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New VIA Rail president vows change
Funding is cut, necessitating service/amenity cuts. Ridership and revenues decline as a result. Gov’t says can’t fund a losing operation, so cut funding further. More service /amenity cuts, ridership drops again… Sound like a familiar message, Amtrak riders?
His promise to improve service while saving taxpayers money can only be delivered by operating more efficiently or increasing revenue – unless there is double-speak and “improving service” is a euphemism for cutting service.
I’m not close to VIA operations, but from a distance it seems VIA is already pretty efficient and has done well attracting ridership to the trains it runs.
Just booked Via Rail Montreal to Quebec City for the fall. business class. Could not get decent air travel from Memphis to Quebec so I now have this air rail trip. Looking forward to a nice trip on Via.
We’ll see what this means. Last week VIA announced that the Churchill train would ecome sleeper plus, meaning meals included in the fare. My sources tell me this also means the chef will be returning to this train. Except for polar bear season at Churchill, food has been frozen microwave stuff, with no chef or quality cooked on board meals. So this is, of course, a plus.
Wonder what’s going to happen with the Maritime trains?
Gaspe is gone, and now Halifax too??? Geez guys, you can’t gut your way to success… Time for support & time for expansion!
I hope he can make it happen, but it sound impossible to me.
I use VIA on a regular basis. Let’s be honest. VIA serves the Quebec City - Windsor corridor and nothing more. Trains that don’t run daily aren’t providing a service for the public. I predict that the Ocean is on borrowed time, Gaspe will never see rail service again, and, once the reality of age finally catches up, that the Canadian will die as well. One must remember that the government of the day can do what it wants with VIA at any point in time.
Deregulation and the disappearance of rail is the problem throughout Canada… No rail banking and more…
CN and CP shed passenger service years ago…
I’m in Sarnia Ontario and our VIA station is on a siding of CN’s mainline; The Sarnia / Port Huron tunnel 911 scares has stopped Amtrak service running from Chicago to Toronto which Sarnia was a part of in the morning, afternoon and evening arrivals… It was a nice alternative if one missed the morning VIA train… Its all about revenue for CN nothing else matters… Freight and only freight matters to their bottom line…
Citizens here asked for Budd cars to get us to London Ont. Which could have been our transfer point for the Windsor Quebec corridor. We were loudly told no by CN…
Whether by Budd cars or a shortline ( something ) to the south understands… Something needs to be done…
Once rail is gone its gone in the 'great white north ’ …
Who cares that it is clean and efficient in comparasion to grid lock / aging roads …
How about bringing back the “International”? (Chicago <> Toronto). Connecting major cities is rail transport’s strongpoint, you can’t get much larger than Toronto and Chicago. More riders in / out of Chicago will strengthen the bottom line of other Amtrak trains, ditto the same for VIA from Toronto.
I’m attempting this journey soon, relaxing or rapid it won’t be.
I’ve just come back from a few days in Toronto, first stop was to Union Station to get the new VIA timetable, it’s shrunk so much, not only has the Malahat plus the Quebec services have gone, but connecting bus services are not included either now. I thought the point of VIA being created was to take over the passenger services of CN & CP if this is so, then why hasn’t VIA taken over the running of both the Algoma Central passenger train and the Northlander. Last time I rode the Northlander seven years ago although it was consisted of two cars plus the diner it was about 80% full by the time it got to Toronto, why couldn’t VIA take this over? When you consider that west of Toronto in winter the number of services running each week can be counted on the fingers of both hands is the real agenda that all that will remain is the Corridor service, which will mean that some of the most iconic journeys on the planet will be history.