VIA retires Renaissance cars, brings back LRC cars

[Chacal]

VIA has been refurbishing its 30-year-old LRC fleet since 2011.
http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail ... omfortable
(theer's also a link to another page about the F40PH refurbish program, with nice pictures)

I'm riding in a LRC car as I write this and they've done a good job.
No more tilting mechanism, obviously.

But I was expecting to ride in a Renaissance car!
VIA has been quiet about it but they're retiring them, and my source says it's because they are too expensive to run, mainly because they are permanently-coupled sets, which is less flexible. VIA pays usage rights to CN (and I suppose CP in the West) so empty cars are a huge waste of money, not to mention fuel consumption.

I'll miss the single seats (now only in business class and the new premium economy class), the huge under-seat stowage space, the big food trays and the "meeting rooms".

[thecanadianrail]

VIA pays usage rights to CN (and I suppose CP in the West) so empty cars are a huge waste of money, not to mention fuel consumption.

VIA doesn't use any CP lines in the west here that im aware of? Also, the renaissance cars west of Ontario, only the budd stainless steal beauties out here!

[philmoberg]

Pity about the Renaissance Cars, although I'm not entirely surprised by this, given that they had to operate in fixed formations. I wonder whether they could be repatriated: there might be a better business case for some sort of overnight service between London and points on the Continent than there was when they were first built.

[Chacal]

I wonder if they could have put regular couplers on them?

[philmoberg]

I wonder if they could have put regular couplers on them?

That's a good question with a complicated answer; that is, the answer I got when I asked a similar question was a description of a fairly complex problem. As I understand it, newer marks of British stock are equipped with retractable Buckeye couplers, which in principle are the same as those commonly used in North America. The problem is that the buffing loads are still engineered to be absorbed buffers and the substructure of the car, as opposed to being absorbed by the coupler shank and center sill. Evidently, the re-engineering of Renaissance Cars with center sills and conventional North American draft and buffing gear would be sufficiently extensive and expensive that new cars would probably have been at least as cost effective, if not more so. It's reasonable to conclude that the fixed formations were an expedient solution to the engineering problem, and that they either didn't address or chose to disregard the inherent economic limitations of fixed formations, particularly for in the markets this equipment was intended to serve.

[Chacal]

True, and also I just remembered that renaissance cars have only 3 seats in a row, while the LRC cars have 4.

[g_nash]

thanks for the link with the refurbished interior pics