An Open Letter To:
The Right Honourable Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada,
The Honourable Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario,
The Honourable Steven MacKinnon, Federal Minister of Transport,
The Honourable Prabmeet Sarkaria, Ontario Minister of Transportation,
Mr. Michael Lindsay, President and CEO of Metrolinx,
Ms. Tracy Robinson, President and CEO of CN Rail,
Mr. Matthieu Paquette, Interim President and CEO of VIA Rail Canada,
To paraphrase author Judith Viorst, on Friday, August 7, 2026, VIA Rail had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. For my family, it started with VIA Train 84.
VIA Train 84 left Sarnia on time at 8:40 a.m. By the time it reached London, it was 23 minutes late. The delays compounded east of London due to conflicts with CN freight trains and slow orders on CN tracks between Stratford and Kitchener. By the time Train 84 reached Kitchener, it was almost an hour late.
Erin, the kids, and I were riding VIA Rail to Ottawa for a conference. We departed Kitchener at 12:58 p.m., moving onto tracks owned and operated by Metrolinx, but our problems did not end there. Although we made good speed out of Kitchener and across the Grand River, our train pulled into a siding just east of Breslau and eased to a stop.
And there we stayed for close to two hours.
At the time, we were told that we had to wait for a GO Train to pass us. However, I had the Transit app on my iPhone, and I could see that the GO Train that was supposed to meet us just east of Breslau was actually at Mount Pleasant GO Station in Brampton, two whole counties away. That GO Train was at least 45 minutes from our position. But apparently, there was nothing we could do.
The GO Train finally passed us at 2:17 p.m., but VIA Train 84 stayed in its siding. The GO Train made its way to Kitchener, switched ends, and came back the other way, passing us again around 3:00 p.m.. The reason for this delay was because, thanks to the earlier delays caused by conflicts with CN freight runs, slow orders on CN tracks, and waiting on a GO Train that wouldn't reach us for three quarters of an hour, we'd passed our engineers' legal time limit imposed by Transport Canada for the very sane reason that they don't want tired and overworked engineers driving huge trains across this country. Thus, we had to wait for VIA to bus out a new crew to take over. We finally got underway at 3:15 p.m.
As a result, our two-hour layover at Union vanished completely. The train we had to connect to left without us, and we had to rebook the second leg of our journey on a later train. We were far from the only ones, as dozens of us lined up at the VIA ticket stands at Union. In the end, where we were supposed to get into Ottawa at 8:00 p.m., we ended up arriving at midnight, crashing into our hotel closer to 1 in the morning.
To be fair to VIA, they did their best to ease the pain. They comped us 50% of our ticket price for the journey between Kitchener and Union. Because of delays between Union and Ottawa, we received another 25% refund on that leg of the journey, which let me ride for free on VIA a couple of weeks later. Multiply this by the dozens of passengers affected, and this must have cost VIA Rail thousands of dollars. VIA's ticket agents managed a long line of harried passengers quickly and professionally and got everyone on their way. Even while waiting on the train, the seats were comfortable, the air conditioning worked, and train staff explained as much as they could and were suitably apologetic. To the credit of the riders, everyone remained polite and in good humour. So, this is not a complaint that should be addressed to VIA Rail. They had little or no control over the delays that afflicted their train and cascaded across their system (other VIA Trains saw considerable delays that day). It's the fact that VIA Rail has little or no control over the conditions their trains operate under, and their poor treatment by CN Rail and Metrolinx, that is the problem.
CN's slow orders due to poor track conditions between Stratford and Kitchener were perhaps the biggest problem. The long stretches where the VIA Train had to crawl along at 16 km/h (precisely 10 miles per hour, because that's the North American standard speed for tracks that are in particularly poor condition, and CN is a North American railway company) was frustrating to watch on VIA's Live Train Tracker, as Train 84's arrival time was progressively pushed back. Metrolinx recently extended GO Train service to Stratford, but that service, while useful, is hamstrung as it copes with these same slow orders. A trip between Stratford and Kitchener that used to take 27 minutes a couple of decades ago, now takes closer to fifty. Metrolinx's extension to Stratford won't succeed unless these poor track conditions are fixed.
Possibly Metrolinx will pay for these necessary repairs, but while CN is currently a private for-profit railroad, it was a Crown corporation from 1918 to 1995. Canadian taxpayers paid billions to maintain and upgrade CN's tracks, and it's shameful to see our investment left to rot.
But even more aggravating was Metrolinx's treatment of VIA Train 84. Bringing that train to a stop when the meeting GO Train was more than 45 minutes away boggles the mind. Surely there are other places between Kitchener and Georgetown where these trains could meet and pass each other. If not, what is Metrolinx waiting for? They initially promised that we would have two-way hourly service between Kitchener and Toronto by 2024, but that's not possible with the limited passing sidings they've built west of Georgetown.
As I said, VIA Rail compensated its passengers for the delays of that day, but it seems unjust that they should have to pay when CN Rail and Metrolinx directly contributed to the problem. Private for-profit railway or not, CN's rail infrastructure should be better maintained. While Metrolinx has a GO Train network to run, passengers are passengers, and VIA Rail's passengers shouldn't be treated as second-class citizens. The federal government and the Ontario government should hold CN and Metrolinx more accountable to ensure such a delay on VIA Rail doesn't happen again. By making sure that no trains are bogged down to 10 miles per hour, and that all passengers get through the network with minimum delay, benefits not just VIA Rail's passengers, but the economy as a whole, by speeding up freight service, and ensuring people can ride from southwestern Ontario through the GTA to Ottawa, Montreal and beyond without clogging up traffic on Highway 401.
My family deserved better. My fellow passengers deserved better. VIA Rail deserves better, and so does everyone trying to move back and forth across this province.
Fix this.
Sincerely,
James Bow