It used to be that passenger trains in Canada were evenly split between CN and CP. Now it appears that CN is the host of all passenger train service in Canada. I can’t think of any passenger trains (other than CP’s business/excursion train) that still used CP right of way. What has transpired here… is CP hostile to passenger trains/VIA or is there something else at work here?
I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that CN was owned by the Canadian Government until 1995. It is far easier to keep a train on a railroad that you control, as opposed to one you do not.
CP is very accomodating in Wisconsin and Illinois to Passenger Trains, they just do not want the Passenger Train to interrupt their freight operations on lines close to capacity. You can run extra passenger trains on Chicago to Twin Cities and CP would not care that much because it isn’t that congested.
I wouldn’t say that CP is hostile to VIA or to passenger trains, at least no more so than CN is these days. The present situation has been evolving over many decades.
When VIA began taking over CN and CP passenger operations in the late 1970s, CN listed something in the order of 150 trains on 33 different routes, while CP ran 46 trains on 12 routes (none of these figures include the Montreal suburban services, which VIA did not take over). So right from the start, CN operated a considerably higher proportion of VIA’s trains than CP did. Partly, this was because CN was a more extensive system that served more communities than did CP, but it was also because throughout the 1960s and early 70s, CP had been steadily withdrawing from the passenger business. The Canadian Transport Commission had forced CP to maintain a skeletal passenger service across the country, but apart from the transcontinental service and the Montreal commuter runs, these were all secondary services on low-density routes. Even in markets like Montreal-Quebec, Montreal-Ottawa, and Calgary-Edmonton, CP fielded a relatively infrequent and slow service. Everything other than the Canadian and the Montreal commutes was provided by RDCs.
CN, on the other hand, had been one of the few North American railroads to promote and expand its passenger business in the 1960s. There may indeed have been public policy reasons for this; CN was a Crown Corporation and the political attitudes of the day would have encouraged as extensive a passenger service as possible in the interests, perhaps, of “flying the flag” in as many communities as possible. But it was a money-losing proposition even then, and by the 1970s CN was losing enthusiasm, which is one of the reasons VIA was created.
Although VIA did not initially cut service on any of the routes it inherited from CN or CP, when the inevitable cuts did come, the low-density secondary nature of the former CP routes me
CP’s service between Chicago and the Twin Cities is a legacy of the Milwaukee Road, as such CP has no choice, similar situation on the Delaware & Hudson between Albany and Rouses Point, NY.
I would disagree. While they might be obligated to carry one Amtrak passenger train a day frequency Milwaukee to Twin Cities.
They do have a choice in handling extra passenger train movements including non-Amtrak ventures. I am not even sure they are still obligated to carry Amtrak to tell you the truth I thought most of Amtrak’s 1971-72 era contracts had expired already and had been renegotiated. I don’t think the accession to Amtrak agreement in the 1970’s was infinite…there was a time limit on it. No business in their right mind would sign an agreement that was infinite.
Minor correction: Passenger trains north of Schenectady on the D&H did not exist on May 1, 1971. That service was re-established three years later under contract with the State of New York; what we used to call a 403(b) train. D&H/CP could drop this whenever the contract expires.