Via Rail’s fleet needs to roll into the 21st century

Some of our busiest trains are over 70. That’s embarrassing, says Jason Shron.

Riding the train in Canada is like stepping into a time warp. Via Rail Canada’s passenger car fleet is a hodgepodge of mismatched equipment built as long ago as 1947, and it is a national embarrassment.

In February, Via placed a bid for 12 RDCs — Rail Diesel Cars — that were offered for sale by Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). These RDCs were built in the 1950s and were originally owned by Via. They were sold to DART in 1993 following the cuts to Via by the government of Brian Mulroney in 1990. Via placed a market-value offer but were outbid by a Vermont startup interested in developing regional rail services in and around Burlington.

Via intended to refurbish the RDCs for expanded regional services in Ontario and the Maritimes. However, the fact that Via placed a bid on 1950s-built railcars in 2017 is reflective of a bigger problem with Canada’s national passenger railway. It is starved of capital funding and as a result its fleet truly is ancient.

If you board a train in Montreal, you will ride on one of three types of equipment. The newest cars are Via’s Renaissance trains. These cars were purchased from the United Kingdom by the government of Jean Chrétien in late 2000. The fleet was built for proposed overnight Channel Tunnel services and was entirely unsuited to Canadian weather and track, but as the cars were surplus they were very affordable. Today, the Renaissance cars are the most expensive to operate: Each train requires an extra non-revenue car to provide controls to the coaches; the cars are not interchangeable with any other railcars in Canada; and the fleet has exhibited serious corrosion problems, with many cars stored unserviceable.

Via’s LRC (Light, Rapid, Comfortable) fleet was built by Bombardier between 1981 and 1984. The LRCs are in the final phase of a major refurbishment program, but this does not alter the fact that these lightweight train cars were not designed to operate for 36 years and counting. Many are exhibiting structural problems and will need to be replaced soon for safety and reliability reasons.

The oldest trains in VIA’s fleet are HEP-2 (Head End Power) cars. These were built between 1947 and 1953 for American streamliners. They were purchased second-hand and refurbished by Via in the 1990s without any extra government capital funding. These antique trains are not used out on quiet remote services. They are used on fast intercity trains in southern Ontario and Quebec. Some of our nation’s busiest trains are 70 years old, and this is a disgrace.

Via’s mismatched fleet requires expensive duplication of skills and materials for maintenance. It may be a rail enthusiast’s dream to ride on a 1940s’ passenger car between Toronto and Montreal, but for a national passenger railway it is an embarrassment.

Canada is the only G7 nation that has not seen significant capital funding in intercity passenger rail in a generation. Since 2000, Via has only received a total of $1.6 billion (2017 dollars) for capital investments. In comparison, the United Kingdom spends more than that on passenger rail capital projects each year, with work wrapping up in 2018 on a new, $26-billion passenger rail line through London. When Via received its last purpose-built passenger cars in 1984, China still had trains pulled by steam engines. Today, China has the largest high-speed rail network in the world. Canada has yet to build a single high-speed line.

A new fleet needs to bring standardization and flexibility to Via’s operations in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, and allow expansion of services in Western Canada. It needs to be reliable, and must thus be an adaptation of a current intercity passenger train product offered by one of the major suppliers: Alstom, Bombardier, CAF, Siemens. The supplier needs to offer a “build and maintain” contract, so reliability issues are the responsibility of the supplier and not the Canadian taxpayer.

Most importantly, a new fleet for Via needs to be modern and reflective of 21st-century Canada and its commitment to reducing its carbon footprint by providing fast and efficient intercity train service. It should not be a British hand-me-down or a rebuilt train from the 1950s.