VIA Rail to mark 120 years of The Ocean route with event in Halifax

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Interview with CEO of Via Rail

VIA Rail renovations

Ocean passenger train celebrates 120 years

VIA Rail is celebrating a significant milestone on Tuesday in Halifax.

The Ocean, Canada’s oldest passenger rail service, began its route between Halifax and Montreal in July 1904.

People are invited to attend a one-day celebration marking 120 years of service and explore the train and the refurbished Halifax Station.

“It carried people for two world wars, countless immigrants, new arrivals in Canada who took the train, we populated the country using the train from east to west, so it’s got a long history and a very interesting history,” Mario Peloquin, CEO of VIA Rail, told CTV Atlantic’s Todd Battis.

The Ocean has had a reported 100,000,000 passengers over its lifespan.

“We’re very thankful to the federal government for continuing to support the renewal of VIA Rail. So the latest announcement in budget 2024 was to buy a brand-new fleet of cars for the coast-to-coast-to-coast passenger cars for the whole country,” Peloquin said.

Peloquin added he’s optimistic about the future of rail travel in Canada, and he’s not the only one.

“When you talk to people, younger generations like the train a lot more than any other mode of transport, also a lot of the younger generations don’t really want to be driving a car,” he said.

“Taking the train is the way to go, more comfortable, easier to access, and so on, and just the ride itself is the beginning of a vacation or a long, productive trip, depending on what kind of travel you’re doing.”

Peloquin said the corporation is working hard on its new strategic plan and the future looks bright for passenger rail in Canada.

“We’re seeing the ridership numbers continue to go up, including on The Ocean here, the last year saw over a thousand additional riders in each direction and the numbers keep going up as we speak, so people are interested,” he said.

However, there hasn’t been much improvement with delays caused by freight train traffic taking priority on the tracks.

“It’s a very complex issue as you can imagine, the infrastructure is owned by private companies, freight railroads. We have to have agreements with them to operate our passenger trains between the increasing traffic, freight traffic, all throughout Canada, and so for that reason it is very complicated,” said Peloquin.

“They run the economy, they carry the economy of the country, we carry the passengers that travel by train, so the mix of the two is quite complex, but we’re continuously working with them in collaboration to increase what we can do and how we can do it better while keeping their interests of course in mind.”

Peloquin said VIA Rail does well with on-time performance on the portions of the tracks it owns.

“We do very well on those aspects that we can control. The other part unfortunately with the mix of freight traffic, which is going up all the time, you see it in Halifax with the container ships that keep arriving, they need to travel to the rest of the country, so more freight trains mean more difficulties in being on time,” he said.

“I talk with the railroads regularly about doing what they can to help us keep on time, we’re having some complex issues right now, including, for example, in central Canada the extreme heat causes slow restrictions to happen because we’re running on rail and steel gets hot, we need to keep things safe.”

The federal government’s new Canada Strong Pass allows children aged 17 and under to travel for free on VIA Rail when accompanied by an adult. Peloquin said it has been going well so far.

“It’s been going on for a few weeks and right now our numbers show an additional 20,000 or so additional passengers because of the Canada Strong Pass, so the people in Canada really like the fact that parents can bring their children with them or people between 18 and 24 can travel with a 25 per cent discount, we’ve seen a real uptick in passengers taking the opportunity,” he said.

Tuesday’s VIA Rail event in Halifax kicks off at 11:30 a.m. Admission is free and a limited number of spots will be available for walk-ins between noon and 8 p.m.

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