Via Rail's performance has gone from bad to worse — and it's costing the company millions
Just 59 per cent of trains arrived on time last year — down 23 percentage points in 10 years
Cédryk Coderre was one of dozens of travellers left stranded on a Via Rail train for 10 hours earlier this year.
As the government-owned passenger railway struggled with a mechanical failure, passengers on board Train 622 on Aug. 31 were left hungry and thirsty and forced to contend with sometimes inoperable toilets that belched out foul odours.
Some irate passengers — frustrated after waiting for hours with little to eat beyond bagged pretzels — got combative with Via personnel on this Montreal-Quebec City trip, Coderre told a recent House of Commons committee studying the incident.
"It sounded like the staff had it rough with some of the passengers in the other cars," Coderre said.
A frequent traveller both at home and abroad, Coderre told MPs he has experienced more plane and train delays here in Canada than anywhere else.
"Around the world, from what I've noticed, there are not really any delays compared with what we're used to," he said.
The Aug. 31 delay was a particularly egregious incident and the company's CEO has said it doesn't happen all that often — although passengers on one Via train famously faced an 18-hour delay in December 2022.
But the data shows that Via trains are often late — and the problem has gotten a lot worse.
Just 59 per cent of Via trains arrived on time last year, according to figures published in the company's annual report.
That figure is lower than the company's pre-COVID on-time performance — about 68 per cent of Via trains arrived at their scheduled times in 2019.
Via's on-time performance last year was also an eye-popping 23 percentage points lower than its performance in 2013, when it was 82 per cent.
Via's frequent delays cost passengers time and money and missed moments with friends, family and business associates.
The delays are also costing the railway millions of dollars in revenue because Via compensates passengers with travel credits for some delays that run an hour or more.
The railway paid out $1.7 million in travel credits last year, according to data provided by the company to CBC News. That's up from $1.13 million in 2022.
Via's 2023 on-time performance is even worse than Air Canada's on-time rate of 63 per cent — which earned the airline the dubious distinction of placing last among the continent's 10 largest airlines last year, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm.
And rail travellers — unlike air passengers who get bad service or face unreasonable delays — don't have access to a "passengers' bill of rights" when things go wrong.
CN Rail to blame for most delays: Via
A Via spokesperson blamed Canada's major railways for the bad on-time performance.
Via owns very little of its own track infrastructure — just three per cent, the spokesperson said.
The vast majority of trackage along the Quebec City-Windsor corridor is owned by CN Rail, which wants to get its freight to market as fast as possible.
Via trains that operate along this central Canadian corridor — which accounts for most of Via's revenue and passenger volume — are often shunted to the side while CN pushes through its own goods, many of which are critical to the economy.
On the small section of track that Via actually owns between Ottawa and Montreal, the on-time performance was closer to 90 per cent last year, the Via spokesperson said.
"There are a number of reasons a train could be delayed (mechanical, trespasser incidents, etc.) but the vast majority of Via Rail delays are caused by issues with the host railway, mostly rail congestion or limitations linked to maintenance of infrastructure which causes our trains to slow down," the spokesperson said.
But Amtrak, the U.S. government-owned passenger rail service, also runs most of its trains on track owned by freight companies and it still managed a much better on-time performance.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, about 75 per cent of Amtrak's trains were on time in 2023 — although the railway's own figures show some routes perform worse than that.
'It's disgraceful'
Peter Miasek is the president of the Ontario branch of Transport Action Canada, a group that advocates for rail and bus service.
Miasek said there's a reason why Via's American counterpart performs better: the U.S. government passed legislation decades ago that requires railways to prioritize Amtrak passengers over freight. There's no such law in Canada.
The U.S. government essentially nationalized the underperforming passenger rail services of privately owned railways in the early 1970s. In return for that bailout, the government forced the freight companies to be more deferential to the travelling public.
It doesn't always work as intended. Amtrak has had disputes with companies like Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific, but the company's on-time performance is still markedly better overall than what happens here in Canada.
Miasek said it's "a big concern" that Via is doing so poorly and the government needs to move ahead with legislation or regulations to give passenger rail priority status.
A recent petition tabled in Parliament calling for such a change collected some 10,000 signatures.
"We need to boost that on-time performance. I was on a train recently from Toronto to Ottawa. The darn thing got held up behind freight trains. It's disgraceful for a four-hour trip to be two hours late," Miasek told CBC News.
"You almost feel blessed when it's on time once in a while. My personal track record is less than 59 per cent on-time, that's for sure."
Asked about its role in Via's delays, a spokesperson for CN said the company does "understand that our operations may impact our partners' and their customers' transit time, we strive to ensure we limit any potential delays."
- Have you experienced delays travelling with Via Rail? J.P. wants to hear your story. Email him at [email protected]
While welcoming the news that the federal government is reportedly going ahead with high-speed rail, Miasek said it's not enough to promise a new corridor that's likely decades away from completion.
High-speed rail is "sexy" but there are other fixes that can make passenger rail more tolerable now, he said.
In addition to giving passenger rail priority, Miasek said, the government also could help pay for passing tracks and longer sidings to allow Via trains to navigate past freight trains.
In exchange for that investment, Ottawa could demand a "be-nice-to-Via clause" from CN and the other freight railways, he added.
"Canadians expect to leave and arrive on time, and they expect good service standards when they travel," said a spokesperson for Transport Minister Anita Anand.
"Our Liberal government is committed to passenger rail that's modern, safe and reliable," the spokesperson added, pointing to a recent investment to upgrade Via's fleet with new train cars.
The spokesperson did not address a question about giving rail passengers priority over freight to help Via claw its way back to a more acceptable on-time performance.
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