Hopefully that infusion of money announced last week will help:
Via late on 23% of trips in tourist period#### Last Updated: Saturday, October 20, 2007 | 7:51 PM ET##### The Canadian Press
Almost a quarter of Via Rail’s trips were late this year, internal reports from the Crown corporation show.
The situation deteriorated over the late spring and summer, partly because Via’s geriatric F-40 locomotives keep breaking down.
A Via train makes its way in the Rocky Mountains.
(Via Rail/Canadian Press)
“Via equipment failure caused delay minutes [to] increase by approximately 60 per cent from 2006 to 2007,” said the September report, obtained by the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
Nationally, about 23 per cent of Canada’s passenger trains ran late in the May-to-July tourist period, well over Via Rail’s target of 10 per cent.
The late-train problem has gotten worse in every part of the country, including the heavily travelled corridor between Quebec City and Windsor.
For the eastern service between Montreal and Halifax, trains were late more than 60 per cent of the time in July, largely because of “major locomotive failures.”
And for the western service between Toronto and Vancouver, on-time performance was abysmal as well. “The average West delay severity remains extremely poor,” said the report, prepared for a recent meeting of the board of directors.
"Western Services trains arrived in Vancouver and Toronto in May, June and July 2007 an average of two hours and 42 minutes late, which represents a sizable incre
Good to know about the F40 rebuild program, this article had me worried about them!
Back in February the Canadain was an hour late coming into Toronto, but I didn’t care the Canadain is such a great train, the crew was great, the food was much better than Amtrak and I will be riding again next year I hope.
I wonder what the VIA standard of lateness is? Because Amtrak’s lateness stats count only delays of above 30 mins. - a. s.
Gee whiz! Late 23% of the time? That’s almost as bad as the very best US airline (Southwest) at 27%. Never mind the rest of the airline flock.
Sounds like most of the late trains are because of the F40’s, and really I’m suprised something like this hasn’t happened already. Amtrak started to phase out their F40 fleet in the mid 90’s, but Via Rail’s just keep chugging along, without any replacement in site, even when they ordered some Genesis units. I know that the GE’s aren’t the best engines in the world, but I think, GE or EMD or whatever, Via Rail needs some new locomotives. Are the engines worn out? Probably.
Though, in 1989 Via Rail rebuilt all of their old passenger cars, and look at them now! If they can do the same thing with their F40’s (which it looks like they’re going to do), then I say they can go for it. If the F40’s can get 20 more years out of them, by all means overhaul them.
Bob, the VIA an Amtrak F40s lasted about the same length of time, because VIAs units were bought in the mid 1980s, and Amtrak’s around a decade earlier.