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You are touching a crucial thing here: as I can confirm with my own experience of having switched employers twice in the last two years (once by choice and once by necessity), everyone with a certain level of expertise in the operational, technological, commercial, economic and/or political...

That was all I had to say about this video (and, again, I hope I didn't offend anyone!), but Terry Johnson from Transport Action Canada wrote a much more nuanced and concise critique of said video:

Before I reply to your post, I have to enphasize that I usually appreciate your posts and that I'm still grateful for you having taken the time to summarize the video, as I couldn't have possibly suffered through 17 minutes of apparently an awful lot of (to any expert in the field: painful)...

Once you refer to the "Order Varying Certain National Transportation Agency Orders Respecting Railway Companies" as the actual legislation mandating the 1990 cuts, your question becomes rather simple to answer: Schedule III mandated that VIA abandons the entire CP route: "VIA Rail Canada Inc...

Given that a comparison of the per-timetable-km cost of Ontario Northland and VIA Rail suggests that the costs of operating rail services is at least 10 times that of a bus doing the same, the crucial question will always be what exactly such a rail service could possibly achieve what a bus...

Indeed, but neither Trois-Riviéres nor Peterborough are end points (or considered major stops) along the HFR route. They are just lucky to be located along the most feasible dedicated (i.e. passenger-only) alignment between cities which actually count (and Saskatchewan sorely lacks)…

My apologies for the very late reply. My point was that the example of these three cities proves that cities approximately the size of Saskatoon and Regina are not automatically guaranteed intercity rail service, even when they are located within the Quebec-Windsor Corridor. What matters is the...

Saskatoon and Regina are roughly the same size (150-300k CMA) as Peterborough, Trois-Rivières and Sherbrooke and they enjoy the same (Regina) or even less (Saskatoon) intercity passenger rail service level as/than all three of these cities located within the Quebec-Windsor Corridor…

I don’t know, the only thing which seems to create any excitement in Central and Western Canada for the revival of intercity passenger services seems to be the expectation that federal (rather than: provincial) tax money would cover the costs…

Yes, I’m very confident that the same province which didn’t want to spare the pocket money which paid for a rather modest intercity bus service will spend the big bucks to restore intercity passenger rail service…

The Canadian still offers non-Sleeper transportation between any of the dozens of stops along its route, which - except for the lack of frequencies - is reasonably comparable to Amtrak, whereas such a transportation utility is virtually absent with its distant cousins in Australia. Not sure...

„Anywhere on the globe“, not: „in any vehicle“! And, yes, I always struggled to receive GPS signals in Park or Skyline domes, despite supposedly unobstracted view to the satellites…

This might work very reliably when you are outdoor, but having whitnessed how difficult it is to obtain a GPS signal from within the train, I wouldn’t count on your pricey satellite phone to be of any use. And as someone else noted: if you rely on remaining connected with the outside world, then...

I'm not familiar with Alaska RR, but in the case of the Canadian, the question is not whether Prestige Class would turn a profit if it was running as a separate train independently from VIA's other services, but whether it attracts more incremental revenues than it causes incremental costs. Now...

I agree that the CN line has also very spectacular sceneries and allows an even more remote and isolated experience East of Winnipeg than the CP route. As for these rumours, as long as VIA is mandated to operate rail services out of Sudbury, Winnipeg and Jasper, there will be a need for a...

I don’t think anyone disputes that Amtrak‘s LD routes are easier to use than VIA‘s Canadian, but when you compare the Canadian with Australia‘s Indian Pacific, which operates with very similar equipment over virtually the same distance (2,698 vs. 2775 miles), we should agree that the difference...

To underline your point: this is the extent to which the timetable changes in July 2018 and April 2019 have all but eliminated the issue of excessive arrival delays making national news: All data is pre-Covid, but I have no reason to believe that things have slipped back significantly compared...

Look up the population figures along the Canadian’s route and compare them with any long-distance Amtrak route: there are only 7 cities (Sudbury, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Kamloops, Chilliwack and Abbotsford) along the 2,775 miles between Toronto and Vancouver with more than 100k in their...

We are talking about a train consisting of a locomotive, a baggage car and a single coach with galley, which is staffed by a single on-train crew member. Having taken this train myself, I can assure you that the attendant was busy enough, so that he could not assume any additional duties...

Before I attempt to answer your question: what is the problem we are trying to fix at the moment and is it really a problem beyond rail enthusiasts’ forums like this one?