(The Canadian Press circulated the following article by Allan Swift on August 11.)
MONTREAL — Via Rail’s on-time performance last year was its worst in 16 years, and the Crown corporation blames mainly Canadian National Railway Co., which provides most of the track used by the passenger rail service.
Via said its on-time rate in 2003 was only 73 per cent, a down from 84 per cent the year before.
Via spokesman Malcolm Andrews said Tuesday the problem is that CN freight trains are getting longer and more frequent, and this inevitably causes disruptions on track where CN trains have priority.
In some cases the CN trains are so long they don’t fit on sidings intended to allow trains to pass each other.
Andrews said the situation has improved on the Montreal-Quebec City corridor this year thanks to investments CN made to lengthen sidings, but the overall on-time rate has not improved.
According to Via’s 2003 annual report, the worst sections were the Toronto-Vancouver corridor, where two out of five trains were late, with an on-time rate of 61 per cent.
The Montreal-Halifax corridor had an on-time rate of 69 per cent and the most-travelled corridor between Quebec City and Windsor had a rate of 73 per cent, the same as the national average.
Via said CN was responsible for 61 per cent of the delays, other railways six per cent and 13 per cent was the fault of other third parties. Via assumed responsibility for only five per cent of delays, while the remainder was unspecified.
CN spent $2.8 million this year to build two passing sidings between Montreal and Quebec City, in addition to $9.2 million spent last year on sidings on the Montreal-Halifax corridor.
“Via and CN are working very closely together to find solutions, both at a system-wide and a regional level,” Andrews said. He added that there are long-term capacity problems which could best be solved by having separate tracks for passenger and freight rail trains, as exist in some European countries.
Via owns less than 100 kilometres of its own line, in two sections in Ontario.
Last year Via trains carried 3.8 million passengers, a drop of 200,000 from the year before, even while its federal subsidies increased slightly to $263.5 million.