Potential Route For Toronto - Chicago

I think the best option would be limiting the train to larger stops on the Canadian side, and setting up preclearance (and postclearance for eastbounds) at Toronto, one suburban Toronto Stop, Hamilton, and Windsor/Sarnia (whichever route is used). In this sense it would function alot like the Eurostar in the UK.

Thinking about it, the natural solution is one which has been used before: a semi-sealed train.

This may also work for the Maple Leaf. Passengers leaving Toronto are separated into local-to-Canada and precleared-for-US. No access is provided between the precleared carriages and the non-precleared ones. Customs at the border only has to inspect the "local carriages", which will have far fewer people than the carriages from Toronto. This involves complicated train staffing problems (two conductors?), of course.

neroden wrote:Thinking about it, the natural solution is one which has been used before: a semi-sealed train.

This may also work for the Maple Leaf. Passengers leaving Toronto are separated into local-to-Canada and precleared-for-US. No access is provided between the precleared carriages and the non-precleared ones. Customs at the border only has to inspect the "local carriages", which will have far fewer people than the carriages from Toronto. This involves complicated train staffing problems (two conductors?), of course.

That is basically Eurostar customs operation which works well since there is multiple trains to keep customs busy.

neroden wrote:Thinking about it, the natural solution is one which has been used before: a semi-sealed train.

This may also work for the Maple Leaf. Passengers leaving Toronto are separated into local-to-Canada and precleared-for-US. No access is provided between the precleared carriages and the non-precleared ones. Customs at the border only has to inspect the "local carriages", which will have far fewer people than the carriages from Toronto. This involves complicated train staffing problems (two conductors?), of course.

There shouldn't be any staffing issues. Eastbound, customs is done on the U.S. side anyway; the VIA and Amtrak crews swap out at Niagara Falls, Ontario. If the train crew is pre-cleared at Niagara Falls, a crew member can handle the "pre-cleared" side of the train, and the rest can occupy the remainder into the U.S.

The cafe car would be an issue though...since a decision would have to be made on how it would be available to passengers from both halves of the consist, or if the pre-cleared riders would have to go without refreshment availability until the U.S. side...

Westbound might be a bit trickier, since there is so much local traffic as well as cross-border, they really would need the entire train opened for everybody...