VIA Rail

[SammyOES]

Especially as current speeds are not much worse than car travel, it seems like the train is losing because you can only take it from here to Toronto a few times a day, and even between Toronto and Montreal only ten times a day. If people in London or Woodstock or Kingston (or wherever in The Corridor) could go downtown and catch a train to Toronto at any given hour of the day, then that starts to make more sense than driving.

I think the train speed needs to be noticeably better than car speed for it to really catch on - regardless of frequency. Cars have a lot of unfair advantages in people's minds:

1. They underestimate the cost of driving [Not to re-open the discussion, but just to make the point]
2. There's a freedom associated with a car that's not associated with taking a train [Even if some of it is a 'false' freedom because traffic/parking considerations wouldn't let them go where they want easily anyway]
3. The pain of driving [traffic] often isn't felt until after the decision to drive is made and you're in the car.