I live in Quebec City. I no longer take the car to go to Montreal or Ottawa. Montreal, its parking signs that take hours to understand, its roadworks and its cones installed almost permanently along its streets encourage us to use public transit. For the other capital, I find the car ride to Ottawa or Gatineau too long. Furthermore, the “swinging” of coaches on the repairs of the 20 or 40 makes us think about the train that we hope will be comfortable. Have you ever spent three hours on a coach sitting next to the toilets for lack of seats elsewhere?
Taking three hours or more to travel 260 km by train on tracks rented from CN where cows and dogs have priority over passengers is folklore, if not masochism, for anyone who has traveled a little in the world. But hey, you have to get used to it since nothing changes.
If only that were it! Have you ever seen a Via Rail train on time? For this carrier that prides itself on its punctuality, arriving less than an hour after the scheduled time is not a delay. So, that’s some great statistics. If only the late arrival were it! I once stood around for 30 minutes at Montreal Central Station to catch the train to Quebec City when the sign indicating the departure time still said “train on time.” I’m not talking about the arrival time in Quebec City. You might think that timetables are there for decoration because they have to be put somewhere.
I travel business class most of the time. Good food, good service, helpful and friendly staff. When you leave, an agent comes to explain how to evacuate the car in an emergency in the event of an accident, like before a plane takes off. You’d think the train was going to speed close to the sound barrier! However, it’s a miracle that there aren’t more injuries between Saint-Hyacinthe and Drummondville, as there are so many bumps on the tracks on this section of the route. I asked a waiter if he had ever been scalded while serving coffee to the seated passengers; he admitted that it had happened to him. As for the passengers, I don’t have any statistics to provide, but it must happen too.
I would like to meet the engineer who designed the new trains that Via Rail is so proud of. At the Gare du Palais in Québec or the Gare Centrale in Montréal, you access the cars at the same level as the platform. But take the train in Sainte-Foy, Drummondville, Dorval or Ottawa, where the platform is at cow level, and you have to climb a ladder (or almost) to access the car, your luggage in one hand and the ramp in the other. You can sometimes count on a passenger behind you to keep you from falling out the back.
Think your troubles are over? For the business class car, there is only one door. Once inside, you have to go and drop off your luggage in the designated area at the other end of the car. And, since upon arrival, everyone heads there to collect their luggage before retracing their steps to exit, a traffic jam forms in the central aisle. Could it be that an engineer forgot that travelers travel with luggage?
I received points from Via Rail as compensation for arriving in Quebec City or Montreal one hour or more behind the posted schedule. Since I was one hour late, all the other passengers on the same train were also necessarily late. I then asked the attendant in our car to announce over the microphone that passengers could receive points so that everyone would be as well compensated as I was. Humbly, with my limited means, I admit that I sometimes increase Via Rail’s deficits.
I haven’t experienced the horrors of the last Via Rail outage, where passengers were left on bread and water, stuck without air conditioning and toilets in the middle of nowhere, out of reach of the road. I don’t despair, it will come.
Small consolation: at the speed at which Via Rail trains travel and the number of stops they make on sidings to let the endless freight trains (or a passenger train going in the opposite direction) pass, we have time to count the spruce trees and cows staring at us and wondering what we are doing there staring at them. The future is in the meadows.
One day I asked a member of staff how Europeans or Asians found our train service and he gave me a smile that said it all.
One last observation. I hope the CEO of Via Rail doesn’t get a performance bonus. But you never know.