OTTAWA — The Canadian government’s slow-moving process of developing its proposed High-Frequency Rail passenger route between Toronto and Quebec City is taking its next step. Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez announced Friday the start of the Request for Proposals process for the rail project, with a deadline announced only as “summer 2024.” Those proposals will come […]
MONTREAL — Canadian National Railway is experiencing a systemwide computer network failure affecting operations of GO Transit and VIA Rail Canada, as well as CN’s customer service. The railroad said in a post on Facebook this afternoon (Tuesday, Oct. 3) that it was experiencing “an internet connectivity and Electronic Data Interchange issue.” GO and VIA […]
WINNIPEG, Manitoba — VIA Rail Canada is in the midst of spending more than C$80 million to preserve and upgrade four heritage stations across its network, the company said last week. That includes C$25 million at Winnipeg, where work is expected to be completed later this year. That money is being spent between 2020 and […]
MONTREAL — Martin Imbleau, CEO of the Montreal Port Authority, has been named as the first CEO of VIA HFR, the VIA Rail Canada project office for the construction of the passenger-only High Frequency Rail corridor between Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. VIA HFR, which operates as an “arms-length” affiliate of VIA Rail to co-manage […]
MONTREAL — Canada’s largest private-sector union has criticized the latest step in the high-frequency rail project, calling out the selection of two European companies to participate in the Request for Qualifications while also questioning the slow development of the plan. “The federal government continues to ignore the voice of workers throughout this process,” Lana Payne, […]
MONTREAL — High-frequency rail is developing at something other than a high-speed pace in the hands of the Canadian government. The CBC reports that Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said Thursday that he hopes the proposed passenger-only route between Toronto and Quebec City could be operation by the mid-2030s, rather than early in that decade, as […]
TORONTO — VIA Rail Canada has broken ground on a new maintenance facility for its fleet of Quebec City-Windsor corridor trains. Groundbreaking for new facilities at VIA’s Toronto Maintenance Centre was held Monday. The project involves demolition of part of an existing structure; construction of a new state-of-the-art facility; infrastructure improvements throughout the maintenance yard; […]
Bombardier LRC diesel locomotives were built for the future using beloved Alco components of old. “From the tip of its pointed nose to its electric tail-end markers, the LRC locomotive is refreshingly different, but at heart it is nothing more than a third-generation FPA,” wrote Greg McDonnell in the July 1983 issue of […]
OTTAWA — VIA Rail Canada no longer needs to run unoccupied “buffer” cars on trains with stainless steel Budd “HEP-1” and “HEP-2” passenger cars and rail diesel equipment, Transport Canada has announced. The order, effective at 11:59:59 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 17, repeals a previous order issued last October after questions surfaced about the […]
MONTREAL — An artificial intelligence pilot project aimed at reducing fuel consumption and support of more than 450 nonprofit organizations and charities are among actions VIA Rail Canada highlights in a yearly progress report on its 2021-25 sustainability plan. The update released Wednesday on the passenger operator’s environmental, social, and governance plan is available here, […]
MONTREAL — Mario Péloquin will become the new president and CEO of VIA Rail Canada as of June 12, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced Tuesday. Péloquin becomes VIA’s fourth CEO in four years, following Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, Cynthia Garneau, and Martin Landry, who had been CEO since May 2022. Péloquin spent little more than a year […]
The Rocky Mountaineer began as a VIA Rail service in Canada in the late 1980s. Operating over Canadian National tracks from Vancouver, British Columbia to Jasper, Alberta, the service was privatized in 1990 and the Rocky Mountaineer now operates three routes in Canada and a new route in the United States. We caught up with […]
