HEP1 coaches on corridor trains

[Tom Box [e-mail] [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]]

I took GO trains from Oshawa to Toronto and back on Thursday.
Along the way, I noticed some Montreal - Toronto and Ottawa -
Toronto VIA trains that were longer than usual. I suppose that
was in preparation for the long weekend.

Several of the trains had HEP1 (81xx) coaches in their consists.
That was true both for LRC and for HEP2 trains. HEP1 coaches
have been used on corridor trains many times before, but I
haven't seen them very often in recent months.

I wonder if this has caused any problems with the assigned seating
that is now offered on almost all corridor trains. HEP1 coaches
have fewer seats than LRCs and HEP2s. That wouldn't be a problem
if the equipment assignments had been planned out far in advance,
but I don't know if that was the case or not.

How are the seats in the HEP1s numbered? (It's been a while since
I rode one.) Do they have a row number and a letter for aisle or
window (1A, 1B, etc.) as on the LRCs and HEP2s, or are they still
just numbered from 1 to 62, as they used to be?

Tom Box
tbox at ncf dot ca
Port Hope, ON, Canada


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Posted by: Tom Box <tbox-***@public.gmane.org>
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['Terry' [e-mail] [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]]

Hi Tom the seats are numbered & lettered.

Post by Tom Box tbox-***@public.gmane.org [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]
How are the seats in the HEP1s numbered? (It's been a while since
I rode one.) Do they have a row number and a letter for aisle or
window (1A, 1B, etc.) as on the LRCs and HEP2s, or are they still
just numbered from 1 to 62, as they used to be?
Tom Box
tbox at ncf dot ca
Port Hope, ON, Canada

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Posted by: "Terry" <terrybc-***@public.gmane.org>
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[mile179kingston-FFYn/[e-mail] [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]]

Tom, today's VIA No 63 was an interesting consist, a few minutes late when I observed it at Belleville:

904-6413-8618-3468-4109-4110-8101-8127-8104


Nice to see those ex-CP Canadian cars. I'll post a photo to the group Miscellaneous album.


Eastbound counterpart No 64 also had at least two HEP1 coaches on the tail end!
Eric

[xcnken-/[e-mail] [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]]

Hey a real on the spot caption you bagged here Eric. A Canadian original. Merci la.


K. Wadden Pointe Claire Qc

[Tom Box [e-mail] [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]]

Post by 'Terry' terrybc-***@public.gmane.org [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]
the seats are numbered & lettered.

Thanks, Terry. I found these diagrams for a HEP1 coach:
<Loading Image...>
and for a HEP2/LRC coach (those two have the same seating):
<http://www.viarail.ca/en/resources/lrc-car-economy-class>

If those are accurate, then you have seats 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B in HEP1
but not in LRC/HEP2. Those seats were removed from the latter
cars to provide more baggage space. You have seats 16C, 16D,
17A, 17B, 17C, 17D, 18A, 18B, 18C, 18D in LRC/HEP2 but not in
HEP1. So the seat assignments would be messed up if the car
types were changed after reservations had been made.

Another issue might be wi-fi. I suspect the HEP1 cars don't
have it. I recently moved into the 21st century and bought a
tablet, and have taken it on some VIA trips and tried out the
wi-fi on corridor trains. It worked fine on some trains, but
was very balky on others. I can still live without it, but I'm
sure there are many other passengers more addicted to continuous
connectivity, who would be unhappy about being in a car without
wi-fi, when it's advertised as available on most corridor trains.

Post by 'Terry' terrybc-***@public.gmane.org [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]
today's VIA No 63 was an interesting consist, a few minutes
904-6413-8618-3468-4109-4110-8101-8127-8104
Nice to see those ex-CP Canadian cars.

Nice from the railfan perspective, and also good to see VIA
making an effort to run longer trains to meet the holiday demand.
I wonder how quickly the consists will get back to normal now
that Thanksgiving is over.

Tom Box
tbox at ncf dot ca
Port Hope, ON, Canada


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[tim_hayman-FFYn/[e-mail] [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]]

I was on #63 today, and we had two HEP1 cars in the consist ( tail-end) . I was actually seated in the last one, going to Brockville. Oddly, the HEP2 coaches were numbered 5 and 6, with e last two cars numbered 3 and 4. So despite being in "car 4", I was actually in the last car of a 6 car train!

The consist for those interested:
P42
P42 (didn't get numbers, sorry)
8620
4004
4112
4122
8124
8112


I managed to actually get answers to 2 of the questions Tom had:


-WiFi does not work in those cars. That's what we were informed, and I didn't have anything with me to test whether it did or not. Someone asked "did they know about this in advance?" Presumably said person would ave liked to know at they wouldn't have wifi access.


-the hypothesized seat assignment issue happened on is train. Someone had an assignment for a row beyond what exists in the HEP1. Initially he took a seat in the last row available, but got bumped at Cornwall when someone else had his seat. They did find an empty seat for him elsewhere, but I suspect this would be an issue when the trains are sold out. I also noticed that as others have pointed to before, people were mostly bunched together in one part of the car. I generally like seat assignment, but today I would have preferred to pick my own seat...I was stuck with a partial window view.


I was also suspecting something was up with the HEP in the car, because the ventilation didn't kick in when we left Central. However, it seemed it was a car-specific issue, and out attendant reset the system after Dorval, which brought some fresh air into the stuffy car!


Always enjoy a good HEP1 ride :-)


Tim
Halifax, NS