Cost of rail travel

[SammyOES]

Ok, cool. Sorry, it seemed cranky but I get that text communications aren't the best for accurately interpreting someone's tone.

[BuildingScout]

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.)

Children are free with a one time yearly payment of CHF30. Adults can buy a half-price card (which is a great deal if you live there, same for the 25 or 50 Bahncard in Germany), so all put together is CHF60, which is about CDN$60 in purchase-parity terms.

[goggolor]

Strangely the Greyhound site reports no service available on the date in question. I am guessing I am getting it wrong somehow..

You're probably searching for trips to "Toronto - Union Station", which doesn't list anything. Instead look for "Toronto Royal York Hotel" - that's where the Greyhound stops on the way to the Toronto terminal, and it's a quick walk through the PATH to Union Station.

For cheapest Greyhound tickets, buy at least 3 days in advance, and always buy online - if you buy at the station they will only sell you the fully-refundable fare that costs 2x as much. Also be warned that the prices include a hidden $3 each way "Service Fee" for the upkeep of the beautiful, modern, fully functional stations at either end of the trip (/s) that only get tacked on when you're just about to pay.

[Canard]

Another thing to watch with Greyhound (and maybe it was anomaly, but the rest of the people who were in the terminal seemed to expect it) is that when we used it on a Sunday night to get from Toronto-Kitchener after taking a later VIA train from Montreal, they oversold (significantly) and didn't have enough room on the bus. It took at least 3 buses to clear the folks out - we were on the second, and people were loading on the third, but I suspect they may have even needed to call a fourth. It was mostly students headed back to KW. So if you do take Greyhound, arrive early at the Toronto terminal!

What types of things are they doing in other countries that makes rail travel so much more affordable than it is in Canada?

[plam]

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.)

Children are free with a one time yearly payment of CHF30. Adults can buy a half-price card (which is a great deal if you live there, same for the 25 or 50 Bahncard in Germany), so all put together is CHF60, which is about CDN$60 in purchase-parity  terms.

CHF60, round trip, for 2 people, with the half-price card and child card. But this wouldn't apply to the occasional traveler. I think that's what we're talking about here. But it's funny how things can cost dramatically different amounts of money in Switzerland for very close to the same thing.

[KevinL]

Perhaps the ultimate example of national mobility is the Netherlands, where with extremely rare exceptions, every public transit conveyance from a three-hour intercity train down to a public bus uses a single smart farecard and most fares are integrated. The advantages of small geography, dense population, and mobile citizenry.

[Canard]

Presto would have been the obvious choice here, with such a strong foothold in the GTHA... but we've kind of shot that dream in the foot already, haven't we.

[goggolor]

Another thing to watch with Greyhound (and maybe it was anomaly, but the rest of the people who were in the terminal seemed to expect it) is that when we used it on a Sunday night to get from Toronto-Kitchener after taking a later VIA train from Montreal, they oversold (significantly) and didn't have enough room on the bus. It took at least 3 buses to clear the folks out - we were on the second, and people were loading on the third, but I suspect they may have even needed to call a fourth. It was mostly students headed back to KW.  So if you do take Greyhound, arrive early at the Toronto terminal!

What types of things are they doing in other countries that makes rail travel so much more affordable than it is in Canada?

That's not an anomaly at all - the Kitchener line is always huge. It's been like that for years, but for some reason Greyhound is surprised by this every single time and has to scramble to get more buses in place. One time I was near the front of the line for a Kitchener/Guelph bus and they split the line into Guelph, UW, and Kitchener-bound passengers... Guelph and UW folks got a bus, they "forgot" to send a bus for Kitchener passengers, and we stood in that grimy garage for two hours in January cold waiting for the next scheduled bus. That was the day I stopped going to Toronto on Sundays.

To get back to rail travel, the number of people taking the Greyhound every weekend should prove that there's a huge interest in weekend GO service. And every time someone complains that GO trains are too slow, I say that I'd rather spend two hours on a GO train that I can show up for 5 minutes in advance, then 90 minutes on a bus and 30-45 minutes breathing bus fumes in the cold just so I can claim a seat.

[BuildingScout]

Another thing to watch with Greyhound (and maybe it was anomaly, but the rest of the people who were in the terminal seemed to expect it) is that when we used it on a Sunday night to get from Toronto-Kitchener after taking a later VIA train from Montreal, they oversold (significantly) and didn't have enough room on the bus. It took at least 3 buses to clear the folks out - we were on the second, and people were loading on the third, but I suspect they may have even needed to call a fourth. It was mostly students headed back to KW.  So if you do take Greyhound, arrive early at the Toronto terminal!

What types of things are they doing in other countries that makes rail travel so much more affordable than it is in Canada?

I recall that the 11pm "bus" from Montreal to Toronto was actually more like 10 buses leaving at 2-3 min intervals until there were no more passengers waiting. There was no need to arrive early so long as you didn't mind the extra few minutes wait.

[plam]

Perhaps the ultimate example of national mobility is the Netherlands, where with extremely rare exceptions, every public transit conveyance from a three-hour intercity train down to a public bus uses a single smart farecard and most fares are integrated. The advantages of small geography, dense population, and mobile citizenry.

You can pay 3100CHF for a card that gets you onto all Swiss public transit for free for a year.

That's not an anomaly at all - the Kitchener line is always huge. It's been like that for years, but for some reason Greyhound is surprised by this every single time and has to scramble to get more buses in place. One time I was near the front of the line for a Kitchener/Guelph bus and they split the line into Guelph, UW, and Kitchener-bound passengers... Guelph and UW folks got a bus, they "forgot" to send a bus for Kitchener passengers, and we stood in that grimy garage for two hours in January cold waiting for the next scheduled bus. That was the day I stopped going to Toronto on Sundays.

To get back to rail travel, the number of people taking the Greyhound every weekend should prove that there's a huge interest in weekend GO service. And every time someone complains that GO trains are too slow, I say that I'd rather spend two hours on a GO train that I can show up for 5 minutes in advance, then 90 minutes on a bus and 30-45 minutes breathing bus fumes in the cold just so I can claim a seat.

I've heard that Greyhound centralized its planning and doesn't have a good sense of particular markets. Greyhound is one of my least favourite companies. In some ways it's up there with Elsevier...

Another thing about rail travel is not showing up in advance. Yes, that's great. In Switzerland I've gotten in the habit of showing up 2 minutes in advance. I haven't yet missed a train, but if I did it would be usually at most a 1 hour wait. (I did miss a bus requiring a 2 hour wait last week though.) Somehow VIA Rail doesn't do that at big station. You don't have to show up as early as for a plane, but you still have to be at least 15 minutes early at Union Station, I think. At Kitchener, of course, you can show up 2 minutes early.

[kwliving]

You can pay 3100CHF for a card that gets you onto all Swiss public transit for free for a year.

"Free". Like Canada has free healthcare.