April 4, 2020

A VIA RAIL MONTRÉAL MAINTENANCE CENTRE EMPLOYEE TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19

MONTRÉAL, April 4, 2020 – VIA Rail Canada (VIA Rail) as been informed that one of its employees working in the storage room of its maintenance centre tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday evening. This employee has not been at work since April 1st, the day he informed his supervisor he was experiencing symptoms similar to a flu and had been in contact with someone infected by the virus.

As the health and safety of our employees is our number one priority, we immediately took the appropriate measures:

  1. The 3 employees that had been in direct contact with their infected colleague have been in self-isolation since April 1st. Since, they have been informed of the situation and were asked to remain in self-isolation and monitor their symptoms for the next 14 days.
     
  2. In accordance with the Canadian Public Health Agency guidelines, all the necessary steps of our cleaning protocol have been deployed.
     
  3. Specific zones of the maintenance centre have been sectioned off and will be cleaned and sanitized by a specialized cleaning supplier this week-end.
     
  4. A thorough disinfection of the working area in the storage room has been done to ensure employees can continue working safely and deliver the material they need.
     
  5. Our mitigation measures are fully operational and ensure that regular sanitization of common areas is performed in our maintenance centres by our cleaning staff using all the disinfectants products approved by Health Canada that have proven to be effective against COVID-19.

 

We remain in close communication with our employee and are providing all the support he needs to recover in the best possible conditions. Our thoughts are with him and his family during this difficult time.

REMINDER

VIA Rail is adjusting its operations and deploying a strict sanitizing protocol on board its trains, in its stations, maintenance centres and call centres in the face of the pandemic in order to minimize the spread of COVID-19. 

We continue to monitor the developments of COVID-19 and we remain in close contact with public health agencies and the federal and provincial governments and will keep Canadians informed as the situation evolves. 

The most recent updates are available on our website. 

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.