(The following story by Jason Magder appeared on the Montreal Gazette website on July 26, 2009.)
MONTREAL — Via Rail ticket counters were getting back to normal Sunday as service began to resume on the nation’s passenger rail service after a two-day strike ended.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference and management decided early Sunday morning to send outstanding contract issues to binding arbitration and trains started late in the afternoon in the Montreal-Toronto corridor. Full service is expected to resume elsewhere Monday morning.
Via will add extra cars if needed. Employees who had been laid off because of the strike have been summoned back to work.
“I am very pleased to once again say, ‘Welcome aboard,’ to all our customers,” Via spokesman Malcolm Andrews said during a news conference Sunday. “We’re looking for innovative ways to thank our customers for their understanding.”
One of them might be Irene Knight, 58. She’s a Via regular who said Sunday her confidence in the nation’s rail carrier is shaken.
Via Rail began reducing service Tuesday and all trains were cancelled when 343 locomotive engineers and seven yardmasters walked out at noon on Friday.
Knight, a resident of Milton, Ont., and her brother Michael Knight, 66, of Hartville, Ohio, had been taking the train from Quebec City to her home 30 minutes west of Toronto on Thursday when the strike stranded them in Montreal.
So she asked family members to drive from Ontario to Montreal so they could return home Sunday night.
“We paid for their hotel stay and we paid for their meals,” she said Sunday at the Via ticket counter in Montreal getting a refund on her cancelled train. “I’ll take the train again, but not today. We’re going to drive home. The die has already been cast.”
The strike left thousands of other travellers stranded or searching for other options to get to their destinations.
Via had previously been issuing refunds or arranging alternative options for ticket holders.
Knight said she plans to take the train again, but has a bit of a bitter taste in her mouth. She faults Via management for the strike, saying the collective agreement with engineers expired two and a half years ago.
“I absolutely understand the engineers’ decision to go on strike,” she said.
Another train passenger, blamed the union.
“Here in Canada, we’re not free,” said Rami Raad, 48, a resident of the Montreal. “We’re at the mercy of unions.”
Raad went to the central station to re-book his cancelled tickets for a trip next week to Niagara Falls with his wife and children.
“I’m not out of money, but it has caused me headaches to have to come here twice to re-arrange my plans,” he said.
Via’s Andrews said he didn’t know the impact of the strike, but said it would be “significant.” Via transports up to 12,000 passengers per day during summer.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents the locomotive engineers and yardmasters, said it was happy the strike is over.
“The negotiations have been challenging and we appreciate the support shown by our members during this process. We look forward to having our members back on the trains,” TCRC president Dan Shewchuk said in a statement.
Sunday evening VIA Rail Canada announced that it was offering “significant discounts on bookings over the next three days” following the strike.
Starting Monday customers making reservations for trips taking place between July 26 and Dec. 14, booked by_Wednesday night, were to receive “a 60 per cent discount on adult regular fares in Economy Class (all routes) and in Business Class (Windsor-Quebec City corridor).”