Passenger trains not rolling on time: Why Via blames CN

New data shows a Via Rail trip from Toronto to Montreal can take up to 45 minutes longer than the previous year. Genevieve Beauchemin has the details.

Warnings of delays on the arrivals and departures board at Via Rail’s Montreal Central Station are now happening at historic levels. Via Rail passenger trains travelling along the key Quebec City to Windsor corridor increasingly run more than ten to fifteen minutes late, and Via blames a dispute with CN for much of the tardiness.

“It was a bit of a pain,” says Nancy Diller, who arrived in Montreal forty-five minutes late from Toronto aboard a Via train. “We had people waiting for us, and I had to text them twice to say we were late, and then there was even another delay.”

The Quebec City to Windsor corridor is the busiest in the country, serving about 96 per cent of Via’s total passenger traffic. Numbers show that in February, 80 per cent of trips along that path were delayed by more than ten to fifteen minutes.

Via, a crown corporation, points to a dispute with CN Rail, the owner of large sections of the tracks on which the Via trains travel. CN was privatized in 1995 and owns Canada’s largest rail network, while VIA has a statutory right to use CN’s railway and services under the Canada Transportation Act.

“Our trains have to slow down, our passengers have to spend more time aboard the trains, and our employees have to do more,” says Karl Helou, spokesperson for Via Rail.

Since October, CN has invoked regulation that forces VIA’s trains to slow down as they approach all crossings. The train operator is obligated to visually inspect that the train has tripped a circuit that activates safety measures, turns on flashing lights and lowers gates that protect the crossing.

CN says Via’s new Venture trains that came into service in 2022 don’t meet the rules.

“Regulations require 30 seconds for the gates to be closed before the train enters the crossing,” says CN spokesperson Jonathan Abecassis. “With Via’s new Venture trains, that 30-second delay is not met. That creates a risk for everybody.”

CN says this is fundamentally a question of safety for passengers, people at crossings and communities where trains operate. It also says that no level of risk is acceptable.

The dispute is related to the number of axles on the Venture trains. They are composed of one locomotive and five cars, which adds up to 24 axles, short of the 32 axles CN says would be required. It suggests Via could take measures to solve the situation, including adding rail cars to its trains.

Via says it has run tests on its trains and crossings and it won’t compromise safety at any cost. But adds that CN is shifting its responsibilities onto the crown corporation and, ultimately, passengers and taxpayers.

“We are asking them to publicly disclose evidence to justify restrictions because we have not seen any,” says Helou. “In the absence of evidence, we are calling on them to lift the restrictions as quickly as possible.”

Via has also maintained that the regulations put an undue burden on train operators who need to repeatedly follow the decelerate-visualize-accelerate procedure.

The dispute between the train operators and rail owners has landed in Quebec Superior Court, with Via asking for an injunction to remove restrictions.

Court documents show 304 crossings are affected by the “decelerate-observe-accelerate” process.