Category: Rail

Extra Trains for the Holidays

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A young girl looking out the window of a train, passing by a coastal scene with snow in the air. Text reads The Ocean.
A Christmas present from VIA! Extra trains will once again run between Halifax and Montreal for the holiday season.

Good news for holiday travellers in Atlantic Canada: VIA Rail has announced that they will once again be running extra departures of The Ocean over the upcoming holiday season. Although a trial-run last year did not bring in as many passengers as VIA had hoped, the railway continues to believe that there is potential for extra ridership over the busy weeks around Christmas, as many people travel to spend time with their families.

As they did last year, VIA has added three extra round-trips into the schedule over a roughly two-week period, meaning there will be a total of 24 departures (12 in each direction) from Dec. 16th and Jan. 3rd, an increase of 6 total departures. It seems VIA is working to learn from the mistakes they made last year. This year’s trains have been added to the schedule earlier, and there is already promotion of the extra trains on the VIA website. How extensively they will advertise these trains remains to be seen. One thing is for sure: if we want to encourage VIA to continue running extra trains during the holidays and consider adding additional frequencies at other times of the year, these trains will need to be well used!

The Ocean normally runs between Halifax and Montreal on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday in each direction. Because Christmas Day falls on a Friday, there will be no train that day in either direction. Instead, that trip will be rescheduled to a non-normal day of the week, meaning there will effectively be 4 unusual departures in each direction, even though only 3 of those are truly “extra” trains.

Here is the schedule of additional departures:

VIA 14 (Montreal-Halifax)

Monday Dec. 21
Tuesday Dec. 22
Monday Dec. 28**
Tuesday Dec. 29

VIA 15 (Halifax-Montreal)

Tuesday Dec. 22
Monday Dec. 28**
Tuesday Dec. 29
Saturday Jan. 2

**The starred trains are re-scheduled trains from Christmas Day.

Continue reading “Extra Trains for the Holidays” →

Struggle to save Cape Breton line continues

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A vivid sunset over a rail yard, with orange locomotives visible next to a shed, and industrial buildings in the distance.
The sun sets on the CBNS yard in Sydney, a few months before rail service on the line came to a halt. Let’s hope the sun hasn’t set on the rail line for good. Photo: Tim Hayman

The celebrated Orangedale whistle has been silent for nearly eight months, and the rails across Cape Breton from St. Peter’s Junction to Sydney lie rusty and unused.  But optimism remains high that the 100 miles of track may yet be saved for future use.

The Minister’s Rail Advisory Committee – a group representing rail users, municipalities and the business community in general – was scheduled to meet on July 30 to hear the outcome of three reports commissioned by provincial Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan.  Consultants were to examine the long-term implications of rail service in Cape Breton, and the economics of rail versus highway transportation.  An engineering study on the state of the long-neglected infrastructure was also included.

David Rae – dean of the Shannon School of Business at Cape Breton University and chair of the Scotia Rail Development Society – has been one of the prime movers behind the rail retention campaign.  He’s leaving CBU at the end of the summer to return to the UK, but promises that he’s still going to be very much involved.  Finding a successor to maintain the momentum behind the effort was one of the agenda items for a July 28th meeting in Sydney.

Dr. Rae remains optimistic that a solution will be found, and insists that rail is very important to Cape Breton’s future.  He points to the potential intermodal traffic that could and should be moving by rail – relieving pressure on the already overburdened highway network and enhancing road safety for all users.  He notes that the reopening of the Donkin coal mine will create a renewed need for trains, and adds that the port of Sydney really hasn’t much of a future without a rail link. Continue reading “Struggle to save Cape Breton line continues” →

Advocacy in Action

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The Cape Breton rail issue has occupied much of TAA’s attention in recent months. Several volunteers have devoted many long hours to the cause, participating in community events and appearing at a public hearing in Sydney.

Although the passenger rail outlook has greatly improved in recent months, we have been relentless in our efforts to maintain the momentum.  We believe that TAA has earned a measure of respect and credibility with the new management team at VIA Rail, and have had some very productive discussions with senior officers at the Crown corporation.  Our upcoming AGM will give members an excellent opportunity to meet VIA’s new general manager for the region.

We’ve also been involved with the statutory review of the Canada Transportation Act that’s currently underway.  Iain Dunlop and Michael Perry joined your president participating in a working session in Fredericton at the invitation of New Brunswick Transportation Minister Roger Melanson.  Our input hopefully will form part of a joint submission from the four Atlantic transportation ministers.  A key TAA recommendation was that the act should seek to maximize use of rail infrastructure to benefit all Canadians – in the safest possible manner.  Meanwhile, TAA director Clark Morris took the initiative to submit a personal brief to the review panel.  Information on the review process is available online at: http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/ctareview2014/discussion-paper.html.

Communication has been ongoing with elected representatives on the federal, provincial and municipal levels, as we seek to strengthen our voice on the myriad transportation issues confronting our region.  But the need to grow our membership base has never been more important.  More volunteers are urgently needed to fuel our efforts at reaching out to the general public.

– Ted Bartlett