Via Rail has almost stolen Tim Hayman’s Christmas plans — twice.
Every year, Hayman, who lives in Halifax, travels on the Ocean to visit family in Ottawa. The Ocean is a Via Rail train that runs from Halifax to Montreal in about 22 hours. In the middle of a chaotic holiday season, “It’s nice to be able to properly relax” on the train ride, he said.
But this year and last, it has been anything but relaxing.
His train left Halifax on Sunday, December 17, in the night, about 10-and-a-half hours late. He did not get into Montreal until about 3:30 Tuesday morning, due to a series of locomotive problems that ultimately resulted in passengers having to finish the trip by bus. And he still had to travel to Ottawa.
Last year was even worse. He travelled from Ottawa to Halifax on December 23, hoping to reach Halifax in time to spend Christmas with his partner. But bad weather had damaged the tracks. After travelling several hours, the train was sent back to Montreal. CN Rail, the company that operates the tracks, determined it was actually not safe for the train to run and the crews needed to go home.
Ultimately, Hayman took a flight out of Montreal early Christmas morning. That plan was faster than the train, and by that point he “was not really confident the next train would make it through either.”
As a regular Via Rail user since 2007, Hayman has bigger concerns than these exceptional circumstances. Smaller and more frequent problems have increased over the years, and they trouble him more: trains that are more often late than on time; trains that cannot travel as fast as they once did because the tracks are in bad condition.
According to company documents, only half of Via Rail’s trains arrived on-time during the third quarter of 2023; 60 per cent were on-time from January 1 to September 30 of this year. In 2022, 57 per cent were on-time.
The delays are largely due to the fact that 97.5 per cent of the tracks Via Rail uses are owned by other companies, a summary document of Via Rail’s 2022/2026 corporate plan says. CN, a private company, owns most of the tracks, and it gives freight trains priority.
Guest on the tracks
Many share Hayman’s concerns. From the House of Commons to cities across Canada, political leaders are lobbying for better service.
On December 13, Taylor Bachrach, NDP MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley, in northwestern British Columbia, introduced a private member’s bill, Bill C-371, that would change the Canada Transportation Act to give passenger trains priority over freight trains. Bachrach called it a “simple bill” in an interview, but it aims to address a long-standing — and costly — problem.
“Via Rail is a guest on those tracks, and therefore doesn’t necessarily get the priority that it could get,” said Willem Klumpenhouwer, an independent transit and rail researcher and consultant who works with companies across North America.
“The services provided by host railways have been deteriorating during the past few years,” Via Rail’s 2022 annual report says. This has led to fewer trains being on-time and increased the costs to run them. “Poor on-time performance and associated delays could have a negative impact on customer satisfaction and ridership and could hinder the corporation’s efforts to bring passengers back on the trains.”
The federal government is working on creating a high-frequency rail line that would improve travel between Windsor and Quebec City, where Via Rail has most of its routes. Ottawa is expected to select a partner in 2024 to build the new line.
In a statement to Canadian Affairs, Via Rail said it “believes that a multitude of measures” could help guarantee on-time service, “including a clear priority for passenger trains.” A passenger bill of rights could also help, the statement says.
Canadian Affairs asked Pablo Rodriguez, minister of transport, if the government is considering legislation to give passenger trains priority.
“In a country as big as Canada, travelling by train is an important option for Canadians,” Laura Scaffidi, press secretary for Rodriguez, said in an email. “We need to strike a balance to ensure that we have a sustainable passenger rail service and that Canadian businesses can get their products to market through an efficient and reliable freight rail network.”
The statement did not say if the government is considering any legislative changes to give passenger trains priority. The statement does say the government supports the creation of high-frequency rail.
Recently, the US government has invested significantly in high-frequency rail. The Biden administration announced last month $16.4 billion in funding for 25 projects along Amtrak’s northeast corridor from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, DC. The funding will be used for maintenance on century-old bridges and tunnels and to repair train tracks.
‘Not on the radar’
Improved Via Rail service is not just a federal issue. Municipal governments are also clamouring for improvements.
Many smaller communities do not have access to any service, never mind regular service. Since Greyhound buses left Canada in 2021, many Canadians who do not have access to cars have no reliable transit between cities.
In Sarnia, Ontario, Mayor Mike Bradley has been pushing for greater train service for years. In 1988, the train came to the southwestern Ontario city four times a day. That was cut to twice-a-day. Since 2012, only one daily train services the city. It leaves at 8:40 a.m. and returns at 10:20 p.m.
At least, that is the scheduled time. It is often stuck behind freight trains and hours late. Often, the train sits on the tracks near the station, waiting for freight trains to pass so it can pull in.
“You literally look at the city lights for half an hour or an hour as you wait for this big train to go by because they get the priority,” said Bradley, who prefers to use the train in winter when it is one of the safest forms of travel.
But the infrequent schedule makes it “dysfunctional,” he said. His repeated calls for Via Rail to increase service to Sarnia have yielded no results.
Other mayors want changes too. Via Rail’s flagship train is the Canadian, a train that runs from Toronto to Vancouver. It uses CN’s Main Line, a major freight route. The train has struggled to be on-time for more than 20 years, and those struggles have continued even after Via made the trip a day longer in an attempt to make sure the train was on-time, Via’s 2022/ 2026 corporate plan says.
Many tourists take the train. But so do residents of the cities and towns along the route. And the train is not reliable for them.
Several mayors in Saskatchewan want the Canadian to run on a different track, the Prairie North line that has less freight traffic. It would also give many Indigenous communities access to the train.
“The train that serves Saskatchewan, from a freight perspective is critical to the economic well-being of Saskatchewan,” said Gerald Aalbers, mayor of Lloydminster, a city that straddles Saskatchewan and Alberta, and one of the proponents of the plan. “The passenger train is basically not even on the radar.”
More reliable service could increase tourism but also help the province’s residents, he said.
In Sarnia, Bradley thinks Canada’s entire rail travel system needs an overhaul.
“We’re so backwards,” he said. “We’re the Beverly Hillbillies of rail transportation in this country.”
Despite all this — and his recent struggles with Via Rail — Tim Hayman still likes train rides. The train is an environmentally friendly way to travel, and when it works well, it really can be relaxing and enjoyable, too.
He has not finalized travel plans for next Christmas, but he may take the train again.
“I would like to think that I’ve kind of used up all my bad luck,” he said.
Via Rail is a “Guest” on most of the trackage it uses, BUT, even as a guest it has to pay for the use of the trackage; it does not get that usage for FREE.
In other words Via is in effect, a CUSTOMER of the trackage owners; SO, why is Via treated as a valued customer, and given more priority…??
Via runs much shorter trains than the Freight trains the track owners operate, so that makes them much more flexible than the 2 mile long + freights.
Good intelligent DISPATCHING can use this flexibility to accommodate the need for more on-time passenger rail (Via Rail), if the will to do so is there.
FJPM