VIA Rail is coyly dripping details of its desired route for dedicated “High Frequency Rail” (HFR) service linking Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto as it seeks to build political support for the C$6 billion scheme that requires approval of its single shareholder, the government of Canada.
VIA Rail Canada recorded a 4.1% increase in ridership to 3.97 million passengers in 2016 and 1.37 billion passenger-kilometers, while revenue jumped by 9.5% from C$297.8 million ($218.75 million) in 2015 to C$324.3 million in 2016.
Prospects for VIA Rail’s dedicated central Canada corridor appear to be on the move as the publicly owned passenger train operator submits its business case, and an accomplished rail executive is named to prepare the government’s promised infrastructure bank.
VIA Rail Canada (VIA Rail) announced 3Q ridership increases:
Canada’s federal government has begun a search for a new chairperson for VIA Rail Canada. Two Ontario-based passenger rail advocacy groups—All Aboard St. Marys and Transport Action Ontario—regard this as “cause for guarded optimism” and are endorsing a prospective candidate, as well as another candidate to fill a soon-expiring board post.
VIA Rail Canada updated numbers of its record-breaking summer, to include record ridership numbers for the past Labour Day holiday weekend, September 1 to 6:
Summer weekend memories for VIA Rail Canada: record numbers.
VIA Rail released its annual report on May 6, 2016, and for the first time in seven years, posted both ridership and revenue gains.
Canada’s chief financial watchdog praised VIA Rail’s internal management April 3 but slammed successive national governments for failing to support the state-owned passenger railway with strategic planning and capital investment.
From the April 2016 issue of Railway Age: From the era of fur-trading voyageurs, the St. Lawrence River Valley between the Great Lakes and Montreal has been Canada’s economic aorta. Solitary canoes gave way to steamships, railways, airplanes and freeways, and the vital artery is now clogged within a smear of yellow smog, often thick enough to taste.