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#2
I hear you loud and clear.  I love trains, and I love riding them... but it's very difficult to justify the expensive ticket price.  We own a Prius and the cost to Toronto and back in fuel is around $5-6.  I really wonder how people can take GO or VIA back and forth to Toronto each day at $20-50... I mean, that's a huge, huge fraction of your earnings for the day in transportation fees.

I hate that rail travel is so expensive in Canada, but like many things here, the cost of running a network in a country as huge as ours is amortized over a much smaller population base.

What about Greyhound - I think it's about $10-15 the last time we took it (to get to Union - so we could take the Canadian to Vancouver!).
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#3
We prefer going to Toronto (or further east ) by train.  Because we live between New Dundee and Plattsville, the distance to the train station in Kitchener or Woodstock is about the same but we always go to Woodstock because it is on the main line so there are more trains to chose from.  Once in a while we drive to Sportsworld and take the bus.  Driving is the last option.
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#4
Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate.

The economies of scale are just not there yet.  Running a slow, heavily-staffed, 4-car train, 2 times a day is, unsurprisingly, not more cost-efficient than an individual car.

We need:
  • More trips to amortize out fixed rail maintenance costs
  • Faster trips to do more runs with the same trainsets
  • Lighter rail stock to reduce fuel costs.
  • Lower staff-to-passenger ratio.
  • Longer trains to carry more passengers per engineer.

Of course, we can't really do all of that at once. But those are things to aim for.
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#5
Strangely the Greyhound site reports no service available on the date in question. I am guessing I am getting it wrong somehow..

Cost isn't really an issue, I had foolishly expected a good deal I guess.

The GTA/Golden Horseshoe will get it's act together eventually I hope.
_____________________________________
I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#6
I hope so, too. I think Markster hit on all the right points, except 1: GO already has the right idea with size of train. Nowhere else in the world do they run passenger trains with the insane capacity of a 13-car BiLevel like we do, here. In fact, all the other places that run those particular cars run them in 2-5 car consists at best. I was startled at how ridiculous they looked in Texas when I saw them there and in California/LA. Just little stubbies!
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#7
I'd just like to point out that people underestimate the cost of driving.  Wear and Tear on a car is a real cost and should probably add $20-$60 (depending on lots of factors).  

I'm not trying to be a nit here, just pointing out that people often underestimate the cost of travelling by car when comparing it to 'mass' transportation.

Edit: But your larger point seems really valid. The via fare seems outrageous.
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#8
I knew that was going to come up, and I'll argue that with the following:  Depends entirely on the vehicle.

I have a car, which I own and is paid for (always buy cars cash) - so incremental cost is $0.  It's already there, available for use.

Insurance is a monthly or yearly cost, again, has nothing to do with distance traveled.  $0

Maintenance on our Prius has been nothing more than a $45 oil change every 8,000 km, so that's about $1 in maintenance for a ~200 km return trip to Toronto.  And my lifetime average is around 4.0 L/100 km over just shy of 200,000 km, so that's 8 litres of fuel, at 85 cents a litre, or $6-7 (a dollar more than I mentioned before - sorry!).  So less than $10 return, all things considered.  Put 4 people in the vehicle and that's $2.50 each - return.

To suggest it's $60 in maintenance for a trip to Toronto is simply ridiculous and ill-informed, I'm afraid.

...on the flip side, I'll concede that I also have Diesel smart fortwo, and while it's the best car I've ever driven, and I love the thing to death, it's absolutely the most unreliable piece of junk imaginable. I've spent almost the purchase price of the car on maintenance and repairs over the 300,000+ km I've put on it. When it was my daily driver I was always expecting that at every oil change I'd be out another $1-2k in repairs, lol/not lol.
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#9
(03-17-2016, 08:53 PM)Canard Wrote: I knew that was going to come up, and I'll argue that with the following:  Depends entirely on the vehicle.

I have a car, which I own and is paid for (always buy cars cash) - so incremental cost is $0.  It's already there, available for use.

Insurance is a monthly or yearly cost, again, has nothing to do with distance traveled.  $0

Maintenance on our Prius has been nothing more than a $45 oil change every 8,000 km, so that's about $1 in maintenance for a ~200 km return trip to Toronto.  And my lifetime average is around 4.0 L/100 km over just shy of 200,000 km, so that's 8 litres of fuel, at 85 cents a litre, or $6-7 (a dollar more than I mentioned before - sorry!).  So less than $10 return, all things considered.  Put 4 people in the vehicle and that's $2.50 each - return.

To suggest it's $60 in maintenance for a trip to Toronto is simply ridiculous and ill-informed, I'm afraid.

...on the flip side, I'll concede that I also have Diesel smart fortwo, and while it's the best car I've ever driven, and I love the thing to death, it's absolutely the most unreliable piece of junk imaginable.  I've spent almost the purchase price of the car on maintenance and repairs over the 300,000+ km I've put on it.  When it was my daily driver I was always expecting that at every oil change I'd be out another $1-2k in repairs, lol/not lol.

And if we use the original example's numbers, $65 to park for two nights. So ~$80 return, or $20 each for four. If you were just two people, Greyhound beats $40 return easily.
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#10
(03-17-2016, 08:53 PM)Canard Wrote: I knew that was going to come up, and I'll argue that with the following:  Depends entirely on the vehicle.

It obviously depends entirely on the situation (That's why I said "depending on a lot of factors").  But its never anywhere close to 0.

(03-17-2016, 08:53 PM)Canard Wrote: I have a car, which I own and is paid for (always buy cars cash) - so incremental cost is $0.  It's already there, available for use.

Except there are many parts of your car whose lifetime is measured most accurately by distance travelled.  So regardless of if you've paid the money or not, the cost should be allocated to the actual km driven.

(03-17-2016, 08:53 PM)Canard Wrote: Insurance is a monthly or yearly cost, again, has nothing to do with distance traveled.  $0

True.  But with every KM you drive you have a non-0 chance of doing something that will increase your premiums.  That expected cost should be considered as well. A person that drives their car 10,000 km/year is going to have significantly less accident/insurance premium/etc. costs than a driver that drives 100,000km/year (everything else being equal).

(03-17-2016, 08:53 PM)Canard Wrote: Maintenance on our Prius has been nothing more than a $45 oil change every 8,000 km, so that's about $1 in maintenance for a ~200 km return trip to Toronto.

You only do oil changes?  No tire rotations?  No new tires?  No filter changes?  No changing of various fluids? No brake work?  I don't believe you or you're being extremely short sighted and only looking at the costs you've paid so far on what sounds like a relatively new vehicle.

(03-17-2016, 08:53 PM)Canard Wrote: To suggest it's $60 in maintenance for a trip to Toronto is simply ridiculous and ill-informed, I'm afraid.

I said $20-$60.  And its simply ridiculous for you to make your above statements about your Prius (especially as obviously biased as they are towards undercounting costs) and then associate that to the top end of my range.  There are easily older and bigger vehicles where the cost per km is > $0.30.

And your post is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  Somebody comparing only their immediate out-of-pocket expenses to businesses (Via/GO) that have to actually cost all of their trips in a reasonable and complete way.

Those of us in favour of mass transportation shouldn't be perpetuating the myth that the cost of driving cars is just the gas and other immediate out of pocket expenses.
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#11
People do tend to underestimate the cost of automobile ownership. If you buy a $20,000 cash, the opportunity cost of that cash investment is over a hundred dollars a month, insurance is probably similar, maintenance is highly variable by driver and vehicle but is of course not nothing, registration is a little over a hundred bucks a year.

But since they’re all fixed costs and mostly all sunk as soon as one buys a car, this has little to do with the calculus of any given trip. If one already owns a car, the incremental cost of each trip is just fuel and so driving is a lot cheaper than any public transit.

(Edit: SammyOES is correct, and I am not. I too am being simplistic in saying "the incremental cost of each trip is just fuel." Even insurance costs and certainly maintenance and depreciation have a relationship with the distance a vehicle is driven.)

I would add to Markster’s list above “Road tolls.” The 401 is “free” to use, so that’s a big part of the cost of driving that is hidden to people. If we had some sensible pricing on it, and more of the costs were directly born by users, a more fair comparison between road and rail travel  can be made. Then we might be able to get the ridership necessary to reduce per-rider costs.
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#12
By the way, the SBB in Switzerland has pretty much all of Markster's advantages. On the other hand, Switzerland is famously expensive.

A comparable trip to Kitchener-Toronto is Zurich-St. Gallen: 86km. (1hr by train in Switzerland, 3 departures per hour). Cost: 30CHF one-way per person. Today that's C$40. Children are half price, so you'd be talking about C$200 for 2.5people * 2 ways * 30CHF.

Cost-of-living adjustments seem to say that prices in Zurich are 40% higher than in Canada. So it would still be $142.

(You can also get a half-price card for CHF165/year, which makes tickets cost half as much.)
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#13
(03-18-2016, 08:58 AM)SammyOES Wrote: Except there are many parts of your car whose lifetime is measured most accurately by distance travelled.  So regardless of if you've paid the money or not, the cost should be allocated to the actual km driven.

Fair enough.  All-in purchase price was around $30,000, so expecting (very conservatively) a 300,000 km life expectancy of the vehicle (I am expecting closer to 500,000 km), that's $0.10/km, or an additional $20 on a trip to Toronto and back.

(03-18-2016, 08:58 AM)SammyOES Wrote: True.  But with every KM you drive you have a non-0 chance of doing something that will increase your premiums.  That expected cost should be considered as well.  A person that drives their car 10,000 km/year is going to have significantly less accident/insurance premium/etc. costs than a driver that drives 100,000km/year (everything else being equal).

I'm afraid with a speculative argument like that, I can't apply a dollar value to your idea.  Other than to suggest that if I put 50,000 km annually on the vehicle, we could divide the annual insurance cost by that to come up with a number.  In that case, we'll add another $0.02/km, or $4 on a trip to Toronto and back.

(03-18-2016, 08:58 AM)SammyOES Wrote: You only do oil changes?  No tire rotations?  No new tires?  No filter changes?  No changing of various fluids?  No brake work?  I don't believe you or you're being extremely short sighted and only looking at the costs you've paid so far on what sounds like a relatively new vehicle.

Not that it's any of your business, but as I mentioned it's got almost 200,000 km on it - not a new vehicle.  Just a very, very reliable one with an extremely low operating cost - a main factor in my choice of transportation.

-No brake work:  correct; it's a hybrid, which has resulted in the car still being fitted with the original brake pads which have hardly worn (they only engage below 7 km/h or so with careful driving).
-Tire rotations:  I change my own tires.  This is often done free-of-charge at many oil change locations, however.
-Tire replacements:  Sure.  Last set I changed out I had about 120,000 km per set of 4 at $600, so that's $0.005/km, or an $1 adder for our Toronto trip example.
-Brake fluid - nope.

(I use spritmonitor.de account info where I track every cent that goes into my vehicle and my fuel consumption, if you're wondering.)

(03-18-2016, 08:58 AM)SammyOES Wrote: I said $20-$60.  And its simply ridiculous for you to make your above statements about your Prius (especially as obviously biased as they are towards undercounting costs) and then associate that to the top end of my range.  There are easily older and bigger vehicles where the cost per km is > $0.30.

...So don't drive a big vehicle.  It's pretty simple.  I agree, those who drive big jacked pickups and SUV's have nothing to complain about - I hate 'em just as much as anyone.

(03-18-2016, 08:58 AM)SammyOES Wrote: And your post is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  Somebody comparing only their immediate out-of-pocket expenses to businesses (Via/GO) that have to actually cost all of their trips in a reasonable and complete way.

By all means - you do the math then.  I just did above, and even being exceptionally conservative and biased toward wanting to favour Via's ridiculously high fares to make things more presentable for your argument, I can still only jack it up to $35.

(03-18-2016, 08:58 AM)SammyOES Wrote: Those of us in favour of mass transportation shouldn't be perpetuating the myth that the cost of driving cars is just the gas and other immediate out of pocket expenses.

I absolutely favour mass transportation - I'm a train enthusiast, for cryin' out loud! Smile  I don't think it's reasonable or honest to fudge the truth & facts, though.

tl;dr: Cars are expensive. Trains are even more expensive, unfortunately - and hopefully, that will change.
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#14
Canard, so with your current assumptions (which for the sake of argument I'll go with - even though I disagree with parts of it) you have $25. Hmm.... seems like it fits in the range of $20-$60 like I suggested. I don't know Drake's situation. He was talking about a V8 which implies a pretty big car. Most people don't drive their car for 300,000 - 500,000 km. Getting to $60 for a trip to Toronto is quite reasonable for a top range given what I know of his situation.

I don't know why you were so cranky towards me in your first post. Because its painfully obvious that my estimate wasn't "ridiculous or ill-informed".
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#15
Not cranky - sorry if it came across that way. Thank you for the discussion
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