MOST VIA RAIL TRAINS RESUME NORMAL SERVICE

MONTRÉAL, March 4, 2020 – VIA Rail Canada (VIA Rail) announces that as of Saturday, March 7, most of its trains will resume service on their normal schedule. 

As of this Saturday, all services between Toronto-Montréal and Toronto-Ottawa will be offered, with the exception of trains 45 and 655, which will be resuming the day after on Sunday, March 8. 

Furthermore, VIA Rail confirms that the Canadian, which resumed operations with a first departure on March 4, is now back to its full and normal schedule.

VIA Rail service on the Prince-Rupert – Prince-George – Jasper route remains suspended at this time as we continue to work with the infrastructure owner, CN Rail, on a resumption timeline. 

As a result, VIA Rail will continue to call back the vast majority of the 1000 employees affected by the temporary suspensions announced on February 19.                                                                                                   

 

Passenger promise

All current reservations on those segments will be protected. As we begin to resume all of our operations, our services may take some time to get back to normal. We may experience trip delays and late departure times (passengers are encouraged to visit our website before they leave), our seat availabilities may be limited, and the wait time to speak with an agent on the phone might be longer than usual. 

VIA Rail remains committed to offer peace of mind to its travellers. That’s why, as we return to normal operations, travellers will be able to cancel or modify their reservation at any time prior to departure during the month of March without incurring any service fees. This includes all travel up to and including March 31, 2020 and any travel after March 31, 2020 if their outbound train is on or before March 31, 2020. 

We thank our clients for their patience and understanding as we continue to work to provide them with the level of service they have become accustomed to receiving from VIA Rail.

 

Please find below a summary of routes in service: 

Overview of service resumptions* 

Route	Service
Montréal-Toronto	Full service to resume Saturday, March 7
Toronto-Ottawa	Full service to resume Sunday, March 8
Toronto- London-Windsor	In full service
Toronto-Sarnia	In full service
Toronto-Niagara Falls	In full service
Québec City-Montréal-Ottawa	In full service
Senneterre-Jonquière	In full service
The Ocean (Montréal-Halifax)	In full service
Winnipeg-The Pas	In full service
The Canadian (Toronto-Vancouver)	In full service
The Canadian (Vancouver-Toronto)	In full service

 

*This information is subject to change without notice.  

 

As of March 4, 1071 trains have been cancelled because of the blockades.

More than 165 000 passengers have been affected.

 

Overview of service cancellations*

 

Route	Service	Cancelled until (inclusively) :
Prince Rupert-Prince George-Jasper	Cancelled	Saturday, March 7

*This information is subject to change without notice.  

All passengers are encouraged to visit our website for more information. Details on the refunding procedure are available on our website: https://www.viarail.ca/en/travel-advisory-information. 

About VIA Rail

As Canada’s national rail passenger service, VIA Rail (viarail.ca) and all its employees are mandated to provide safe, efficient and economical passenger transportation service, in both official languages of our country. VIA Rail operates intercity, regional and transcontinental trains linking over 400 communities across Canada, and about 180 more communities through intermodal partnerships, and safely transported over 5 million passengers in 2019. The Corporation has been awarded five Safety Awards and three Environment Awards by the Railway Association of Canada since 2007. Visit the “About VIA Rail” section at https://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail.