Concordes and Parking Lots: Part 2 of 2
A brief history of passenger rail in contemporary Canada from 1990 until today
Part 1 of Concordes and Parking Lots looked at passenger rail from 1960 up to 1989, and all the various factors that were at work during it’s era of decline. Part 2 explores what happened after things stabilized, and what forces are now at play that offer a chance for passenger rail to be redefined in the Canada of today.
The era of managed stagnation begins
In 1990 a VIA passenger may have been greeted by a strange sight as their train pulled into the station. A diesel locomotive that was not in the usual grey, blue and yellow colour scheme, but one that was white, with giant Diet Pepsi logos on the front and sides of it. In the years to come locomotives would advertise Home Hardware, a new Spiderman movie, and Telus, to name a few.
The cuts to VIA service, which had taken effect in January 1990, had indeed reduced the annual deficit for the agency. But they were still looking for ways to generate more money without any major investments being needed. Shilling out their locomotives for advertisements was one way they could do that.
The story of VIA throughout the 1990’s is incredibly boring and uninteresting one with nothing really noteworthy happening. Ridership was stagnant. There were no new investments in stations or equipment. There were no real attempts to rebuild the agency and look towards the future. They briefly tested a new train, but it was short lived. Instead the agency carried on using its existing, and aging equipment, and entered a state of managed stagnation.
Outside the windows of VIA’s offices though important changes were afoot in Canadian society. NAFTA, which was signed in 1992 would take effect at the start of ‘94 and immediately get to work on transforming the Canadian economy, even more so than its predecessor had done. The high tech sector was a continually growing industry which in 1995, with the introduction of the World Wide Web, was about to take off in grand fashion. Alberta and Saskatchewan, one with its tar sands, and the other with oil and potash, were just starting an unprecedented 30 year run of the boom part of the boom-bust natural resources cycle.
By and large those changes weren’t really going to impact passenger rail all that much. The high income tech and oil workers were simply going to buy nicer cars, or take more international vacations. The decline of the manufacturing industry meant that many people were going to permanently lose a living wage job and find their disposable income reduced to nothing. If anything passenger rail ridership should have continued to decline at least throughout the mid- to late-90’s.
However, cities were seeing a small revival in their urban centres. Some members of Generation X, the kids of the baby boom generation, were adopting different values and ambitions from their parents. The dream wasn’t to own a house in the suburbs. It was to live downtown, with access to shopping, bars, live music and a more urban culture within walking distance or a short transit trip.
Throughout the 80’s Canadian cities had, for the most part, seen the exodus of people from the more urban, central areas come to a halt with some seeing marginal increases in population, after the 70’s had left many places pretty battered. The 90’s were going to hit different. It wasn’t just people coming back to the existing city. They were about to see a new wave of construction that would focus on places for people to live, not just office buildings for 9-5 workers. Vancouver’s Coal Harbour would be at the vanguard of this new, urban residential development, creating what has become one of the toniest, and most expensive neighbourhoods in all of Canada, in part owing to the waterfront and mountain views it offers from such a central location. Toronto was not far behind it, as it began to develop its post-industrial waterfront and rail yards, along with its many, many parking lots.
Parking lots were the secret weapon when it came to new urban developments. In the post war era Canadian cities often saw old buildings levelled and replaced with surface parking to accommodate the growing number of cars that were coming into the city centres. This was particularly prominent in the most central parts of cities were one block might have an all new 50 storey office tower, and the one next to it a thin layer of asphalt from sidewalk to sidewalk. In the 1990’s these pieces of land were relatively cheap, and saw very little friction in terms of what could be built. There were no old buildings being destroyed to fuel opposition. And in the early years projects were often just dismissed or ignored because many people thought they couldn’t even get enough sales to get off the ground in the first place.
This made throwing up new condo towers relatively cheap and easy. For the first half of Generation X, this made owning a home in the city a realistic proposition, and many young people found themselves part of a new wave of urbanites.
At the time, it could have been easy to simply view this wave of renewed interest in the urban parts of a city as a fad. In the US the revival was heavily fuelled by popular media, with TV shows like Friends, the alternative music scene of Seattle, and the decreasing number of portrayals of urban cities like New York as places of fire, crime and scary black people. It helped create a very appealing vibe for young white people, which was good for urban growth (and often bad for people who would soon be priced out of their long time neighbourhoods). Up north CityTV and MuchMusic made the city part of their identity, along with the undeniable American influence that creeps across the border. But in Canada it wasn’t just good vibes from the media, there was a diverse range of investments coming back to cities.
With the exception of the poorly located Ottawa Senators arena in the suburb of Kanata, new stadiums like the Skydome, and arenas such as the Air Canada Centre and new homes for the Canadians and Jets, would be located just steps from the very centre of those cities. Urban university campuses were starting to grow as more and more young people chose that path for their post-secondary life, which would send enrolments skyrocketing in the coming decades. Investments in urban transit were starting to be taken more seriously, though not much would happen until the following decade. Both people and money were coming back to the city, and the influx was only going to increase with time.
VIA does a thing
In 2001 a rather modest station opened up in the Ottawa suburban satellite known as Barrhaven. It was brand new, built on a corner section of fallowfield that it would take its name from, and was inspired by the pitched roof stations of the early 1900’s. It was terribly boring looking, but also the first time in decades a new station had been added to the passenger rail network. For the rapidly growing west-end of Ottawa it would offer a closer, more convenient location to catch a train from than the sole station that currently existed next to the Queensway beyond the edge of the cities centre. And in the coming decades it would become the 8th busiest station in the Quebec-Windsor corridor. It was a small investment, just over CDN2 million, but it was the first sign of life from a seemingly moribund VIA in almost a decade.
A rudderless ship with seemingly good intentions is about the best way to describe VIA in the 00’s. In 2000 they purchased a fleet of 136 passenger cars from the UK after an abandoned over night service from London into continental Europe left them up for sale. The cars had even been painted in a colour scheme specifically for the new service and when VIA took delivery of them, they were simply left them as is to avoid the cost of repainting, and avoid any potential warranty issues. But that meant it really didn’t fit in with their now 25 year old colour palette of yellow, blue and grey. This lead to them altering their branding to better fit with the new passenger cars, including their website and some refurbished locomotives and older passenger cars. But it was a half assed effort and it made VIA’s image look messy and unprofessional and conjures up images of the “graphic design is my passion” meme.
VIA would occasionally receive money to help upgrade the infrastructure they ran on. But most of it went to the tracks that were owned by CN and any gains they made were short lived, if gains were even made at all. Both CN and Canadian Pacific had seen their freight business grow decade after decade and their tracks were sometimes becoming packed with new freight traffic at a rate that was faster than any investments VIA could make on the lines.
Ridership was also slowly growing for the first time in 15 years. This growth was almost exclusively in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, and it was nothing particularly dramatic. Part of this was coming from the marketing they did towards students, offering train fares that were the same as it would cost to take a bus. It seems as though VIA’s strategy was to hook students on rail travel while they were young in the same way that McDonalds imparts brand loyalty on children through its happy meals and play areas. All this was happening despite the VIA experience at best remaining the same as it always was, and and at worst being one of increasing unreliability, and aging stations and trains.
As small as it was, it was at least a glimmer of hope. The calls for the privatization of VIA, just part of a larger trend that had emerged in the early 90’s, were constant. Yet somehow VIA managed to escape ever being in serious jeopardy of being sold or disbanded. Ultimately though the 00’s were not preparing VIA for a new era of growth. Instead, it was preparing it for what may ultimately turn out to be its last stand, and last chance of becoming ‘the’ passenger rail agency in Canada.
GO does many, many things
When people hear the word ‘passenger rail’ (at least in Canada) they are most likely going to think of something like VIA, or maybe the TGV or Eurostar. It is images of the longer, intercity trips that tend to be conjured up with that term. But passenger rail is more than that. It is regional trips. It is even commuter rail. Even in countries that have the fanciest, gee-whiz, high speed intercity lines, it is almost always the regional service that serve the majority of passengers on their network and do the real heavy lifting of moving people around.
Regional systems did exist in Canada. Typically centred around rail hubs such as Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, or Calgary. But even smaller cities, such as Ottawa, had basic regional networks serving them, even if those trains only ran once a day. When passenger rail began to decline in the post-war period, it was many of these regionals services that were the first to go. A line that ultimately collected a dozen towns with no more than a few thousand people in each of them, and limited freight prospects, was an easy choice for the chopping block.
However, some lines did remain. They were mostly routes that served the very largest cities, and functioned as a commuter service for those people well off enough to work in the city, but who could afford to live well away from it. When VIA was formed in 1977 it took over a few of these lines. But in 1982 several of them were transferred over, with lines in the Toronto region taken over by GO, and lines in Montreal (several of which were Canadian Pacific’s last services) taken over by AMT.
The 90’s had been a very up and down time for GO. It saw its funding increase in the early part of the decade, then yanked away in the mid-90’s, and then start to increase again before the 00’s started. Even with that uncertainty filled decade by 2005 the agency was starting to think beyond its role as a commuter agency. It received CDN1 billion towards general improvements across its network and was also working on a separate plan to do a top to bottom rebuild of its Georgetown South corridor. The line provided service to several urban neighbourhoods, and was the route taken by trains to get to Guelph, Kitchener, and some of the services heading to London. The Georgetown project would be worth CDN1.2 billion and do things like grade separate the line from crossing rail lines, and design the corridor in a way that it could also be used for a future Union to Pearson International Airport service. It also left the door open for easy expansion beyond what was initially being done. By 2009 the project was underway and would set a new standard for what a modern, urban passenger rail corridor could be in Canada.
Alongside actual construction, there would be the creation of Metrolinx. This agency was a new regional transit authority for the GTA, which would not only include GO, but also begin to undertake many of the rapid transit projects both in Toronto and the 905. Not long after the new agency was formed it released a master plan called ‘The Big Move’. It outlined a vision for what it wanted the GO train network to become. This included better integration with existing, and new transit lines, more frequent service, extended lines, and modernizing various elements from stations to the network itself. It even talked of the possibility of electrification. It was a concrete plan to move the GO train system from one solely about commuters, into a regional rail network.
It was quite ambitious, which made it easy to pass off as a fanciful dream. But by the late 00’s the public and political appetite for transit was changing. It was no longer a huge success if a city could scrape up a couple hundred million for a project. Funding was regularly in the low billions, and growing. It was still a long shot that the plan would actually move forward in a bold way. But by focusing on a steady stream of smaller, easily funded projects, that would also help contribute to a modernized network, GO was able to slowly demonstrate it was serious about expanding.
Provinces and parking lots
Even in the early 10’s it was still pretty easy to dismiss Metrolinx’s efforts to modernize the GO network. It wasn’t even necessarily what they themselves were doing, as they were the one agency making a go of it. Rather it was the state of affairs for passenger rail as a whole.
The original iteration for what would be the Union-Pearson express, then dubbed Blue 22, involved using refurbished Budd RDC cars, ones purchased by CN and Canadian Pacific in the 1950’s and 60’s. The idea of using what would be 60 year old equipment by the time the line opened was not just considered, but taken seriously and pushed by some politicians and people in power. VIA’s Quebec-Windsor corridor service carried on using equipment that in some cases was pushing 50 years old. Commuter rail networks like AMT in Montreal and the West Coast Express in Vancouver were stagnant. Other than what was happening with GO, it was kind of grim.
But when it came to urban rapid transport it was a different story. The urban growth in Canadian cities was escalating the demand, and by consequence the political desire, for better transit. The situation was far from perfect. The construction and funding of the Canada Line in Vancouver was heavily tied to the city hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Pearson-Union express was linked to Toronto hosting the 2015 Pan Am games. Often times a large amount of the public support for hosting an Olympics was solely based on the idea that it could, maybe, get some more transit built, rather than any actually interest in the event itself. The idea of building rapid transit solely based on its own merits, and for the people who live in the city, still had a ways to go.
In August 2009 the Canada Line in Vancouver opened. It would be dubbed a low cost, on time miracle, and like the rest of the Skytrain network was fully automated and focused on frequency over car length. The Canada Line also become the first rapid transit, or passenger rail, route in Canada to directly connect with a major international airport. Across Toronto there were subway extensions, and the start of the Eglinton Crosstown. In Ottawa the city was going through the motions of a finalizing its plans for a modern LRT system to replace many of its existing bus only rapid transit corridors. While both the Ottawa LRT and Crosstown would ultimately become disastrous projects it would be a decade before that would happen and in the time leading up to it, along with a growing number of additional projects, they were (and amazingly still are) fuelling a new generation of urban growth.
Transit oriented development, a planning paradigm which pushes for high density housing along with offices and other uses, next to rapid transit stations, was becoming a defecto planning standard. In Ontario the Places to Grow Act, a provincially lead plan, heavily endorsed the idea of transit oriented development on paper and in a regulatory framework. It didn’t just apply to Toronto and the GTA, but in some cases to cities well over 100km away from the urban centre of the region. Ottawa’s 2006 Master Plan would be an even more explicit and legally binding codification of transit oriented development in its urban planning goals.
It was no longer just the most central part of cities and the sea of parking lots in them that were giving developers visions of dollar signs. Dead malls and their expansive parkings lots were becoming a target, as well as suburban developments like strip malls or low rise light industrial with plenty of parking spaces. Cities had been growing and urbanizing again since the 80’s, and things were looking even better in the 00’s.
That was still going to be nothing compared to what was about to happen. And while the feds had always been, justifiably, hands off when it came to the affairs or city planning and urban transit projects, it was going to be increasingly left behind when it came to passenger rail, something it had once dominated.
Ontario begins to look beyond VIA
2012 was a complicated year for passenger rail in Ontario. The then ruling provincial Liberal government would cancel Ontario Northland service from Toronto to Cochrane amid rising deficits and the impending costs of dealing with aging equipment and track. Passenger cars being used were 45 years old at that point, having been used on GO’s original 1967 Lakeshore service, and track condition was not great. The cost of maintaining the northern service was not unfounded, as would be proved 10 years later. Additionally VIA would be subjected to a small round of cuts, in part brought on by a decline in ridership caused by the financial crisis of ‘08 and the subsequent recession. Southwestern Ontario would see it’s VIA services reduced the most out of any part of the Quebec-Windsor corridor.
When it came to regional services it was a much different story. Metrolinx and the province increased its commitment to expand services that primarily centred around Toronto, The GTA, and beyond. GO would permanently extend its service to Guelph and Kitchener, becoming a direct competitor with VIA. A massive renovation and modernization of Union Station that will total around CDN2 billion over 20 years and ultimately allow it to handle several thousand trains a day, began in 2009. The Union-Pearson express was under construction, and would use small, brand new, diesel units to provide the service, something that had all but vanished from Canadian railways.
Metrolinx was also undertaking something that has had massive impacts on its modernization plans today, and into the future. It had purchased even more rail corridors as freight companies were abandoning more of their lines. GO had been collecting rail corridors since the 1980’s, but the rate it was doing so was escalating in the early 10’s. It meant that the agency would no longer have to play on someone else’s property, and have its trains be second tier too freight. It could modernize tracks, and expand service, without an impediments, and it meant its investments had the biggest bang for the buck possible.
In 2014 the provincial government announced it would undertake its own high speed rail study for service from Toronto to London, allocating as much as CDN11 billion towards the project, which still had to be studied and approved before it would see any of that money. It was a big departure for a province that had long been a champion of VIA. Though it would ultimately be killed in 2019 when the Ford lead Progressive Conservatives came to power, largely because it was a very flawed plan, it had a lasting impact of cementing the idea in the publics mind that Ontario could in theory ‘go for it on its own’. And with GO on the precipice of becoming a juggernaut they increasingly had the tools right in their own backyard to do it.
In 2019 the Ontario provincial election would prove to be a pivotal movement for passenger rail, as well as urban transit. A key part of Doug Ford’s election platform was not just carrying on with the majority of the Liberal governments transit plans in Southern Ontario, but also included reinstating the Ontario Northland train service from Toronto to Cochrane. It was a big promise and rightfully questioned at the time as the CDN35 million price tag seemed too low. There were no real specifics either, just a vague pledge. But it was hugely popular and helped him largely sweep that northern section of the province. Passenger rail had become an election issue, and a popular one at that.
For Ontario the 2010’s would shake up passenger rail in ways that are going to take several decades to fully play out. When it comes to passenger rail infrastructure, 99% of the investments in Ontario were (and still are) the result of the province and the two provincial rail agencies. And those investments were about to become record breaking. With Ontario being the largest province, and the GTA being the largest urban region, in Canada what happens there will be a trendsetter and influence the rest of the country.
Questionable proposals in Alberta
While Ontario may be the trendsetter when it comes to passenger rail, Alberta is the bellwether. In the 1970’s and 80’s the province’s growing disinterest in passenger rail was really just a preview for what would emerge in other parts of the country over time.
But Alberta is complicated, and while it had become anti-passenger rail, it wasn’t anti-transit. Both the C-Train in Calgary and Edmonton’s ERT were among the first new-wave North American LRT systems built in the late 70’s and early 80’s, back when their populations hadn’t even crossed the 600,000 mark. Systems who were championed by the almost mythological uber-Conservatives Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein. In fact the influence of those two systems is still being felt in Canadians cities to this date.
Within the province there was always a quiet chatter about restoring service between Calgary and Edmonton. But up until the mid- to late-10’s provincial governments in Alberta didn’t really express much of an interest in passenger rail, especially if it wasn’t federally funded, operated and maintained. That last part might seem contradictory given the provinces varying dislike of the federal government. But people are complex and nothing everything makes sense.
It would be in that vacuum that two privately lead proposals would emerge. One, and the most consequential, for a route from Banff to Calgary and onward to YYC, as well as a high speed rail proposal between Edmonton and Calgary. There isn’t much to say about the latter as it is just a classic ‘here is our vision and the details on how we will fund it will come later’ proposal that hasn’t really gone much further than a website and some press releases. All sizzle and no steak.
The roots of the Banff to Calgary proposal came from an unlikely source. Oil sands investors and Alberta socialites Adam and Jan Waterous, who just happened to also own the lease on a large amount of property next to the Banff train station, and a nearby ski resort. It was proposed as a premium service, meant to cater to the more well off tourists who wanted a car free trip from Calgary to the resort town. Throughout its various iterations it has wobbled back and forth between being a purely private endeavour, to one that had some degree of provincial and federal involvement, which more specifically meant the province and feds handing over public money for either operations or some portion of the construction.
There has also been a borderline obsessive push to have its trains use hydrogen instead of diesel or electrification. This might seem odd at first, but there are attempts to have the oil sands also be used to create hydrogen. Having the train run off of this fuel is as much about trying to promote hydrogen as a green alternative to electricity, and helping rehabilitate the public image of the oil sands themselves.
It would be easy to call out the project as being a scam; a thinly veiled attempt to eventually get the public to pay for something that would ultimately net the projects leads billions of dollars. And there is some truth to that. A hydrogen powered rail link between Banff and Calgary would be a massive windfall to the Waterous’s. But like any great scam, it has enough validity behind it to be taken seriously. The public in general seems to be behind the idea of having rail service to Banff, which is keeping the project alive even its currently questionable state.
The project did see some financial support. There was an initial grant of CDN350,000 given to undergo a study into the transportation needs of Banff and the surrounding National Parks, which was completed in 2019. Once that report was released it wasn’t long after that the Canadian Infrastructure Bank funded its own study into the projects viability.
But it is also struggling to gain traction. Parks Canada has not yet committed their support of the project, something which is absolutely needed for it to be able to proceed. The various provincial governments have been lukewarm at best when it comes to providing any kind of large scale, long term public money support for it. Even as recently as 2022 the province has balked at providing any kind of monetary support for passenger rail projects, at best offering up a Memorandum Of Understanding to private companies and consortiums who have been interested in developing rail projects.
However, it has pushed the idea of passenger rail returning to Alberta into the public discourse. Another recent announcement in July 2023 by the UCP (an ultra-right political party for those not familiar with Alberta politics) stated they wanted the province to investigate a ‘Metrolinx style’ regional rail service from Airdrie (north of Calgary) to Okotoks, which is south of the city, along with a possible rail service from downtown Edmonton to its airport.
This was in addition to CDN3 million that was allocated to the City of Calgary towards studying the issue of the Banff to YYC rail link, with a seemingly prioritized focus on connecting the airport with downtown. It is a small, but radical departure from what the prevailing attitude had been since the 1970’s.
These projects face a lot of hurdles beyond the ones already mentioned. While a regional service from Airdrie to Okotoks would safely fall under Alberta control, a service to Banff is going to spark a federal-provincial battle over who should ultimately operate and control it. And with anti-federal sentiment being pushed hard these days, that discourse is going to get pretty nasty.
But building any one of these projects would essentially amount to the first time passenger rail service has been built in an area completely devoid of it. And if public support can emerge, and passenger rail projects can be built by public agencies, in the politically complicated, and Conservative ruled province of Alberta, it could change the national conversation very quickly.
Ontario Northland and GO move on from election promises to reality
Among public transport agencies in Canada, Ontario Northland is one of the lesser known ones, despite having been around in one form or another since the 1920’s. After it’s rail service between Toronto and Cochrane was discontinued in 2012, its only rail service was from Cochrane into Moosonee. It did however still have a network of intercity buses. When Greyhound began abandoning many of its long distance routes in Canada, Ontario Northland was able to step up in that region and pick up some of the pieces. From 2016 onward it would establish more routes, even extending its reach into Northwestern Ontario and onward to Winnipeg.
It had become an essential service in the vast region, and was also becoming more aware of its need to better serve indigenous communities. In short, it was an agency that was earning the the money it received by being forward thinking, pragmatic, and competent.
In 2021, the Ford government started to make good on its campaign promise by allocating CDN5 million to study the feasibility of a renewed rail connection between Toronto and Cochrane. It was still met with lots of skepticism, and cynicism, by people within and outside of Northern Ontario. But it was a first step.
Then, in Dec 2022 too many peoples surprise, the Ontario government announced it had purchased 3, brand new, trains for the service. They were the same trains that VIA was purchasing, with some slight modifications for the more remote service. Instead of trying to restore old equipment, they were going to provide the service with properly modern trains so that it wouldn’t feel second tier, as the 2012 version of the service had. The cost of the trains came in at CDN140 million, which meant that with the cost of station and track work that will be required, it was going to push the project closer to CDN200 million, or perhaps even more. It was much higher than the original estimate of CDN35 million, but affirmed some of the estimates a decade earlier that had been part of the justification for cancelling the service. This time around though, the public is seemingly ready to spend the money needed, with almost no push back anywhere against the rising pricing tag.
Ontario Northland were not the only ones starting to make inroads in the province. Metrolinx was pushing forward with its CDN15 billion GO Expansion project. Some early works were already starting (coming in at CDN1 billion on their own), such as double tracking the line to Stouffeville, grade separating the Davenport diamond, station rebuilds, and a new tunnel under the 401 and 427. But the GO Expansion project would, among other things, bring electrification to about 200km of the network, and turn many of its lines into all day, 15 minute service routes.
GO was also steadily improving service to Hamilton, and looking towards expanding services further down the line into Grimsby, St Catherines, and Niagara Falls. To the east it wanted to extend the line from Oshawa to Bowmanville. It tossed around the idea of a new branch line to bring service to Bolton. A renewed possibility emerged that the holy grail of modernization and ridership potential, the Milton Line, might be possible as the feds looked as though they had managed to work out a tentative agreement with Canadian Pacific to at least start seriously exploring the idea.
By the early 20’s it had already been just over a decade since The Big Move laid out a radically different vision for the GO train network. And in 2022, as more multi-billion dollar contracts were finalized, and shovels started hit the ground, it was becoming clear it would actually become a reality. By the end of the 20’s, GO will be a regional network.
In conjunction with Ontario Northland, their reach across the province is only going to grow with each passing year. When GO announced it would pilot a once daily GO train service from London to Toronto, it was met with a mild response mostly because the track conditions, and the number of stops it would make meant that the trip would take 4 hours, versus VIA which could get someone to Union Station in 2h15 to 3h30, depending on the train. The recent announcement that the service will be discontinued is not much of a surprise. But in 5 or 10 years time, when the track from Kitchener to Union is fully modernized, and if Metrolinx can buy and upgrade the corridor from Kitchener-Waterloo to London, there is no reason it couldn’t return, and at speeds that would make it successful and a serious competitor with VIA.
One city at a time, in small, almost unnoticeable steps, GO and Ontario Northland are reducing the need for VIA in Ontario.
Indigenous communities and passenger rail
When it comes to the history of railways and indigenous people, it is pretty brutal. The original TransCanadian rail line was used as a tool to colonize the country, on lands that were already occupied. It was even used to transport troops from Ontario to attack and kill Metis people in the infamous Battle of Batoche, an event that proved critical in reducing that peoples role in the future of the country. In recent years rail lines all across the country have been symbolically blockaded during various Indigenous social justice movements.
Often times the words passenger rail and First Nations communities bring up images of trains heading into remote northern landscapes and serving places who’s only way in and out are by plane or train, or maybe a winter road a few months of the year. VIA’s train going from Sudbury to White River, and Ontario Northlands service to Moosonee fit this bill, as does the train to Churchill even though it serves a tourist function as well. There are also some indigenous run rail services. Tshiuetin Rail Transportation, which started in 2005, operates trains that carry both passengers and freight through parts of Northern Quebec and Labrador. Keewatin Railway has operated passenger and freight services between The Pas and Pukatawagan in Northern Manitoba since 2006, a service that was once offered by VIA.
First Nations communities don’t just lie within remote regions though. Many are within, or close to, highly urbanized areas in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver… pretty much anywhere really. Ontario Northlands Toronto to Cochrane route will serve two communities before it even gets to North Bay. The busiest part of the VIA network runs directly through Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. The Calgary to Banff rail service would run through the Stoney Nakoda First Nations.
The role of indigenous communities in the future of passenger rail is going to be critical. Remote services owned by the First Nations communities that use it might well be the best model to adopt for those regions. In other cases, such as more urban or semi-remote areas, it might be a joint venture, or simply ensuring that those communities at least have a stop on whatever service passes through. One of the more ambitious projects being proposed, with CDN26.6 million towards feasibility studies recently being granted to it is the NeeStaNan Corridor. Proposed to go from Fort McMurray to the Hudson Bay coast in Manitoba, it would be a 100% indigenous owned trade corridor that among other things could include a rail line for freight and passengers.
The role of First Nations and passenger rail is also an incredibly complex topic. The exclusion of the role of indigenous communities in this story isn’t out of erasure, or ignorance, or because it’s simply trying to be ignored and brushed off. It’s because it is one with its own history and even today the role and impact of indigenous people on cities and public transport is one that is being written at a remarkably fast rate and one that ultimately needs more than a cursory mention to properly delve into.
Quebec and BC start taking matters into their own hands
When word came down the line in 2012 that VIA would be under pressure to make some cuts due to its budget being reduced there were not a lot of easy options left on the table. However two lines, one heading to Gaspe along the shores of the St Lawrence, and one on Vancouver Island, would soon meet the axe as the cost of simply keeping the lines in a safe condition mounted quickly. In both these cases the cost to bring the tracks up to even a minimum standard is very real.
In 2011 a portion of the Gaspe to Montreal line was closed due to poor conditions, and after a washout in 2013, the service was completely suspended, and has yet to return. That service suspension would ultimately be the event that lead the Quebec government to step in a few years later, after it had become clear that there was no interest by the feds to develop a rehabilitation program.
In 2016 Quebec purchased part of the line and began to reconstruct it, in part to allow for freight trains that among other things carried wind turbine blades. Along with restoring washed out sections of track there were bridges that had to be completely replaced and other general track work. The original allocation of funds would prove to be nowhere near enough. In February 2020 the Quebec government gave the project additional money, bringing the total they have received, so far, up to CDN180 million (or CDN 235 million, the exact numbers are not entirely clear). Very recently the project saw its first federal dollars, CDN10 million from a Climate Change mitigation fund that will be used to deal with the continuing problem of coastal erosion on the line.
This work was undertaken as many local community groups, and a mix of municipal and provincial politicians, continued to push for a commitment from VIA that it would reinstate passenger rail service once the line is completely rehabilitated. After a decade of waiting, people are finally going to get an answer very soon. VIA is currently undergoing the process to find a qualified builder to replace its non-corridor trains, that being TransCanadian, remote, and regional services. And with the Gaspe line set to be completed by 2025, it is ‘now or never time’ for VIA to commit by buying new trains for the line. It is genuinely uncertain what VIA will do. And if they don’t commit to restoring service it is possible that Quebec may see enough public pressure to reinstate the service themselves.
On Vancouver Island the situation is similar. The line is in roughly the same shape as the one in Gaspe, minus the coastal erosion problems. But it has much more limited freight prospects meaning that revenue from passenger services is all that would keep the line afloat. The BC government has undertaken a study in the past, and CDN18 million has recently been set aside for planning along the corridor. But the cost of bringing the line up to a useable state, and allowing for some freight and commuter services into Victoria, range from CDN400 million - 1 billion. Even the top end of those numbers might be on the low side when all is said and done.
Over the past few years there has been growing support by the provincial government to invest in the line. Just like Gaspe there has been no commitment by the VIA or the feds that they would reinstate service if the line was rehabilitated. But unlike Quebec, there is far less pressure being put on them. It seems increasingly likely that BC is ready to undertake the project, including actually operating the service, on its own.
The possibility of passenger service on these lines will solely be because of the provincial governments taking up the cause. The trend that first emerged in Ontario is spreading. And it is becoming even more solidified as VIA, and the feds, one serious attempt at passenger rail modernization crashes and burns in real time.
As Canadian cities reach new heights of popularity VIA makes it’s last stand
In 2016 the Old City of Toronto, the most central of Toronto’s six boroughs, set a new record for the number of people living there. It had finally returned to its previous peak, set in 1971, and was showing no signs of slowing down as a seemingly endless number of tower cranes became a permanent fixture on the cities skyline. A phoenix had risen from the ashes and the city was set to embark on an all new era of urban growth.
This story was not unique to Toronto. It was playing out all across Canada. Of course there were the usual suspects like Vancouver and Montreal. But increasingly mid-sized cities like Edmonton and Victoria were seeing urban development unfold in a big way. In Ontario Kitchener-Waterloo was becoming even more of a high tech hub, Ottawa was outpacing almost every city in the country when it came to growth, and Hamilton’s urban core was being revived. Even small cities like Kingston were joining the party, and in April 2023 it would do something no other city in Canada had done yet and end exclusionary zoning. Everywhere you looked parking lots were up for grabs, along with an increasing number of brownfield, and even greenfield urban development. Even among a growing housing and affordability crisis, the name of the game was urban.
For VIA, there could not have been a more perfect time to take a big swing. Increasingly dense cities of all sizes meant a growing market for it capitalize on. For the first time in VIA’s history, social and cultural momentum was unquestionably on its side.
In the early 10’s the agency had slowly started to get its shit together. It began replacing old, inadequate stations with new structures. They shifted their focus away from corridors they didn’t own, to ones they did, making their most recent purchase of a line between Smiths Falls and Brockville in 2015. They paired up with the globally renowned, Montreal based ad agency Cossette to retool their marketing and advertising, and eventually the entirety of its brand. The urban market was their target audience and with it growing each and every year so too did their ridership, despite a perpetually struggling service quality with delays having become an expected part of the VIA experience.
In 2015 VIA began to publicly talk about its High Frequency Rail plan. Unlike past proposals it wasn’t based on high speed trains. Rather it was about building a dedicated, passenger rail only line that would allow trains to travel at a reasonable clip of 160km/h, not be subject to constant freight train delays, and focus on regular departures and frequency. It was a sensible, pragmatic plan that focused on doing it economically and in a short timeframe. For the first time since 1982 VIA was seriously considering a project that would expand, or redevelop, its network into one that was actually modern.
Its reception was mild, with the public seemingly having no real stance for or against the HFR project, which was probably the best outcome VIA could have expected given the long history of proposals that went nowhere. The tepid response didn’t stop the agency from pursuing the idea. In 2018 VIA launched an all new branding and identity, in conjunction with a not far off announcement that they would be purchasing 32 all new, modern, trains. HFR would be heavily integrated into this new identity and vision for VIA.
By 2019 things were looking up for the agency. They had received CDN71 million to conduct a feasibility study on the HFR project and even launched their own public awareness campaign about it that included signs in stations, and videos across their social media sites. That same year VIA also recorded the highest ridership levels they had seen in decades with 2020 shaping up to be even better. The agency was looking at the very real prospect of breaking the 5 million mark in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, which would put them on par with numbers not seen since the early- to mid-80’s (and because of how ridership was recorded back then it could have been their highest numbers since the late 70’s).
When the pandemic hit it was immediately clear this was going to be bad for their ridership numbers, which was incredibly deflating, but understandable and a situation that was beyond their control. But it wasn’t Covid that would be a devastating blow for VIA. Instead it was the federal government.
By 2022 the HFR project had become something of a flagship piece for the federal Liberal government. Anytime there were announcements regarding the project, they took the lead, with VIA almost feeling like a background player. More money had been allocated towards the planning of HFR and it looked as if things were actually progressing. Then in March 2022 the project was rather surprisingly removed from VIA’s control and put in the hands of Transport Canada. A few months after that announcement VIA CEO Cynthia Garneau would abruptly leave the agency.
The specifics of what exactly happened are not publicly known. There is plenty of chatter and rumours floating around, but so far no one from within VIA, the federal government, or anyone who might otherwise be connected to the project, has spoken out on record. One aspect of this affair that does seem certain is that the transfer of the HFR project over to Transport Canada was not a move that was supported by VIA. It had been the centrepiece of their new vision and modernization campaign and without it they were once again an agency just doing what they could to work around the edges.
But it was going to get much more grim beyond just losing control of the project. HFR was starting to lean heavily into the idea of ‘private operators’ and ‘private sector involvement to fuel innovation’. There were even suggestions that VIA’s existing corridor service could be handed over to a private operator. To make matters worse the project has now received CDN600 million to date, with almost nothing to show for that money as it quickly hurls itself towards scandal or boondoggle territory (or as often happens in Canadian politics, a little bit of both).
The implications are already being felt. In Quebec municipal and provincial politicians are calling the project into question after at least moderate support for it initially. And VIA is now an agency who is effectively powerless. Instead of being able to grow and develop public trust in the agency, as has happened with Ontario Northland and Metrolinx, they have been pushed backwards.
There is a cruel irony that a potentially fatal blow to VIA, an agency that spent 4 1/2 decades treading water and fighting back calls for privatization, may have come from the one time it actually tried to do something meaningful.
One can still find positives amongst the VIA saga. 2023 is proving to be a strong year for VIA with its ridership ranks being quickly rebuilt. This actually puts the agency in a position were 2024 could the year where they return to 2019 levels, and maybe even hit the target that was being aimed for in 2020. That is a pretty remarkable feat given the turmoil that VIA faces. But the world is often messy and complicated. And maybe the destiny of an agency formed out of desperation is for it to end in an equally chaotic manner. It is unlikely VIA will die completely, or at least not within the next decade. But it seems very likely it will not carry on in the way that it has up until now.
Passenger rail will rise again, it just won’t look like it did in the past
If you were to survey the current state of passenger rail in Canada today, in the summer of 2023, the only reasonable conclusion you can come too is that it is pretty fucked up. Yes, VIA’s ridership is recovering, and there are some critically important, and positive, developments in Ontario, as well as in indigenous communities. But in every other province, and at the federal level, it is at best a state of unknown, and at worst, just completely chaotic.
Because of its history, the turmoil, and being a national entity, VIA and the HFR project are likely going to be in the spotlight over the next few years. The agency itself will probably just limp along for a while, as it has done for the past 46 years, staying in its lane having learned its lesson about taking chances. The HFR project languishes in a void, inching closer to being a scandal. And with each passing day that goes by without any accountability for what has happened to all the money being spent on it so far, and unanswered questions about plans for privatizing parts of the VIA rail service in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, it gets one step closer to that outcome.
By 2025, just 2 years from now, a federal election is going to be held, and it is entirely likely that for the first time since the mid-80s, VIA is going to be big part of the campaign discourse. It won’t be pretty either. There will be strong factions, those who have long hated the agency, who will use the failures of the HFR project to try and burn the agency to the ground for good. There will be some who want to save the agency and return it its ‘glory days’, an era that never actually existed. But mostly it will be people, the public at large, simply asking why isn’t VIA, and the federal government, doing anything?
It is impossible for anyone to predict how that will all turn out. No platforms have been released. Party leaders could change. And there is a lot that is going to transpire in the next few years that is going to influence how Canadians view VIA and passenger rail in general.
Alberta will have to decide if it is going to embrace privatized passenger rail, or adopt a public model, and deal with the publics reaction to whatever choice they make, alongside the impending battle with the federal government no matter what side they fall on. Quebec and BC will soon find out if the feds will return VIA service to the two shuttered routes, or if they are going to have no choice but to do it on their own. The maritimes and parts of the prairies remain dark horse wild cards. There is some level of public support for passenger rail in those regions. But with both federal and provincial governments not overly keen on bringing up the topic it remains unknown if it could become a sleeper issue, or if the desire simply doesn’t exist there yet.
Even the urban rapid transport space is going to impact the debate. Colossal failures, such as Ottawa’s new LRT network, and the impacts of Canada’s first fully privatized metro network, the REM in Montreal, are causing questions to be asked about public transport investments. With projects regularly approaching CDN10 billion, or higher, and the expectation that the projects result in something that, well works, and doesn’t harm other public transport in the process, increased scrutiny is rightfully deserved. Passenger rail, be it regional, or intercity, is just a different form of public transport and it will be hard for it to escape being part of the broader discussion.
Then there is Ontario. With every passing day Metrolinx, and even Ontario Northland to a lesser degree, are doing what VIA isn’t and actually building modernized rail networks and expanding service. Right now its encroachment on VIA’s turf is limited to just a few places such as Kitchener, Guelph and Niagara Falls. But over the next few years it could possibly announce plans that would, in particular, push the service further into Southwest Ontario. For VIA it would be a one-two punch. Expanded GO service would halt any potential growth in ridership it had been seeing. And when it came to public support, and ultimately who would would have the best chance of getting the large sums of public money needed, Metrolinx would almost certainly win that battle.
If VIA were to start losing a foot hold in Ontario, a scenario that isn’t out of the question, it would be a major setback for the agency. And with First Nations communities increasingly stepping up and taking control over their own transportation needs, alongside provincially controlled, remote service agencies like Ontario Northland, the final blow to VIA being able to continue in its current form could be landed.
All this uncertainty and low key drama is not a bad thing though. In fact it is a pivotal part of a democratic country collectively working through the changing needs of cities, regions, and people. The growth of GO wasn’t an accident or some Machiavellian scheme to topple VIA. It was because it was a service that people liked, and have been willing to put public support, and public money, behind. And it is not hard to see why. With the current round of modernization it will push travel times to be roughly equal to what VIA was doing (on routes where the two services operate simultaneously) is doing today. Equally important is that it also costs at minimum half as much to ride on GO versus VIA, and serves more stops along the way, allowing you to get closer to your final destination.
GO is a service that is used by the masses, and it shows in its ridership numbers. In 2019 GO was outperforming VIA’s all time best ridership out of Guelph and Kitchener by 2 to 1. By 2025 they will outperform their best ridership numbers by at least 3 to 1, and when compared to current day VIA ridership, that gap will likely increase to roughly 5 to 1. And that would be with only about 1/3 of the lines modernization completed meaning the ridership gap between the two is only going to increase even more in the following years. GO is passenger rail as utility, not an experience, and that has proven to be hugely popular.
The cost of building modern passenger rail is not cheap, whether it is a modern regional system, a dedicated intercity line, or a high speed one. And when it comes down to brass tax, an affordable regional service that serves smaller cities, suburban communities, and central part of major cities with reasonable travel times, is going to boast ridership numbers that far exceed a more expensive to ride, and less inclusive, HFR or high speed variant. As a result it is going to have more public support. This is why you see these kinds of proposals increasingly showing up in provincial election platforms as a positive thing, versus VIA whose re-emergence on the federal election trail is unlikely going to be because people want to celebrate it. This isn’t to say VIA’s fate is sealed. It could have a dramatic turnaround. But the odds are not in favour of that outcome.
Back in the 1960’s the Concorde was the ultimate symbol of the kind of changes to travel that were coming, and like an unstoppable juggernaut would make the decline of passenger rail a fait-accompli. With todays renewed focus on passenger rail it might be tempting to look back and say ‘how could we have been so shortsighted’. At the time though, a lot of people thought that passenger rail was kind of shit compared to driving or whimsical dreams like the Concorde, and they weren’t wrong because it kind of was.
But inevitability works both ways. The replacement of hundreds of sq km of parking lots in Canada with high density urban development, and an increasing amount of infill, brownfield and greenfield development, means that the Canadian city of 2030 will be very different from one in the early 90’s, let alone those of the 60’s.
The passenger rail that emerges is going to fit the reality of Canadian cities and regions today. There will never again be a time when close to half a dozen TransCanadian trains leave west coast and central Canada stations every single day. Routes that serve nothing but small rural towns, who also have modern highways running through them, are unlikely to come back. Lines will follow where people live now, not where they once were. Stations will be built where people want to travel to today, like airports. Extending urban rapid transit lines may even serve some of the purpose that regional rail systems once did. There is a lot to figure out when it comes to deciding how passenger rail can fit into modern Canadian society, and what will be a good use of public money. But slowly and surely, despite it often being a very messy and complicated process, it will be figured out.
As for VIA. Well, as affordable, utilitarian, regional networks grow and become the mode of choice for working and middle class people. And as remote and regional routes potentially fall under provincial or indigenous control, VIA might just take a page from 1950’s Canadian Pacific and focus on catering to the more elite and better off travellers, even within the Quebec-Windsor corridor. For government employees, those travelling on corporate expense accounts, or urbanites with extra money to burn, they may opt for an experience that is more in line with the trad adjacent view of how rail travel should be. In many ways the agency is already on a trajectory towards that path. And it would be a strange twist of fate if the only aspect of the so called golden age of passenger rail that VIA could make a success were the most exclusive and posh parts of it.
When you look at passenger rail in Canada over the past 63 years it was not any particular boogeyman, corporate arrogance, or political fiat that caused it to decline and get to where it is today. It was the result of the changing dreams and ambitions of Canadians. It was the complex interplay between cities, transportation and technology. It was social and cultural momentum changing what people thought of trains in an era of hyper-suburbanization, and starting to change them again in a new era of urbanism. And just as it was a collective choice to let it decline, it will be a collective choice that leads to new, modern, passenger rail systems that actually fit what Canada and its cities & regions are becoming.
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This was a really good read. Thank you for taking the time and effort to write this!
It raises and interesting constitutional debate (as alluded to when talking 'bout 'berta) of the division of powers. As the feds continuously step-in on provincial issues (for better or worse), it's odd that it rail seems to be moving the other way.
I can picture a future where rail dominates intra-provincial travel while air dominates interprovincial travel.
Thanks for this, lots of excellent work - but let down by poor grammar and proofreading (but I did enjoy 'brass tax', that was witty...).