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

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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 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 govern- ment slashed the opera- tions 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 communi- ties — 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.
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