Three Exo commuter train lines are at a standstill Thursday morning due to the lockout at Canadian National Railway Company (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC). Some 21,000 users of the Vaudreuil/Hudson, Saint-Jérôme and Candiac lines are therefore without service and the shuttle service will not be operational until next Monday.
Exo, which manages the commuter train network in the metropolitan area, has invited its users to use the regular public transit network. Alternative measures involving bus shuttles will not be offered until August 26. “Since the number of buses available in the metropolitan area is insufficient to replace all the capacity of the cancelled trains, alternative measures will focus on serving the majority of stations located outside the Island of Montreal,” Exo said in a press release issued Thursday morning.
Exo cited the uncertainty surrounding the start of the labour dispute to explain the delay in setting up a shuttle service, as well as an insufficient number of buses and drivers to provide the service. “We have to find these buses and the drivers because we already have a labour shortage in the greater Montreal area,” Caroline-Julie Fortin, director of communications and public affairs at Exo, explained on Radio-Canada on Thursday. “There have been phone calls made to other regions to bring in drivers. So, there is a mobilization time that is incompressible.”
The measures put in place from Monday will be mainly offered during peak hours, Exo warned.
Further details will follow.
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