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Sorry to be blunt, but there are many Cassandras on this forum predicting the imminent demise of Via without much grounding in fact or context.The bigger picture is this: After very reluctantly implementing massive fiscal stimulus in 2008 following the worldwide recession, the fiscally-conservative Canadian Conservative government has been trimming spending across the board to get the books back into the black. This certainly has affected Via Rail , and has resulted in service reductions. But as NS Via Fan has correctly pointed out, the reductions have been fairly marginal. In fact on the Toronto to Windsor run the only change was the elimination of the last train of the evening west of London ON on weekends.Despite the cutbacks the overall rate of inter city passenger train usage remains higher in Canada than in the US. NS VIA Fan compares VIA's SW Ontario service with Amtrak's Michigan services. Another interesting comparison would be the VIA Corridor services with Amtrak California. There is approximately the same density of train service in both, but the population of the Canadian corridor is a little over half the state of California.What about the future? The federal government will be in surplus in the coming fiscal year and there will be a federal election in 2015. This is not the environment in which governments cut spending. To be sure, VIA is subject to a reduction in grant for fiscal year 2014-15, along with virtually every other federal program, but given the Supplementary Estimates process this does not necessarily translate into actual spending cuts.
Sorry to be blunt, but there are many Cassandras on this forum predicting the imminent demise of Via without much grounding in fact or context.
The bigger picture is this: After very reluctantly implementing massive fiscal stimulus in 2008 following the worldwide recession, the fiscally-conservative Canadian Conservative government has been trimming spending across the board to get the books back into the black. This certainly has affected Via Rail , and has resulted in service reductions. But as NS Via Fan has correctly pointed out, the reductions have been fairly marginal. In fact on the Toronto to Windsor run the only change was the elimination of the last train of the evening west of London ON on weekends.
Despite the cutbacks the overall rate of inter city passenger train usage remains higher in Canada than in the US. NS VIA Fan compares VIA's SW Ontario service with Amtrak's Michigan services. Another interesting comparison would be the VIA Corridor services with Amtrak California. There is approximately the same density of train service in both, but the population of the Canadian corridor is a little over half the state of California.
What about the future? The federal government will be in surplus in the coming fiscal year and there will be a federal election in 2015. This is not the environment in which governments cut spending. To be sure, VIA is subject to a reduction in grant for fiscal year 2014-15, along with virtually every other federal program, but given the Supplementary Estimates process this does not necessarily translate into actual spending cuts.
