Via Rail Canada (generally shortened to Via Rail or Via ; styled corporately as VIA Rail Canada ; pronounced /ˈviə/ ) is an independent crown corporation offering intercity passenger rail services in Canada. It is headquartered at 3 Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, Quebec.
Via Rail operates 480 trains in eight Canadian provinces (exceptions are Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island) over a network of 14,000 kilometres (8,700 mi) of track spanning the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay. Via carries approximately four million passengers annually, the majority on routes along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. Currently, Via Rail trains operate almost entirely on Canadian National Railways trackage.
History
Early Canadian intercity passenger rail
The post-war era saw two developments which would eventually prove disastrous to previously-profitable passenger rail transport offered by Canadian National Railways (CNR), the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), and smaller lines. Long-distance Canadian intercity passenger trains began to be replaced with air travel, and short- and middle-distance passenger trains lost mode share to personal automobiles on highways such as the Trans-Canada Highway. Critics of this shift point out that all these new services were subsidized by taxpayers, from construction of highways to construction of airports, making it difficult for rail to compete; opponents of rail point out that the construction of the railways themselves was similarly subsidized. (Ironically, both Canadian National and Canadian Pacific themselves contributed to the growth of air travel through Air Canada and CP Air, which were the two largest airlines in Canada at one time.)
By the 1960s it was obvious to both Canadian National (known as CN after 1960) and CPR that passenger trains were no longer economically viable under traditional market manifestations. CPR sought to rid itself of the burden of operating passenger trains, but federal government regulators and politicians balked, forcing CPR to continue running a minimal service through the 1970s. CN on the other hand, being a Crown corporation, was encouraged by the federal government and political interests to invest in passenger trains. Innovative marketing schemes such as Red, White, and Blue fares, new equipment such as scenic dome cars and rail diesel cars, and services such as Rapido and Turbo trains saw substantial increases in ridership, reversing previous declines.
By the 1970s, CN sought to rid itself of passenger trains. The decline of passenger rail became a federal election issue in 1974 when the government of Pierre Trudeau promised to implement a nation-wide carrier similar to Amtrak in the United States. The bilingual name Via or Via CN originated in 1976 as a marketing term for Canadian National's passenger train services and the Via logo began to appear on CN passenger locomotives and cars, while still carrying CN logos as well. That September, Via published a single timetable with information on both CN and CP trains, marking the first time that Canadians could find all major passenger trains in one publication. In 1977, CN underwent a dramatic restructuring when it placed various non-core freight railway activities into separate subsidiaries such as ferries under CN Marine and passenger trains under Via Rail which was subsequently renamed Via Rail Canada .
The formation of Via Rail Canada
On April 1, 1978, Canadian National's passenger subsidiary Via Rail became a separate Crown corporation, taking with it possession of former CN passenger cars and locomotives. Following several months of negotiation, on October 29, 1978, Via took over operation of CP passenger train services, along with similar possession of cars and locomotives. Passenger train services which were not included in the creation of Via Rail included those offered by BC Rail, Algoma Central Railway, Ontario Northland Railway, Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway, various urban commuter train services operated by CN and CP, and remaining CN passenger services in Newfoundland. At this time, Via did not own any trackage and had to pay right-of-way fees to CN and CP, sometimes being the only user of rural branch lines.
Via initially had a tremendous variety of equipment, with much of it in need of replacement, and operated routes stretching from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Prince Rupert, British Columbia and north to Churchill, Manitoba. In excess of 150 scheduled trains per week were in operation, including transcontinental services, regional trains, and corridor services.
While Via is an independent federal Crown corporation mandated to operate as a business, it is hindered by the fact that it was created by an Order-in-Council of the Privy Council, and not from an actual legislation passed by Parliament. If Via were enabled by legislation, the company could be permitted to seek funding on the open money markets as other Crown corporations such as CN have done in the past. It is largely for this reason that critics say Via is vulnerable to federal budget cuts and continues to answer first to its political masters, as opposed to the business decisions needed to ensure the viability of intercity passenger rail service.
First round of cuts
Increased ridership would not be Via's saviour. In 1981, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's government endorsed Minister of Transport Jean-Luc Pépin's plan which cut Via's budget, leading to a 40% reduction in the company's operations. Gone were frequently sold-out trains such as the Super Continental (which reduced Via to operating only one transcontinental train, The Canadian ) and the popular Atlantic , among others.
Via also sought to reduce its reliance on over 30-year-old second-hand equipment and placed a significant order with Bombardier Transportation for new high-speed locomotives and cars which would be used in its corridor trains. The LRC (Light, Rapid, Comfortable) locomotives and cars utilized advanced technology such as active tilt to increase speed, but proved troublesome and would take several years to work out problems (by 1990 only a handful of LRC locomotives remained in service which were subsequently retired by the arrival of the GE Genesis locomotives in 2001).
Restoration of service
The election of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's government in 1984 brought a friend to Via, initially, when several of Mulroney's commitments included rescinding the Via cuts of 1981 by restoring the Super Continental (under pressure from his western caucus), and the Atlantic (under pressure from his eastern caucus and the formidable then-Saint John mayor Elsie Wayne). Mulroney's government gave Via funding to refurbish some of its cars, and purchase new locomotives, this time a more reliable model from General Motors Diesel Division.
It was during this time on February 8, 1986, that Via's eastbound Super Continental collided with a CN freight train near Hinton, Alberta as a result of the freight train crew missing a signal light. The resulting derailment killed 23 people and remains the worst accident in modern Canadian railway history in terms of loss of life.
Second round of cuts
By the late 1980s, inflation and other rising costs were taking their toll on federal budgets and in the Mulroney government's 1989 budget, Via again saw its budget slashed, surpassing even the 1981 cuts under Trudeau. Minister of Transport Benoît Bouchard oversaw the reduction in service on January 15, 1990, when Via's operations were reduced by 55%.
Services such as the Super Continental were cut again, along with numerous disparate rural services such as in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley and Cape Breton Island, western Canada, and in the corridor. The Canadian was also moved from its 'home' rails on CP to the northerly CN route (which the Super Continental had used). The shift to the less-populated (and less scenic) route between Toronto and Vancouver severed major western cities such as Regina and Calgary from the passenger rail network (while at the same time adding major western cities such as Saskatoon and Edmonton to the passenger rail network)and flared western bitterness toward Ottawa.
The official justification for the rerouting was that the trains would serve more remote communities, but the concentration of Conservative-held ridings along the CN route attracted the charge that the move was chiefly political. It was also notable that Harvie André, one of Alberta's federal cabinet ministers who represented Calgary, was fairly public about the fact that he did not care if he never saw a passenger train again in his life.
After these cuts, Via was a much smaller company and immediately took to ration
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