Four Decades of Turning Points Continue to Shape Canada's Passenger System

The Brule Range reflects on the glassy- smooth surface of Brule Lake as VIA’s Canadian rolls east through Robertson’s Curve at Swan Landing, Alberta, on July 7, 2014. Reflecting on Mike Danneman VIA Rail Canada Four decades of turning points continue to shape Canada’s passenger system by Bob Johnston at 40

www.TrainsMag.com 25 The Brule Range reflects on the glassy- smooth surface of Brule Lake as VIA’s Canadian rolls east through Robertson’s Curve at Swan Landing, Alberta, on July 7, 2014. Reflecting on Mike Danneman VIA Rail Canada Four decades of turning points continue to shape Canada’s passenger system by Bob Johnston at 40

www.TrainsMag.com 25 The Canadian, with a mix of former CN and Wave a magic wand and create the perfect costs on aging steam-heated equipment. CP equipment, runs on its original Canadian intercity passenger rail system — one that As the government would not consider Pacific route through Gull Lake, pleases politicians, taxpayers, and host terminating the trains, Transport Canada Saskatchewan, on Aug. 25, 1980. John Uckley railroads while meeting the traveling (similar to the U.S. Department of Trans- public’s needs. If only it were so simple. portation) decided the subsidy payments little-used services,” explains Canadian au- As it celebrates its 40th year as Canada’s could be reduced by using new rolling thor and historian Doug Smith. A commis- passenger railroad, VIA Rail Canada’s stock on higher speed routes under 400 sion analyst at the time, and beginning in history is one of challenges inflicted by the miles. The improvements would be fund- 1982, a Transport Canada rail expert with whims of changing governments in a ed by eliminating CN and CP long- oversight on VIA’s operating and capital country that, like the United States, lacks a distance and corridor-route duplication. budgets, he notes, “After conducting new cohesive surface transportation policy. As envisioned, annual operating and capi- public hearings the commission found Politically driven retrenchment and expan- tal support for a new passenger operator most of the existing trains were needed in sion of the past shapes VIA’s options for the would be dictated by Transport Canada the public interest, so they weren’t cut.” Wfuture. Early missteps have implications for and the Department of Finance. This He adds, “The money saved was sup- some of the corridor-only thinking of preordained a hand-to-mouth existence posed to fund the acquisition of the Light current Amtrak management. similar to Amtrak’s. Rapid Comfortable (LRC) fleet of cars and Created in 1977 as a Crown Corpora- locomotives from Canada’s Bombardier for 1978: hopeful launch tion, VIA Rail Canada was expected to fast point to-point daytime service in the Canada’s 1970s leaders under Prime compete and manage resources in the com- Quebec-Windsor and Calgary-Edmonton Minister Pierre Trudeau hoped a sensible, mercial arena like any private business. Un- corridors and pay the railways 100 percent government-sponsored consolidation of like its U.S. counterpart, however, VIA was of their costs.” trains would begin to reverse declining rid- never given statutory advantages, such as VIA took over the slimmed-down CN ership and increasing costs. Since 1971, the preference over freight trains. With CN and CP transcons and officially became an Canadian Transport Commission had been also state-owned and the operator of by far operating railway on Oct. 29, 1978, when paying 80 percent of incremental passenger the largest portion of the existing network, the former CN flagship, the Super Conti- losses of the country’s two major passenger what could possibly go wrong? nental, departed Montreal for Vancouver. railroads, Canadian National and Canadian “Transport Canada didn’t see large sub- Pacific. But these payments soared through sidy reductions, because the commission 1981: The first axe falls the decade with wage increases, waning refused to knuckle under to a 1976 direc- The transport commission’s decisions ticket revenue, and higher maintenance tive to eliminate perceived duplication and approved only minor cuts — far better than

26 Trains NOVEMBER 2018 the hand U.S. passengers were dealt when Amtrak was launched in 1971. That changed Nov. 15, 1981, after the Trudeau government slashed the operations budget to a number it Historian wanted and passed orders Doug Smith eliminating almost half of VIA services, setting a precedent for coercive bureaucratic behavior toward VIA. The most significant discontin- uances were two overnight trains: the ex-CP Montreal-Saint John, New Brunswick, At- lantic Limited, and CN’s former flagship, the Super Continental, operating as a separate train west of Winnipeg to Vancouver. While many branch-line services were lost in areas with transportation alterna- tives, trains where rural residents had no other surface options survived. Service through otherwise inaccessible communities — across northern Ontario and Que- A late-running eastbound Atlantic Limited arrives in Saint John, New Brunswick, on Sept. bec, and outposts like Prince Rupert, Brit- 25, 1981. Discontinued two months later, the train was revived in 1985. Ronald N. Johnson ish Columbia, and Churchill, Manitoba — was not only retained, but warranted a Smith says, by research which showed day- tives and never acted upon. Smith says this “remote” financial carve-out in the budget. time-only, point-to-point service on the was out of concern with adding to VIA’s [See “Passenger Trains Where Roads Don’t prairies and in eastern Canada was a fail- financial obligations at a time when Mul- Go,” February 2013.] This thinking would ure. “We actually mapped the passenger roney was pushing a privatization agenda later effectively protect trains like the flows,” he says, “and it was very telling to that had already flipped Air Canada. Canadian, and dictate its shift to CN’s see all the different markets that the trans- Without any possibility of new over- northern Ontario route. cons played to.” night equipment anytime soon, VIA began Reinstatements happened because the its initial head-end power program, con- 1985: expansion again new government wanted them. “The cabi- verting 1954-vintage ex-Canadian stainless Newly arriving LRC equipment began net said ‘yes, these are going back,’ because steel cars from steam heat to electric power. replacing some of the oldest and most ex- we promised the voters,” recalls Smith. He Bombardier eventually built Superliner IIs pensive to maintain relics from the CN and also worked on a report commissioned by for Amtrak. CP era, and enabled VIA to ramp up fre- the new government which recommended quencies on the Quebec-Windsor, Ont., replacing all remaining long-haul equip- 1990-93: retrenchment corridor. Meanwhile, as part of an attempt ment with Amtrak-style Superliners, after Mulroney and his political partners fig- to unseat Pierre Trudeau, the Conservative VIA tested a train in winter between ured Canadians had forgotten past promis- Party campaigned to reverse many of the Winnipeg, Man., and Edmonton, Alberta. es when they came up with a plan, accord- 1981 cuts. That’s exactly what happened on By then the Pullman Co. was out of ing to VIA’s 1989 Annual Report, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s watch in business, but Bombardier had acquired “representing a five-year total of $1 billion 1985, when the Super Continental, Atlantic, Pullman’s patents and would put Canadi- in savings for taxpayers.” This time, VIA and other trains rolled again. Decisions to ans to work building the cars. The docu- had to figure out how to run a national net- revive the long-distance trains were driven, ment was pigeonholed by the Conserva- work with a $350 million annual stipend instead of the $600 million the government had been supplying in the late 1980s. With cuts set to take place on Jan. 15, 1990, a mad behind-the-scenes scramble determined what stayed and what had to go. Again, Doug Smith was there. “We were working 16-hour days,” he says. “Though Transport Canada’s bureau- cracy pushed for maximum cuts, the phone would ring at 9 o’clock at night, and it might be the prime minister wanting to know how much putting a particular route back would cost. The decisions were made at the high- est levels, and we wound up saving more than [the plan] we started out with.” One factor driving the decision to move the Canadian over to the Super Continen- tal’s route was lobbying by Vancouver en- A Canadian-built LRC trainset kicks up snow in corridor service in 1985. Scott A. Hartley trepreneur Peter Armstrong to privatize

www.TrainsMag.com 27 Lynn Lake To Churchill

Ottawa Montreal BRITISH Gillam Hudson Bay Proposed VIA COLUMBIA Pukatawagan Thompson Prince Rupert CN high-frequency VIA Coteau rail line Smiths Falls CN ALBERTA SASKATCHEWAN KRC

HBR J Prince George a CN MANITOBA m Havelock Brockville Edmonton e s CP Prince The Pas B Kingston Albert ay Belleville Jasper Melfort CN o Hudson Bay Oshawa tari 0 Scale 100 miles CN Warman Toronto Lake On Reserve ONTARIO Moosonee Swan River BCR Canora GUL Banff Mont-Joli F of CP Kapuskasing QUEBEC Matapédia Gaspé ST Basque Calgary Drumheller Humboldt Dauphin . Vancouver Kamloops Hearst LA Mission Golden Saskatoon W CP CN Nakina ON R Courtenay EN CN CN Sioux Lookout Dolbeau C Regina Portage la Prairie Longlac Bathurst E Medicine Hat Winnipeg Jonquiere Nanaimo Cochrane ChambordChicoutimi Rivière-du-Loup NEW BRUNSWICK Matsqui CP Oba Edmundston Brandon Nipigon Porquis Jct. Senneterre CN Miramichi Victoria CN Rouyn-Noranda Sydney Franz White Swastika MAINE CN Moncton Fort Frances River CP Hervey Québec Thunder Bay Mont-Laurier Fredericton Agawa Capreol Charny WASHINGTON rior CN MINNESOTA Supe Canyon Truro Current VIA Lake Sudbury Jct.North Bay Suspended VIA CP Saint Halifax Sault Ste. Marie ON Discontinued VIA Ottawa John McAdam Other passenger operations Sudbury NOVA SCOTIA N L Fredericton Jct. ak Havelock BrownvilleJct. Discontinued other passenger n e H Parry a u Washago Lac-Mégantic The shrinking Other lines: ig r Sound CoteauMontreal Sherbrooke Yarmouth h o ATK Amtrak ic n Stratford N M A Smiths Falls E BCR BC Rail e Port Huron C k Brockville O VIA Rail Canada CN Canadian National/VIA a Sarnia Toronto I C L N T CP Canadian Paciﬁc/VIA Niagara Falls A T L A MICHIGAN Hamilton NEW YORK route map HBR Hudson Bay Railway London Buffalo 0 Scale 200 miles KRC Keewatin Railway © 2018 Kalmbach Media Co. ON Ontario Northland Windsor TRAINS: Bill Metzger and Rick Johnson ie Er Chicago Lake A behind-the- scenes scramble determined what stayed and what had to go.

publicly owned Canadian National. Un- loading it became a priority, and the seller wanted no hidden land mines, such as statutes compelling new owners to run VIA trains on time, to jeopardize the sale. The result left VIA without leverage to ne- gotiate with CN as a business equal. It also saddled the passenger operator with annu- Revived in 1985, the Super Continental crosses the flooded Anderson Creek near Boston al cost obligations, which escalated every Bar, British Columbia, in June 1986. The train was eliminated for good in 1990. Alex Mayes year. VIA and CN consider their contracts to be proprietary and therefore shielded VIA’s summer excursions to Banff, Alta., dictated for 1993. Rather than eliminate from public scrutiny. This makes it impos- introduced in 1988. This came with the un- trains, VIA management instituted sweep- sible to analyze the kind of burden CN derstanding his fledgling operation would ing work-rule changes that put operating places on VIA today, but it certainly must get route exclusivity and some initial finan- crew pay on an hourly basis and reduced influence the passenger operator’s reti- cial assistance from VIA to ensure the ven- crew size. cence to challenge the host railroad. ture’s success. After a few shaky early years, Armstrong invested heavily in specialty 1995: CN privatization 2012: cutting to the bone dome cars to make Rocky Mountaineer a Although the Liberal Party government VIA enjoyed a short-lived funding infu- financial and creative success in a way the of Jean Chrétien took over from Mulroney sion flowing from Economic Action Plan publicly funded operator never could. in late 1993, the government’s privatization of Stephen Harper’s Conservative govern- Another round of Mulroney cuts were push continued. The biggest target was ment, which led to Montreal-Toronto

28 Trains NOVEMBER 2018 Lynn Lake To Churchill

Ottawa Montreal BRITISH Gillam Hudson Bay Proposed VIA COLUMBIA Pukatawagan Thompson Prince Rupert CN high-frequency VIA Coteau rail line Smiths Falls CN ALBERTA SASKATCHEWAN KRC

HBR J Prince George a CN MANITOBA m Havelock Brockville Edmonton e s CP Prince The Pas B Kingston Albert ay Belleville Jasper Melfort CN o Hudson Bay Oshawa tari 0 Scale 100 miles CN Warman Toronto Lake On Reserve ONTARIO Moosonee Swan River BCR Canora GUL Banff Mont-Joli F of CP Kapuskasing QUEBEC Matapédia Gaspé ST Basque Calgary Drumheller Humboldt Dauphin . Vancouver Kamloops Hearst LA Mission Golden Saskatoon W CP CN Nakina ON R Courtenay EN CN CN Sioux Lookout Dolbeau C Regina Portage la Prairie Longlac Bathurst E Medicine Hat Winnipeg Jonquiere Nanaimo Cochrane ChambordChicoutimi Rivière-du-Loup NEW BRUNSWICK Matsqui CP Oba Edmundston Brandon Nipigon Porquis Jct. Senneterre CN Miramichi Victoria CN Rouyn-Noranda Sydney Franz White Swastika MAINE CN Moncton Fort Frances River CP Hervey Québec Thunder Bay Mont-Laurier Fredericton Agawa Capreol Charny WASHINGTON rior CN MINNESOTA Supe Canyon Truro Current VIA Lake Sudbury Jct.North Bay Suspended VIA CP Saint Halifax Sault Ste. Marie ON Discontinued VIA Ottawa John McAdam Other passenger operations Sudbury NOVA SCOTIA N L Fredericton Jct. ak Havelock BrownvilleJct. Discontinued other passenger n e Parry a H Washago ig u Sound CoteauMontreal SherbrookeLac-Mégantic Yarmouth Other lines: h ro ATK Amtrak ic n Stratford N M A Smiths Falls E BCR BC Rail e Port Huron C k Brockville O CN Canadian National/VIA a Sarnia Toronto I C L N T CP Canadian Paciﬁc/VIA Niagara Falls A T L A MICHIGAN Hamilton NEW YORK HBR Hudson Bay Railway London Buffalo 0 Scale 200 miles KRC Keewatin Railway © 2018 Kalmbach Media Co. ON Ontario Northland Windsor TRAINS: Bill Metzger and Rick Johnson ie Er Chicago Lake

‘The Saskatoon Train’

My first trip on VIA after Two enduring memories: The moving to Winnipeg, Manitoba, first was sitting in the delightful ex- from the United Kingdom was a CN combination coach/snack car 55-mile round trip west to Portage and enjoying lunch as the nimble la Prairie on two transcons: out little train sped along CP’s Carberry on the Super Continental over Subdivision closing in on Brandon, Canadian National, returning via Manitoba’s second-largest city. I the Canadian on the Canadian had never seen such a car, with Pacific. But a few days after that half given over to regular seating journey on Nov. 11, 1981, the and the other half divided into the federal government ordered cuts, dining area, a food prep section which reduced VIA service by 20 and a take-out counter. I loved the Short-lived train 109, daytime service between Winnipeg and percent and axed the Super intimate atmosphere of that car — Saskatoon, pauses at Brandon, Manitoba, in 1983. Steve Hobson Continental. The silver lining for although the brown decor seemed some prairie communities, drab and dated. All too soon we prairie winters was probably not 109-110 locally; I have a leaflet though, was daytime trains Nos. were rolling into the city limits and ideal, but it certainly made for entitled “Brandon Getaway 1982,” 109 and 110, which used the it was time to vacate my seat. some great railway photography. inviting would-be riders to Canadian’s CP route to Regina, At Brandon, there was a If the Saskatoon train had “participate in Brandon’s 100th Saskatchewan, then went up to 10-minute stop scheduled for been successful, abolishing the birthday celebrations,” and Saskatoon, Sask., on CN. Nos. 109 and 110, lots of time Super Continental could have offering package tours. In the UK, I referred to the new service to photograph the usual FP9. been the start of a renaissance I was used to frequent local simply as “The Saskatoon Train.” Once on a bitterly cold day in for VIA. Transcontinentals tend to service addressing local needs. Exploring VIA for the first time, it January 1984, the locomotive be jacks of all trades, masters of No wonder I was so excited about was “my” train and took me on was shrouded in steam and none — not necessarily making my little train on the prairie. It’s a many trips to Brandon, Man., and bathed in weak winter sunshine small town stops at a time real shame that it all amounted to Saskatoon. With two trains a day as it sat in the station — one of convenient for the intermediate nothing. [The train was replaced in in each direction as far as Regina those images forever etched into traveler. Surely it’s better to serve 1984 by the Winnipeg-Edmonton- (Nos. 109-110 plus the Canadian), your memory. Looking back, all those communities with a local Prince Rupert Panorama.] day trips became feasible. steam heating for the harsh service. VIA tried promoting trains — Steve Hobson

www.TrainsMag.com 29 A Park observation car trails Renaissance capacity improvements, part of a $923 mil- and far-reaching in limiting VIA’s rele- sleepers on the Ocean on 25-mph track lion stimulus Capital Investment Program. vance to rural Canadians. The Ocean was near Moncton, New Brunswick. The train’s It also provided seed money for the eventu- cut from six days per week to three, and triweekly schedule made it less useful for al launch of the high-end Prestige Class the Canadian dropped to twice weekly rural residents. Three photos, Bob Johnston [see “Luxury Re-imagined,” May 2015], from mid-October through late April. LRC refurbishment, and court-mandated At roughly the same time, the Matapé- Today: hope and HEP Renaissance car accessibility. dia-Gaspé, Quebec, and Vancouver Island, On June 18, 2018, VIA announced the Alas, the fixed-price stimulus contracts B.C., services were lost. (Officially, both four manufacturers it deems qualified to were poorly conceived and managed, re- were suspended because of infrastructure bid on new trainsets for its Quebec-Wind- sulting in substantial delays and the bank- deterioration; they remain dormant to this sor Corridor: Bombardier, Siemens, ruptcy of one winning bidder, Industrial day.) A similar fate has befallen trains to Stadler, and Talgo. After years of the gov- Rail Services of Moncton, New Brunswick. Churchill, Man.; because of flood damage, ernment’s dismissive attitude toward capital A budget reduction in 2012, however, the line to that community is closed investment, except following the 2009 was perhaps one of the most debilitating beyond Gillam, Man. global economic downturn, Minister of Transport Marc Garneau announced his VIA’s funding roller coaster department is prepared to provide funding to replace the corridor trains. He declined VIA’s funding and ridership tend to move in parallel. The bars show, in Canadian dollars, to disclose how much money is really on revenue/funding and operating costs, and separate capital expenditures. The lines show the table. VIA’s “ask” is substantial: 32 bidi- ridership and passenger miles. So, from 1985 to 1990, for example, revenue/funding rectional, fully accessible trainsets contain- dropped 24 percent, while ridership dropped 50 percent and passenger miles by 51 percent. ing a total of 9,100 seats, powered by Tier 800 1,871 8 2,000 4-compliant diesel engines, “with the op- Passenger revenue (millions $C) 7,809 tion to operate on electrified rail infra- 700 1,543 Government funding (millions $C) 7 1,750 structure as it becomes available.” Propos- Operating expense (millions $C) als are due Oct. 5, the award is set for this 600 7,034 Capital expenditures (millions $C) 6 1,500 201 December, and the fleet is supposed to be 143 Passengers (thousands) in service by 2022. 500 Passenger miles (millions) 5 1,250

164 In the meantime, VIA management is 904 954 400 888 846 4 1,000 renewing a resource that provided valuable 768 827 822 4,392 stopgap capacity following the budget-driv- 275 343 258

190 3,795 $C in millions 3,458 4,097 en decision to discard its ex-CN steam- 300 3,465 4,153 3,817 3 in millions Miles 750 heated passenger cars. These are the 33 Passengers in thousands Passengers 290 241 200 2 500 stainless steel, Budd-built “HEP-2” coaches acquired, gutted, and refurbished from 100 1 250

256* 1993 to 1996. Virtually all were steam-line- 680 405 466 566 280 536 266 493 269 578 262 397 524 109 410 154 169 412 631 170 0.7 40 88 98 46 32 equipped rejects from U.S. roads that Am- 0 0 0 1981 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2017 trak never converted to head-end power. * Includes workforce reduction “organization charge.” Source: VIA Rail Canada annual reports VIA plucked them from scrap lines relatively cheaply and saved money by using

30 Trains NOVEMBER 2018 End of steam (heat)

We forget the strange box” by the crew. “Steam leaks set sounds passenger trains used to off hot box detectors, but we won’t make when steam from a boiler have dat no more,” quipped provided heat. Generations of conductor Andre Gascon. The equipment relied on those hot heavyweight ex-CN diner would be vapors piped through the train, but gone, too, replaced by an ex-CP by the early 1990s, head-end stainless steel beauty converted to power conduits was replacing head-end power as a part of VIA’s steam pipes. Though VIA Rail had “HEP-1” initiative. Chateau Dollard, vestiges of its legacy equipment one of the train’s three sleepers, still running west of Toronto and would also be converted. I would north of Montreal, the final round ride it on the return over Canadian trip of the last long-distance Pacific rails through Brownville, The eastbound Atlantic pauses at St. John, N.B. Stainless steel holdouts was worth experiencing. Maine, and Sherbrooke, Que., but sleeper Chateau Dollard will be converted to head-end power; What was that whistling noise tonight I was in a lower berth in the the former Canadian National sleepers will be scrapped. on the evening of Jan. 21, 1993, blue-and-yellow Everett. as VIA’s Halifax-bound Atlantic Tick-tick-tick, sputter, tick-tick- from Toronto and her boyfriend Unfortunately, the event prepared to depart from Montreal’s tick sounds emanated from under slip into the duplex roomette marked a point of no return for Central Station? It came from the the car — no noisy whirring of Conductor Gascon had just sold VIA. No longer would it have steam pipe at the rear of dome- fans powered by 480-volt them; the bittersweet employee reserve capacity to meet demand observation Algonquin Park, as if electricity from the head end. send-off at Halifax when the last or start future services without to say, “I’m here.” The temperature at Mégantic was steam-heated Atlantic departed on negatively impacting trains it was Walking through the snow up to 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and Jan. 23; and climbing into already running. Amtrak was the head end during a servicing walking past one of the soon-to- engineer Jim Clohosie’s F40 at similarly short-sighted during its stop at Mégantic, Quebec, that be-scrapped coaches you could Mégantic, early the next morning, conversion to head-end power in night revealed a massive swath of hear their pipes’ loud complaints. for a dazzling journey to 1979. As for the Atlantic, it steam from a leak between a cab My notebook contains other Sherbrooke, through snow- succumbed to another capricious unit and the steam generator car, memorable moments from that covered pine trees, starkly budget cut in December 1994. affectionately known as a “steam trip: watching a girl named Raney illuminated by the headlight. — Bob Johnston trucks salvaged from ex-CN lightweights. “It’s time!” says Alphonse Doucet, VIA’s car and major maintenance senior manager, on the company’s Montreal Maintenance Centre shop floor, where top-to-bottom overhauls are in progress. Tradesmen, who have performed maintenance on these million-mile veterans for years, are replacing everything from worn equalizers on the trucks and battle-scarred wiring, air reser- voirs, water pipes and tanks underneath to obsolete toilets, electrical lockers, battery chargers, and air-conditioning systems. With Doucet and VIA’s new chief mechanical officer, Mario Bergeron,rains T toured the facility in June, observing work being done on car 4112, a former Southern Railway dinette-coach built in 1949 that now serves as the program’s prototype. “Our goal is to reconfigure HEP-2 interi- ors to match with the [refurbished] LRC fleet so they present a consistent interior for customers and service employees alike,” says Doucet. “That means new wainscoting, carpeting, curtains, and all-LED lighting.” He and Bergeron also mention new heating ele- ments inside the water tanks; this replaces easy-to-damage heat tape and should avoid the freeze-ups in harsh winter weather that The Mahalat, bound for Courtenay, B.C., from Victoria, prepares to stop at Parksville, have previously plagued equipment. B.C., on July 5, 2006. The service on Vancouver Island, which ended in 2012, was one of “We’re building on the experience we several in VIA’s system meant to provide transportation to those in remote locations.

www.TrainsMag.com 31 VIA Chief Mechanical Officer Mario Bergeron, left, and Alphonse Doucet, senior manager of car and major maintenance, discuss work on coach 4112. Inside, the car will have new carpeting and wainscoting, along with electrical and plumbing upgrades. Four photos, Bob Johnston

gained on the LRC project,” explains Renaissance Fleet,” November 2004.] owned infrastructure running through Bergeron, who returned to VIA late last Since the Renaissance cars must operate population centers that could use more year after a long stint as Amtrak’s chief me- in permanently coupled sets, any failure frequencies, effectively turns VIA’s back on chanical officer. “We expect all these cars sidelines the entire train. intermediate city-pair combinations that will be rebuilt by March 2020. We also have make passenger rail valuable. Besides, 25 (former Canadian) HEP-1 coaches be- Next: shedding straightjackets Canada taxpayers already paid for stations ing renovated by Cad Railway Industries, Without new trainsets and the ability to and more capacity along the CN route. and another 17 HEP-1s receiving accessi- add frequencies, it’s difficult for VIA to hit “In 1967, the fastest Montreal-Toronto bility modifications at Bombardier.” the sweet spot of competitive fares and op- trip on this corridor was just under 5 hours Bergeron says there is a request for timal capacity to satisfy demand. The gov- [on CN’s Rapido schedule]; today we aver- proposal for renovating four dining cars, ernment’s laissez-faire approach, combined age 5 hours, 18 minutes. How do you ex- while rehabs of nine additional diners, with management’s acquiescence to it plain that?” Desjardins-Siciliano asks rhe- Chateau sleepers, and Park dome observa- without any broad-based political support, torically during an interview with Trains. tions await funding. He expects the Budd has thus boxed in VIA’s path forward. The Deteriorating Canadian on-time per- coaches will be repurposed for long-haul company’s quandary is typified by trans- formance underscores VIA’s dependence service once the new corridor fleet arrives. port minister Garneau’s pledge to spend $8 on a good-faith effort by CN dispatchers But he says the British-built Renaissance million over the next three years on studies and management to improve passenger cars, now used on many Quebec-Montre- to see if president Yves Desjardins-Sicilia- punctuality and reliability [see “VIA, CN al-Ottawa trains and the Ocean, “are not no’s “high frequency” rail proposal is worth Stretch Canadian Schedule,” “News,” in VIA Rail’s plan for the longer term be- the estimated $4-6 billion investment. This September 2018]. Trackwork, long freight cause the cars are challenged in cold plan to build a separate 110-mph right-of- trains, and unexpected traffic growth have weather.” [See “Rough Ride for VIA’s way, just to escape Canadian National- caused the transcontinental’s passengers extended on-board aggravation when the train averages delays of 12 to 14 hours, arrives at an endpoint over two days late as it did in May, or is cancelled altogether for lack of arriving equipment. Desjardins-Siciliano says the extra expense this year will be $5 to $10 million (Canadian). “CN’s long freight trains are no more on time than our passenger trains.

The Ocean’s “Easterly Class” was one of VIA’s many attempts to enhance the onboard VIA is the last vestige of the upper and experience. Among its features were “learning coordinators” such as Gary Frenette, lower berth, as prepared by attendant Eva informing passengers in the Park dome with a wooden model of a dike system in 2005. Kuhn on Chateau Laval in August 2015.

32 Trains NOVEMBER 2018 Sunset is approaching as westbound train So we’ll see if [the new schedule] works, Fortunately, all VIA presidents have No. 67 to Toronto leaves Montreal on Jan. then come up with a plan for the whole stayed the course on a common goal over 2, 2017. VIA is studying the concept of year and long term for this service.” the past 40 years despite budget slashes, building its own “high frequency” line for If the new schedule isn’t achievable or equipment shortages, and indifference Montreal-Toronto service. Michael Berry Quebec-Windsor corridor tardiness gets from CN dispatchers. worse, VIA’s president could file a formal “We’re not in the ‘running trains’ busi- The concept and clear mission influenc- complaint under section 152.1 of the Cana- ness,” he says, ”we’re in the hospitality busi- es friendly and energetic employees, the da Transportation Act. That specifies a dis- ness. We make people feel welcome and quality of the meals they serve, and even pute resolution framework, with possible well treated. We put that pride in the work the thickness of blankets and smoothness penalties and damages to railroads that we do, whether here in the maintenance of sheets and towels in the sleeping cars. consistently inflict repetitive and prevent- center, getting trains ready, on-board, in This unwavering commitment has helped able delays to passenger trains. It was our call centers, or in our stations. If we counteract delays, often-cramped space, added in 1996 to offer VIA relief from live that emotion, we see results; that’s what few departures, and the lack of lower fares perceived mistreatment by CN following makes us different, and the key piece is that would make VIA more relevant in the the railroad’s privatization. focusing on our people.” intercity passenger market. If you can’t Desjardins-Siciliano claims his company achieve speed and punctuality, at least dial has never invoked the section 152 remedy up the comfort and attention. against CN because “one has to accept that ‘One has to Although rejected at Amtrak by current VIA has a pocket knife in a gunfight with top management’s limited “what’s possible,” CN.” He opted for a relatively quick fix with accept that VIA perspective and unwillingness to break out the new Canadian schedule to avoid pro- of the comfort zone with which it is famil- tracted negotiations. But an impartial adju- has a pocket iar, the value of good customer service for a dication on behalf of taxpayers and travelers transportation organization facing so many is warranted if the host railroad continues to constraints cannot be understated. VIA stab VIA’s trains when better handling and a knife in a gun- Rail Canada has consistently played that more equitable use of available infrastruc- card well in the past, and the future ture reasonably could have prevented delays. fight with CN.’ remains bright if it continues to do so. 2

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