OTTAWA, Ontario — Fleet availability for VIA Rail Canada’s Siemens Venture trainsets has dropped below 50% this winter, leading to a series of train cancellations over seven days that began on Saturday, Feb. 7, according to the nonprofit transit advocacy group Transport Action Canada.
The organization reports that VIA has begun turning the trainsets, which are equipped for push-pull operation, to run locomotive first to reduce problems with snow entering the equipment, but this has led to terminal delays.
The group cites a report last month by Le Journal de Montreal. It quotes a spokesman for Teamsters Canada, which represents VIA engineers, as saying that snow leads to trainsets shutting down several times a month. When this happens, the heating system and USB ports for passengers shut down, while lights will continue on battery power.
“The train will start to slow down and operators [will then] be able to stop the train quietly to restart the power supply,” spokesman Christopher Monette told the newspaper. “But sometimes they are not capable of it.”
The Journal article cites the December incident in which passengers were stuck overnight while traveling from Ottawa to Toronto [see “VIA passengers stranded overnight …,” Trains.com, Dec. 11, 2025]. It quotes a VIA spokesman as saying the company and Siemens are conducting “in-depth technical investigations” into that incident and had received preliminary results, but did not provide details. A Siemens spokeswoman told the newspaper that the company’s locomotives “are designed by our engineers to operate optimally and reliably throughout the year.”
Trains has also asked VIA and Siemens if they will provide any additional information.
Because of the equipment issue, VIA canceled two trips on Saturday, Feb. 7, and is slated to cancel three today, Sunday, Feb. 8: Train No. 38 (Ottawa-Montreal), and Nos. 44 and 54 (Toronto-Ottawa).
Nine trains are scheduled to be canceled on both Monday and Tuesday, with another eight on Wednesday, six on Thursday, and one on Friday. The full list is available in the Transport Action Canada article linked above.
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I see that so far…….nobody pointed to Gulfstream business jets and their fuel system freezing up in Canada’s winter (which led to the whole recent tariff controversy with Bombardier jets). I think this is normal, some things cannot be tested easily. Also, I suspect they do not physically test things as completely as they used to do in the past and probably they rely more on computer modeling / simulations.
With both Amtrak and VIA having these problems Siemens is really going to be left with no excuse. Am wondering if the Cummins diesel is the culprit.
There are unconfirmed reports that the QSK diesel is the only diesel that is available due to some kind of exclusive document.
Bring back the F40PH’s, never heard of these issues when VIA and Amtrak were operating them.
F40PH’s operated in same climate conditions? You sure about that because I read climate is changing in Canada and not for the better.