Ugh. Why did we ever privatize rail. People would riot if we privatized the highway network, and yet...
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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When were the railways ever not private in Canada? One barely solvent passenger service that's a crown corp hardly constituted nationalized rail.
Wasn't it originally a huge public undertaking? It was my understanding that the rails and CN began their lives in public ownership before being privatized.
Did I misunderstand things?
The railways were built privately for the most part, and eventually most of them defaulted on loans and became CN. Which I guess was public for a long time, but competed with a number of private operators still like CP. Via was a heavily subsidized passenger crown corp because nobody could make passenger service profitable.
Because the rails were there before Canada!
I'm gonna take a guess without watching and say:
Because freight company CP owns the lines people use riding Via.
And the various governments for decades have done nothing about anything to make rail better.
The way to get the highest score in railroad tycoon (classic game) is to prioritize the mail and passenger trains. Government could pay CN to let VIA prioritize traffic.
VIA operates on CN tracks in the west, but that doesn't negate the overall correctness of your statement.
They're always late because they don't own the infrastructure and have to take a back seat to their "landlord's " schedule.
Actually, Canada is a leader in high speed rail studies.
I may be wrong but I recall learning somewhere that the recent rail project used the UK and Australia as a study for it. Neither of these countries are known for amazing high speed rail. Why didn't we look at Japan, France, Spain, or other countries that have world renowned high speed rail, high ridership rates, and good frequency?
The the time to build this rail was decades ago, lets use some of the most successful examples to study so we can catch up and build a modern system instead of building something that is already outdated.
Our studies are exemplary.
You should see our UBI studies! We've got studies coming out our fucking ears.
...Do we?
I mean we have at least two study trials, Mincome in Manitoba in the 70s and the Ontario Basic Income Pilot Project in 2017 (though that one was cancelled after a few months due to a change in government).
So that's "no, not really." At least, that's my understanding, also.
Could definitely use more sustained for a reasonable amount of time, that much I'm sure of.