Via Rail’s fleet is obsolete. Can’t we do better?

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

In February, Via placed a bid for 12 rail diesel cars (RDCs) offered for sale by Dallas Area Rapid Transit. These RDCs were built in the 1950s and were originally owned by Via. They were sold to Dallas in 1993 following the cuts to Via by the government of Brian Mulroney in 1990. Via placed a market-value offer but was outbid by a Vermont startup.

Via intended to refurbish the RDCs for expanded regional services in Ontario and the Maritimes. The fact 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 is ancient.

If you board a train in Montreal, you could ride on one of three types of equipment. The newest cars are the Renaissance trains, purchased from the United Kingdom by the Jean Chrétien government in late 2000. The fleet was built for Channel Tunnel service and was unsuited to Canadian weather and track, but as surplus cars, they were 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 serious corrosion problems, with many cars unserviceable.

The LRC (Light, Rapid, Comfortable) fleet was built by Bombardier between 1981 and 1984. The LRCs are in the final phase of a major refurbishment, but this does not alter the fact that they 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 are the HEP-2 (Head End Power) cars. These were built between 1947 and 1953 for American streamliners. They were purchased secondhand and refurbished by Via in the 1990s without any extra government capital funding. These antique trains are used on fast intercity trains in southern Ontario and Quebec.

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 received a total of only $1.6 billion (2017 dollars) for capital investments. The U.K. spends more than that each year. 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 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 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 taxpayer.

Most importantly, a new fleet needs to be 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.