(The Canadian Press circulated the following story by Tara Brautigam on January 31.)
TORONTO — Via Rail apologized Saturday after nearly 400 passengers on two trains bound for Toronto were stranded on board overnight for up to 10 hours because of mechanical breakdowns.
“Via is terribly sorry for what they went through, for the long delay and the inconvenience they had to go through,” spokeswoman Seychelle Harding said in an interview from Montreal.
“We hope this won’t happen again.”
The problems began when the first train, which left Montreal on Friday at 3:40 p.m., stalled just west of Kingston, Ont., after encountering mechanical problems.
A second train that left Ottawa at 6:05 p.m. was hooked up to the first train in an attempt to pull both, Harding said, adding that it’s a procedure sometimes used when trains break down.
But the Ottawa train’s brakes became stuck in the tracks, forcing 392 passengers on both locomotives to bunker down for the night.
“I started phoning Via numbers and couldn’t get anybody to respond,” said an exasperated Bob Nelson in a cellphone interview from one of the stranded trains. “There was absolutely nobody to talk to to find out what the hell was going on.”
Passengers were initially offered buses on standby in Belleville, Ont., but it was too unsafe for people to disembark the trains, Harding said.
They were given blankets and food as some bunkered down for the night, while engineers outside worked to fix the problems.
The trains didn’t arrive in Toronto until 6:45 a.m. Saturday.
“We tried our best to keep everyone as happy as could be,” Harding said.
Nelson said passengers watched helplessly as other trains sped by throughout the night, adding that staff on board were visibly frustrated.
Aside from them, Via Rail appeared ill-prepared to handle the problems, Nelson added.
“It just seems to me that they were so totally ill-equipped to deal with the situation,” said the St. Catharines, Ont., resident, who was in Montreal for a business trip. “If it was an emergency, what the hell would happen?”
Harding said the breakdowns and delays were an anomaly.
“It’s unusual first that we’d have a delay that long, and it’s unusual that both trains have mechanical problems like that,” she said.
All passengers have been offered a full refund or credit voucher for future train trips, Harding said.
Via Rail engineers are now investigating the cause of the mechanical failures.