VIA Rail Canada drops the other shoe

For weeks it has been common knowledge that VIA Rail would announce reduced frequencies of its two flagship trains (and some other services as well) as soon as Canada’s parliament adjourned, lessening the chances of political blowback. The cuts result from subsidy reductions by the Conservative government. Today is that day. Employees were summoned to briefings at all the major stations. VIA’s president, Marc Laliberté , made a public announcement. If this took you by surprise, you haven’t been reading the online bulletin boards.

Starting this winter, the Canadian will operate between Toronto and Vancouver two days a week rather than the existing three, but revert to triweekly frequency from April to October. The Ocean between Montreal and Halifax, currently run six days a week, will become triweekly all 12 months. Plus, VIA’s train between Toronto and Niagara Falls, Ont., will be axed, although the VIA-Amtrak Maple Leaf over that same route will remain.

I regret that this is happening, but I understand why. The Canadian in particular is an enormous money-loser, requiring a government subsidy of $50 million in 2011, according to disclosures in the company’s annual report. From November through March the train is just eight or nine cars, and I’ve been aboard it on days when the on-board crews almost outnumbered the riders.

Summers are another thing entirely. I rode the Canadian eastbound from Vancouver at the end of May, a 22-car monster that included a dozen sleeping cars and carried more than 250 people. If you ran the train just the six warmest months of the year, the operating loss would narrow considerably or conceivably vanish. For example, an analysis of available numbers by Canada's Tom Box shows that ridership of the Canadian in 2011’s third quarter was triple that in the first quarter, revenue jumped 424 percent but costs only 28 percent, and the subsidy required fell by almost 90 percent.

The problem with operating only six months a year is losing your core on-board service people and having to rebuild a staff every spring. Competency would surely suffer. As it is, the professionalism of the Canadian’s staff is one of its crowning glories.

An undercurrent to the announcement is this: VIA is having trouble filling those sleeping cars. Express Deals at one-fourth the retail price are available on short notice. Plus, the company recently had a 50 percent off sale — in summer, of all times. Discounting in peak season is something Amtrak hasn’t been forced to do. — Fred W. Frailey