Train Adventure - VIA Rail Corridor, Part One: All Roads Lead to Toronto.
Once again, Toronto is at the centre of the Canadian Universe.
To put it simply, I really like riding the train. I like the feeling of being in a vehicle someone else will drive. I like how much more spacious a train feels than taking the plane, and I like how it avoids the traffic that plagues the bus.
Most of all, I love the fact that unlike flying, there’s no security inspections. Forget arriving at the airport several hours early; with VIA Rail, I can show up to the station ten minutes before departure, without any concern about missing my train.
Whether it’s the TTC metro taking me downtown to Union Station, the GO Transit regional rail taking me on a day trip to Niagara Falls to see the solar eclipse, or a VIA Rail inter-city service taking me to Ottawa for work, my entire life in Ontario revolves around where the rails can take me.
Indeed, the only time I’ve had to hail a rideshare in recent memory was during a power failure on the metro tracks. I have willingly surrendered my driver’s license to the Ontario Government, as I simply no longer want it. In a way, I am waging my personal war upon the car, and the motorist way of life.
For both work and pleasure, I used to fly regularly between the triangle of Toronto, Ottawa, and Montréal; this triangle has become a lucrative source of revenue for Air Canada, as well as Porter Airlines trying to compete with them.
But the cost of an Air Canada Economy ticket now significantly dwarfs that of a VIA Rail Business ticket. This forces me to ask myself whether these short flights make any financial sense, in comparison to receiving better service at a lower cost on the train.
And frankly, finances aren’t as much of a concern as the environment impact all of these short-hop flights have on the environment. In France, the Macron government has already taken action to limit domestic flights shorter than 2.5 hours, and Air Canada’s participation in the VIA HFR bid, as well as their embrace of codeshares with a slew of global train operators, indicates they wish to stay ahead of that kind of risk.
As such, I have challenged myself to take the train as much as possible, and avoid any flights within the Québec—Windsor Corridor. And this past summer, I gained the perfect opportunity to test my commitment.
In early August, I was going to be in Montréal for a couple days, in order to join my family for our annual backyard barbecue. The following week, I would need to be in Ottawa in order to attend a professional obligation at Carleton University.
Having an extended period of time to kill between visiting Montréal and Ottawa, and having visited la Ville de Québec only once in my life as a child, I decided to visit again as an adult and appreciate all of the history with my grown perspective.
Previous to this planned train journey, I had only rode VIA Rail’s domestic service for a round-trip between Toronto and Ottawa, an experience I would describe as fairly pleasant.
That domestic jaunt was certainly better than when I rode VIA Rail’s international Maple Leaf service to New York, an occasion which saw them abandon an entire train of people on the side of the tracks at the border, with false promises of a rescue bus that to my knowledge, never came.
In taking VIA Rail all the way from Toronto to Montréal to Québec, and then back through Ottawa to Toronto, I had an excellent opportunity to examine VIA Rail’s Corridor operations in further depth, and get a better picture of the consistency of service than just one round-trip can provide.
Aside from my own negative experience riding the Maple Leaf on the Canadian side, I have also repeatedly heard countless Liberal staffers complain to me about their VIA Rail train being delayed for hours and hours while riding the Corridor.
And now, federal plans under the Trudeau government to privatize the Corridor for high-speed rail raise significant questions about the future. Decisions are being made that will impact the entire VIA Rail passenger network; it’s important that decision-makers understand what those decisions actually mean for the people who rely on VIA Rail today.
Before going into detail on the extents of my travels, and the concerns about how the future might look, the Corridor is a complicated enough operation that I will be serializing this edition of Train Adventure into several parts, releasing once per week.
For the first two weekly entries, we’ll be getting up to speed on the tracks that Corridor trains take, and the wide variety of rolling stock that VIA Rail operates the Corridor with. In the weeks following that, we’ll begin our Train Adventure in full.
According to VIA Rail’s 2023 Annual Report, 96% of VIA Rail passenger traffic in 2023 took place on the Corridor. 82% of total passenger revenue for VIA Rail in 2023 came from Corridor travel.
Every other route in the VIA Rail system relies upon the Corridor, in order to source the funding to keep the network alive. On the one hand, VIA Rail’s long-distance route The Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver has some tourist appeal, which allows it to charge a premium on sleeper cabins.
But VIA Rail also provides many regional services which are the only link for many remote communities to civilization, such as Sudbury — White River, Winnipeg — The Pas — Churchill, and Montréal — Jonquière, just to name a few.
These services are all subsidized by the revenue the Corridor brings. Without the financial support from VIA Rail’s Corridor operations, Canada’s entire inter-city rail network would collapse overnight, and many of these communities would be completely cut off from the rest of the country, without any alternative links.
Thus, when it comes to both the volume of people moved and the gross income received, it is no exaggeration to say that the Corridor is VIA Rail, and that VIA Rail cannot exist without the Corridor.
Stretching from Windsor, ON to Québec, QC, the Corridor spans a length of 1170 kilometres, close to being a megametre-length yardstick.
VIA Rail uses their diesel locomotives in conjunction with a variety of passenger cars, both the very old and the very new. Regardless of the equipment being used, the Corridor sees maximum speeds of 160 km/h.
Maximum, however, is a misleading figure; every train which VIA Rail runs is subject to ubiquitous speed restrictions. There are a few reasons this is the case:
The tracks owned by Canadian National Railway (CN Rail) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) are maintained to a lower quality, suitable for the low speeds of their freight business, but not suitable for reliable passenger operation.
Trains must move at a lower speed when they encounter a level crossing; since both CN Rail and CPKC operate at low speeds, spending money to remove all level crossings is not a top priority for them.
Track owners will frequently force VIA Rail trains to move onto a siding track so that their own trains can move through; freight operators will intentionally make their train consists longer than the length of the pocket tracks.
These issues are more significant on the private-owned CN Rail and CPKC tracks; these twin companies make excessive profits in the freight market, and passenger trains are in many cases considered a nuisance to those profits. This is extremely ironic, considering the state-sponsored nature of these two railways’ origins.
Some segments of the Corridor operate along tracks owned by Ontario crown agency Metrolinx. While Metrolinx has taken an active role in upgrading their tracks to improve speeds and remove grade crossings, they also prioritize their own passenger traffic over VIA Rail. Indeed, your train operator will actually specifically call out whether they are pulling aside for a freight train, or for a GO Transit train.
Finally, VIA Rail does own some segments of track themselves, and these sections are where Corridor service is at its best, with increased frequency and speed. The majority of the Corridor, however, operates at the mercy of the freight railways and Metrolinx, each of whom have an incentive to put their own trains above those of VIA Rail.
The dichotomy between how VIA Rail performs on their own tracks versus the CN Rail tracks is extreme; while VIA Rail’s on-time performance is now only 59% overall, the on-time performance on their self-owned tracks is closer to 90%.
Clearly, there is a significant benefit to VIA Rail in controlling their own tracks, and the privatization of CN Rail was a colossal error; we have yet to see whether VIA HFR will improve this or make it worse.
Regardless of who owns the Corridor tracks, the service patterns have a deal of unexplained complexity. All the different routes each have their own variations, including local service, express service, and truncated sub-services.
Wait, routes? Plural?
Indeed! There is not just a singular Corridor service; the Corridor is actually made up of five different routes.
The Routes
VIA Rail does not operate any train service which spans the entire length of the Corridor. Instead, there are five main services which operate between key city pairs, and journeys that span multiple services will require transfers to be made.
As such, there is no direct train from Toronto to Québec; you must make a connection in either Ottawa or Montréal and transfer to a second train. Furthermore, if you are traveling anywhere west of Toronto, your journey will also require a connection to a second train. Going tip to tip from Windsor to Québec will require three different trains.
If you purchase your ticket on a single itinerary, your connection will be protected against delays, and VIA Rail will get you sorted the same way that airlines do with a connection on a single itinerary.
If your tickets are not on a single itinerary, for whatever reason, then you will not be rebooked for missing your connection, and you will be in the unenviable position of having to rearrange your travel arrangements, and most importantly it will be at your own expense. Keep this in mind, because it’ll become relevant a couple weeks from now.
The five main services which VIA Rail operates along the Corridor are as follows:
Toronto — London — Sarnia
The train from Toronto to Sarnia operates once per day, in each direction. This is the only Canadian remnant of the Amtrak/VIA Rail International service, which operated for decades between Toronto and Chicago.
Since the closure of the International in 2004, Amtrak and VIA both terminate their domestic services at the border, and passenger trains no longer ferry visitors across. In order to get to the Amtrak service on the American side, you must take a taxi, as there is no pedestrian crossing.
Between Sarnia and Kitchener, VIA Rail operates the Toronto — London — Sarnia service on CN Rail-owned tracks, crossing from CN Strathroy Subdivision to CN Guelph Subdivision in London. At Kitchener, the train then switches over to Metrolinx Guelph Subdivision, and continues until Georgetown.
Taking a brief interlude on freight tracks in CN Halton Subdivision, the Toronto — London — Sarnia train serves the penultimate stop in Brampton, and then quickly returns to Metrolinx Weston Subdivision in Malton. It will follow Weston to the terminal destination, in Toronto’s Union Station.
The #84 train departs Sarnia seven days a week, at 8h40 in the morning. Scheduled to arrive in Toronto at 13h38 in the afternoon, the eastbound journey is estimated to take 4 hours and 58 minutes, for a distance of 290 kilometres. The #87 train returns from Toronto in the evening at 17h40, and reaches Sarnia by 22h24 at night, barely faster than the inbound service.
This train takes so long to reach Toronto, and returns so soon after arriving, that day trips are rendered effectively impossible; this doesn’t even consider the possibility of a delayed train reducing your margin even further.
The Toronto — London — Sarnia service largely exists as a memorial to the International that once was, and to ensure that local inter-city rail service remains available to the region. It is, by far, the most neglected service among the Corridor routes.
Toronto — London — Windsor
This service, in contrast to Toronto — London — Sarnia, runs several times per day with varying patterns, reflecting the importance of Windsor as the southwestern terminus of the Québec City—Windsor Corridor megalopolis.
Four trains operate in each direction, seven days a week; westbound from Windsor to Toronto, these are the #70, #72, #76, and #78, and reversed eastbound they are the #71, #73, #75 and #79.
These four services do not make identical stops, variously skipping secondary and tertiary stations. Unfortunately, VIA Rail does not explicitly mark local versus express trains; thankfully, VIA’s booking system will only show you trains that will stop at your intended departure and arrival stations.
As such, while the #70 departs Windsor at 5h35 in the morning and only arrives in Toronto 4 hours and 35 minutes later, the #76 which departs Windsor at 13h46 in the early afternoon arrives only 4 hours and 7 minutes later.
Because the train makes fewer stops, it does not have to brake and then reaccelerate as many times, and as a result remains at top speed longer. In some countries, local and express trains are not only branded differently, they also have cheaper fares for the slower tickets; again, VIA Rail does neither of these things.
In addition to these four services running from Toronto to Windsor seven days a week, an additional train runs as a sub-service between Toronto and London from Monday to Saturday, skipping Sundays.
The eastbound #82 from London to Toronto and the westbound #83 from Toronto to London both follow the Toronto — London — Windsor route through Oakville and Burlington, rather than the Sarnia route through Kitchener and Malton, and as such are categorized by VIA Rail under this service.
Starting at the westbound terminus in Windsor, the Toronto — London — Windsor service runs on one of the few sections of track that VIA Rail owns and operates themselves, rather than paying CN Rail or Metrolinx to use their tracks.
VIA Chatham Subdivision lasts, fittingly, until Chatham, where the Toronto — London — Windsor service switches over to the CN Chatham Subdivision. Following the CN Rail tracks after Chatham, the Windsor train uses Komoka CN Junction to switch over to CN Strathroy Subdivision, following the same tracks from Komoka to London that the Sarnia train does.
East of London, the Toronto — London — Windsor train breaks once more from the route of the Sarnia train, following CN Dundas Subdivision until Bayview Junction in Hamilton; the aforementioned Toronto — London sub-service trains follow this route as well, but begin their operating at London station.
Using Bayview Junction to switch over to the CN Oakville Subdivision, the Toronto — London — Windsor service continues into Burlington, where it switches over to Metrolinx Oakville Subdivision. Within the subdivision, both VIA Rail and GO Transit have located maintenance yards near Mimico GO Station.
The former site of the Mimico Yards used by the Grand Trunk Railway, Metrolinx now claims the north half, and VIA Rail the southern half, bisected by Metrolinx Oakville Subdivision. As a result, trains can be seen on this segment of the tracks outside of scheduled revenue service, moving in and out of the train yard.
Back to the core topic, trains in passenger service will operate over Metrolinx Oakville Subdivision for the remainder of their route, until reaching the eastbound terminus of the route at Toronto’s Union Station.
In the future, VIA Rail’s CEO claims that work is already underway to enable international train journeys across the Detroit—Windsor border, with the explicit goal of Chicago as a terminal destination.
I believe this is an admirable goal, and I believe a route carrying passengers through Detroit and Windsor will be much more successful than the International’s route through Sarnia and Port Huron. Even if a transfer will be required, Amtrak’s Wolverine service currently achieves higher max speeds than any portion of the Corridor.
Rail between Toronto and Windsor has unfortunately been neglected, especially with the VIA HFR project cutting it out of consideration. But Amtrak and VIA’s mutual interest in enabling cross-border service through Detroit and Windsor may be the catalyst necessary to change this status quo.
Toronto — Kingston — Ottawa / Toronto — Kingston — Montréal
This pair of services carried more than 50% of all VIA Rail passengers in 2023, with over two million passengers carried that year alone. If the Corridor is the backbone of VIA Rail, then the Ottawa and Montréal services through Kingston are the backbone of the Corridor.
Both routes begin in Toronto at Union Station, and follow Metrolinx Kingston Subdivision into Pickering. Pickering Junction marks the transition point between the Metrolinx Kingston Subdivision and the CN Kingston Subdivision, and thus the beginning of freight priority hell.
Following CN Kingston Subdivision out of Pickering, both the Montréal and Ottawa trains continue through Oshawa, Cobourg, and Belleville, before arriving in the City of Kingston.
Despite the naming of these two services implying that they would fork apart at Kingston station, in reality they both continue along the CN Kingston Subdivision further through Gananoque, until reaching the true splitting point in Brockville.
At this point, the Toronto — Kingston — Ottawa and Toronto — Kingston — Montréal services cease to share tracks, heading towards their respective termini. The Ottawa service heads north on the most significant section of track that VIA Rail owns themselves, rather than paying CN Rail or Metrolinx fees to utilize.
The Ottawa train follows VIA Brockville Subdivision into Smiths Falls, where it will connect to VIA Smiths Falls Subdivision and continue further north. However, in order to do so, it must cross a short section of track owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City as part of their CPKC Belleville Subdivision. This is the only CPKC subdivision used by any Corridor service.
After crossing into VIA Smiths Falls Subdivision, the Ottawa service heads north through Nepean. The train makes a penultimate stop at Fallowfield station, before switching over to VIA Beachburg Subdivision; these tracks lead the train into its terminus in Ottawa’s east end.
As Fallowfield is within the coverage area of OCTranspo public transit, VIA Rail does not sell tickets between Fallowfield and Ottawa, since you are expected to take that local mode of transit instead.
The Montréal service, in contrast to the Ottawa train’s journey through multiple VIA Rail-owned subdivisions, instead continues further eastward along the same CN Kingston Subdivision which brought the train into Brockville.
Following those CN Rail tracks, the train arrives in Cornwall, which is the last stop the train will make before crossing the border into the province of Québec. The penultimate stop made on the Toronto — Kingston — Montréal service is at Dorval station, in the eponymous on-island suburb of Montréal.
This is where Montréal—Trudeau International Airport is located, and as a result this is where many passengers will make intermodal transfers between rail and air; the future VIA HFR project envisions the strengthening of this link in Dorval, to reduce domestic Canadian flights.
Finally, the Montréal train switches over from CN Kingston Subdivision to CN Montreal Subdivision, where in a short period of time it will arrive at the terminus in the Gare centrale de Montréal. Here, passengers are able to transfer to a variety of local transit options for the Montréal region, including the Métro and the REM rapid transit systems, as well as Exo suburban rail.
The service patterns for this pair of routes are more complex than any other Corridor operations, with varying numbers of trains depending on the day of the week. The Montréal train makes fewer stops than the Ottawa train on their shared tracks; while some of the Ottawa trains serve these less-popular local stations, other Ottawa trains also operate in an express pattern.
Additionally, there is greater frequency between Toronto and Ottawa versus Toronto and Montréal, reflecting the cheaper cost of operations for VIA Rail when using their own public-owned tracks versus operating on tracks owned by private corporation CN Rail.
If there is any primary candidate for VIA Rail to invest in rail infrastructure, it is for the benefit of these two routes. This is self-evident from the massive reliability benefits VIA Rail has when operating on their self-owned tracks.
In the world of public transit, frequency is freedom, and direct trains from Toronto to Montréal simply do not have the frequency to compete with the hourly availability of flights. Ostensibly, this is the problem that VIA HFR will aim to solve for the public.
Ottawa — Montréal — Québec
The last of the five Corridor services, the Ottawa — Montréal — Québec route, carried one-third of the combined passengers in 2023 between all three Corridor services operating east of Toronto. For comparison, this service alone carried over 150,000 more passengers in 2023 than both the Windsor and Sarnia services combined.
However, VIA Rail favours this route not merely because of its ridership, but also for political reasons. This service connects the federal capital of Canada and the provincial capital of Québec through the commercial and cultural hub that is Montréal; as a result, this service server a higher proportion of francophone Canadians than any other Corridor service.
Indeed, the Ottawa — Montréal — Québec service is where the newest Siemens Charger/Venture trainsets first began operation in 2022, and it is also where VIA Rail self-owns another significant section of track. Just as VIA Rail owns the tracks from Brockville heading into the west side of Ottawa, they also own rail headed out the east side of Ottawa.
This route possesses additional frequency as a result of two sub-services which operate on the segment from Ottawa to Montréal and from Montréal to Québec respectively, in a similar fashion to the Toronto — London sub-service along the Toronto — London — Windsor route. As such, these sub-services begin and end in Montréal, but do use the exact same tracks as the main service.
For both these sub-services, one train departs Montréal early each morning, slightly later on weekends, arriving in Ottawa and Québec respectively. In the late afternoon between 17h30 and 18h00 all seven days of the week, the return journey is made, and assuming that VIA Rail is able to keep their posted schedules, these sub-services enable additional frequency for business travelers and day trippers.
For both the main Ottawa — Montréal — Québec service and the Ottawa — Montréal sub-service, your train will follow VIA Alexandria Subdivision out of Ottawa, making stops in Casselman and Alexandria.
Crossing the provincial border into Québec, the train continues towards Coteau station, where it will use the eponymous junction to merge onto CN Kingston Subdivision, and continue heading northeast to Montréal.
From this point, the train follows the same tracks that the Toronto — Kingston — Montreal service does, through Dorval and then into Old Montréal. If you are riding the Ottawa — Montréal sub-service, this leg of your journey has concluded.
However, if you are riding the full service to Québec, stay aboard your train, and if you are using the Montréal — Québec sub-service, then this is where your journey will begin.
Following CN St-Hyacinthe Subdivision, the train exits Montréal, making stops in Saint-Lambert to serve Longuenil, and then further east in Saint-Hyacinthe. Just as between Ottawa and Fallowfield, VIA Rail does not sell tickets for local service between Montréal and Saint-Lambert due to their close proximity through public transit.
Past Saint-Hyacinthe, the train will switch over to CN Drummondville subdivision, and then make a stop in the titular city. Following the same subdivision further, the train will board and alight more passengers in the Charny borough of Lévis, Québec.
At Charny station, VIA Rail typically only makes stops in the morning for westbound trains from Québec to Montréal, and then in the afternoon for eastbound trains from Montréal to Québec. Otherwise, the train will continue moving through the station without stopping, headed towards the final two destinations along the Corridor.
Heading north, the train will cross over a special subdivision, the Quebec Bridge, which connects Québec and Lévis through their respective suburbs of Sainte-Foy and Charny.
The penultimate stop that your train will make is at Sainte-Foy station, on the periphery of Québec proper; this station also serves The Ocean from Montréal to Halifax, a sleeper service which only diverts up to Sainte-Foy before dipping back down to continue its route.
Corridor service, however, continues along a circuitous route around Québec, leading to our terminal station downtown, Gare du Palais, located near Old Québec and the Port of Québec which CN Rail serves with their freight business.
For the few customers who need to travel from Gare du Palais to Sainte-Foy in order to transfer to The Ocean and proceed further east, VIA Rail operates a shuttle bus service. Otherwise, there is yet again a block against purchasing tickets for local service between Sainte-Foy and Gare du Palais.
This service connects three of the most important cities in Canada, and thus would initially appear to have a guaranteed future. However, the VIA HFR project, which proposes an alternative route going through Trois-Rivieres, raises the question of which stations along this existing route may lose service.
The Red-Headed Stepchild (Maple Leaf)
Occasionally, the Toronto — Niagara Falls route is advertised as a “sixth” Corridor service. However, in reality this is the domestic, Canadian portion of the Maple Leaf service which runs from Toronto to New York City.
This has very little commonality with the rest of the Corridor services, using Amtrak’s Amfleet I rolling stock, without the ability to pre-reserve your seating while booking. These trains are operated by VIA Rail crew between Toronto and Niagara Falls, Canada, and tickets for both domestic and international journeys are available.
As neither the Canadian nor Ocean train services are categorized with the Corridor despite using some of the same tracks as the Maple Leaf does, I similarly do not consider the Maple Leaf to be a Corridor service.
In any case, I have already written about the full experience riding the Maple Leaf round-trip:
I highly recommend that for domestic travel to Niagara Region, you instead utilize GO Transit, which will take you to the exact same rail stations in the region but at a lower cost, and a more hospitable time of day.
While current GO Train service into Niagara Falls admittedly has some deficiencies, there is a multi-partisan consensus around expanding the frequency of that service and upgrading infrastructure to remove bottlenecks.
My thoughts on the Maple Leaf are more than clear by now; I do not think it is an acceptable service for international travel, and it makes even less sense for domestic travel. But this may change later in the decade, as Amtrak’s new fleet is delivered, and begins operating along the Maple Leaf.
Indeed, by 2027 the Maple Leaf will use very similar Siemens Charger/Venture trainsets to the current VIA Rail Corridor rolling stock, albeit with the ALC-42E variant of the Charger rather than our SCV-42 variant.
Next week, we’ll go into detail on all the rolling stock equipment that VIA Rail currently uses for Corridor operations. A sneak preview: some of the trains are very old, some of the trains are very new, and some of the trains are suffering from metal fatigue in the structure of the cars!
Train Adventure - VIA Rail Corridor, Part Two: Which trains are the good trains?
Last week in Part One, we went over the five main Corridor services that VIA Rail operates, and the different tracks that t…
Train Nerd comment: the photo from Sylvain Lacroix is hauling not Budd HEP2 cars as stated in the caption but are Renaissance cars purchased from the UK.