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Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Abandonment will affect VIA’s ‘Ocean’
Via has survived…that’s a commendable minor miracle.
We don’t keep in sight that the country is half again as long and about twice as wide as our lower 48, with a population about the same as California.
Distances that great…population that sparse…
William D Hays pretty much hit the nail on the head. Canada consists of 3 parts. The two big provinces really don’t care what happens to the rest of the country. The western provinces wish they could be rid of Ontario and even more so, Quebec. But don’t look for any civil war type scenario. These are Canadians. Instead they will settle it over duct tape art competition, ice fishing derbies, or something like that.
Funny. Had this line already been abandonned, CN would not have had any detour route available following its Plaster Rock derailment. Redundancy is a good thing.
This is likely the end of the Ocean. As for the Chaleur, it’s already gone.
The direct line is almost 80 miles shorter and will also allow for faster trains. I feel with the distance saved and money also saved as a result of using the shorter route should justify VIA restoring daily service between Montreal & Halifax. The trains wouldn’t need to stop as much and also get between Montreal, Quebec City, Moncton, & Halifax much faster as a result of the shorter distance & less stopping which would make the service more attractive and likely increase ridership as a result. The fact that the Gaspé service AND the longer Ocean routing have survived is amazing considering VIA has cut every other ‘local’ or ‘regional’ service aside from essential wilderness services.
Abandoning the line that is the back-up the the only other Canadian line to the Maritime Provinces sounds like Canada does not consider rail to be critical infrastructure.
All the political power is in Quebec and Ontario. The Maritime provinces are very weak sisters; two of the four lack any rail service. The western provinces are more aligned with the US.
If the point is to run a non-stop express between Montreal and Halifax, then the shorter, lower-population route makes sense. But if the goal is to serve the whole region and not just the endpoints, who cares if the train runs faster by bypassing the stations where the passengers are? Time was when an express would have run on the shorter route and a local accommodation train would have taken the longer, more populated route.
This coming from the Guse who whether see railroads dead. Smh.
I think VIA should acquire the line and when CN decides they need to use it, charge them heavy. Of course that will never happen, but it should.
re: Michael Moss comments: The Canadian government didn’t stop the abandonment of both CN and CP mainlines through the Ottawa Valley between Ottawa and North Bay. So there is precedent for giving up the last emergency backup in a segment of the National Transportation System.
Of course putting the “OCEAN” on the shorter route will add traffic to CN’s only line between Halifax and Lower Canada.
If only the Maritimes had a NHL team this could be settled in a truly Canadian way!
Harper doing what he does best, screwing the east.
“VIA Rail does not have the financial resources to acquire and maintain it.
If the section is abandoned, we will look into the commercial viability of all other alternatives for connecting between Halifax and Montreal before adopting another route.” !!!
In other words. Before VIA is going to reroute the The Ocean, it will rather run a bus connection instead ???
In my opinion, in Canada, they have only one solution for thier passenger trains. They just cut them back, always. Since VIA was introduced, it´s network is just shrinking. With the exeption of the Panorama, which came back for a few years in the late 80´s
Also remote services are not safe. As everyone can see, when You look at what´s going on with Algom Central´s Hearst train.
And no one even reports about it!
I wonder which train is going to be the next one?
Churchill ? Senneterre ? The Skeena ? Or perhaps the Canadian??
Better to go there as quick as possible.
Best Regards
Frank Sprenger
This is tragic. VIA is slowly being dismantled and the government doesn’t seem to care!