The Canadian

hello guys,

well backshophoss, the answer is fairly simple as to why. During the summer, the international tourists of all ages but alot of <<retirees>> flock to Jasper from either Vancouver (as rail fans would suggest) or Toronto (as a travel agent would suggest). Upon arriving in Jasper, the Canadian looses a portion of it's Sleeper passengers to tours of the rockies by either bus or Rocky Mountaineer. I do not believe that these tours exist in the winter hence why in the summer, the Canadian swells past 20 cars and hovers around 28-30. I went coast to almost coast last summer going from Montreal-Halifax- Montreal-Toronto - Toronto- Jasper and back. My consist was somewhere in the neighborhood of 26 cars including 3 Skyline café lounge domes.

During the summer there's also what most tourists use and that's Sleeper Plus....basically a bed, all meals included access to the Park car, only tips missing.

Now, back to the HO version. Rapido did the cars steam heated. If one wanted to HEP their set, the superficial details are minuscule except for the coach. Only the diner and baggage car retained their window variation.

The sleepers all lose one section on one side for a shower.
The Skyline drops 2 windows on one side and 1 on the other for storage and counter space with equipment like a toaster and coffee machine.
The Park loses a window in the bar for a fridge ahead of the actual bar counter.
The coach has only 1 window variation and that's on the left hand side beside the vestibule door. The small bathroom window is replaced by a larger window. Depending on the heritage of the coach, there's either a luggage rack or a wheel chair tie down.

Rapido's set is 10 cars:

1 baggage dorm (full bag under VIA)
2 60 seat coaches
1 Skyline café lounge dome
1 48 seat diner
2 Manor 4-1-5-4
2 Château 8-1-3-4
1 Park

2 FP9As
1 F9B

I however have almost all of the limited runs of Budd cars that VIA Rail has been selling on their online gift shop. I have 3 extra Skylines, 5 extra Parks, 4 extra Châteaux and 2 extra diners. Right now, VIA is selling the coaches and they aren't sold out.

That is a shame, though to be fair, the options for running private cars on VIA have been extremely limited for quite some time now. I can't remember when it started, but VIA has had a policy for years that private cars cannot be run behind a Park car. The logic there is that people have paid a higher fare for the luxury of having that tail-end observation car, and an extra car tacked on the rear would obscure the view and take away from the experience people paid for. That's especially true now with the new "Prestige" class on the Canadian. That leaves the only other option being to attach the private car up front, but then there are issues with HEP compatibility.

So private cars were already a no-go on the Canadian, the Skeena, and the Ocean. The last time a private car came east on the Ocean was the Mother Parker's car a few years ago, and that was only allowed during the off-season (late fall) when VIA was running a Skyline on the end of the Ocean instead of a Park car anyway. The only places you could still run them would have been in the Corridor and on the more remote runs (to Churchill, Senneterre or Jonquiere, and the Chaleur while it was running).

So it has nothing to do with length of the Canadian, since you couldn't run them there anyway.