Canadian Railroads > VIA Rail in the winter?

Was looking for a way to take the Canadian from Toronto to Winnipeg in February and fly home.  We want to be in Winnipeg on a Tuesday night for an event and it looks like our choices are to leave Toronto on WEDNESDAY the week prior (!!!) or leave on Sunday and arrive Winnipeg at 7:30pm if its on time - after the event starts.    Do they really only go west 2 days a week??  That's worse than living on the Cardinal route that only operates 3 days a week.  Pathetic.  It looks like the trip with rail will not be possible.  I wanted to leave Toronto Sat night and arrive Monday evening, but the only way to take the train is to take off an additional 3-4 days the week prior.  That's, of course, not doable at all.   Who agreed on this type of schedule?  Certianly no one that cares about transporting people to places they want to go.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/19 18:18 by P.

Found the schedules, but it appears that the Canadian only goes west of Toronto twice a week.  Year round??  

I remember reading about cuts in service, and never had an opportunity to look into riding until now, but I never would have imagined that even in the summer, they would only run the Canadian twice a week.  I'm grateful for Amtrak now - even though they have significant gaps in service.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/19 18:16 by P.

I don't know what your problem is but they are all there under Schedules...Printable Time tables. Just click the one you want and it brings up a .PDF

And I just checked the Canadian schedule. It departs Toronto at 9:45am on Sunday and Wednesday....then arrives in Winnipeg the next evening....Monday or Thursday at 7:30pm

Posted from Android

The Canadian has run twice weekly during the winter fior many years now. So it's no surprise that it won't fit the travel schedules of many people who need to travel between Toronto and Winnipeg on specific days of the week.. One needs to be very flexible.

The OP should be fine as he says he has to be there for Tuesday evening. The Canadian arrives Monday evening (unless it's 24 hrs late!!)

Posted from Android

ghCBNS Wrote:
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> The OP should be fine as he says he has to be
> there for Tuesday evening. The Canadian arrives
> Monday evening (unless it's 24 hrs late!!)
>
> Posted from Android

You are correct. I was having trouble navigating the site at first and thought Winnipeg arrival would be Tuesday. It does appear that it is actually on Monday which would make my plan work! On to other concerns such as the arrival history in Winnipeg on the wb run, and what time does the train traverse the Lake Superior shore?

P Wrote:
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> ghCBNS Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The OP should be fine as he says he has to be
> > there for Tuesday evening. The Canadian arrives
> > Monday evening (unless it's 24 hrs late!!)
> >
> > Posted from Android
>
> You are correct. I was having trouble navigating
> the site at first and thought Winnipeg arrival
> would be Tuesday. It does appear that it is
> actually on Monday which would make my plan work!
> On to other concerns such as the arrival history
> in Winnipeg on the wb run, and what time does the
> train traverse the Lake Superior shore?

The train travels over the CN, which travels well north of the shore of Lake Superior.  When the train travelled over the CP, it travelled over the north shore of Lake Superior.

eminence_grise Wrote:
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> P Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > ghCBNS Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > >
>
> The train travels over the CN, which travels well
> north of the shore of Lake Superior.  When the
> train travelled over the CP, it travelled over the
> north shore of Lake Superior.

Well, that's a bummer. I do believe their website still shows a routing along the north shore of Lake Superior.

P Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> eminence_grise Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > P Wrote:
> >
> > > ghCBNS Wrote:
> >
> > The train travels over the CN, which travels
> well
> > north of the shore of Lake Superior.  When the
> > train travelled over the CP, it travelled over
> the north shore of Lake Superior.
>
> Well, that's a bummer. I do believe their website
> still shows a routing along the north shore of
> Lake Superior.

VIA's website shows the correct routing of its trains. There is a Sudbury to White River tri-weekly train (this route uses RDC cars) that promotes the fact that it travels through the "Lake Superior Region." This route is actually the former Canadian passenger train route when it operated over CP rail, but the Lake Superior scenery that's most memorable is really west of White River,ON and into Thunder Bay, where currently no passenger rail exists.

However, the Canadian currently operates in daylight from Toronto to Capreol and you get to see parts of Georgian Bay, but definitely not Lake Superior. If the train is on time, day 2 starts out westbound from Ferland and Sioux Lookout (the Canadian Shield) in daylight hours and arrives in Winnipeg at 7:30 pm (19;30). To me this is some nice day time running across the Canadian Shield - lakes, rocks, island of rocks and trees in the lakes etc.). Much better in daylight with this schedule, than what existed in the previous schedule from 2010 to 2018 or so - it's largely daylight running now (if on time) from west of Capreol to Ferland. I think the daylight scenery of the Canadian across the Canadian Shield (limited to the CN route) is nicer than what travel used to be from 2010 to 2018. The current schedule actually mirrors more closely to what was in place from the 1990s through 2010.                                                

You must have been looking at a very old map. The Canadian has been on the CN route for nearly 30 years now.....only 5 years less than it ran on CP!

Looking at the map in the VIA timetable....the Canadian is shown correctly as running through Sioux Lookout on CN but it’s not a good map at all. Very diagrammatic.

For example.....Halifax appears to be well north of Montreal…where it is actually southeast. The furthest north you can get on the Ocean’s route.....Mont Joli (shown as Matapedia on this map) is at 48.5 deg Latitude....so south of the 49th parallel which is the US/Can border all across the west...but still shown north of it. Vancouver and Edmonton even appear to be further south than most of the Ocean’s route which they are not.
.

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jp1822 Wrote:
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>
> However, the Canadian currently operates in
> daylight from Toronto to Capreol and you get to
> see parts of Georgian Bay.....

The westbound Canadian runs on its original CPR route near Georgian Bay from near Perry Sound to south of Sudbury.

This is directional running territory. All westbound (direction north) CP, CN and VIA trains run on CP.....and all eastbound (south) trains run on CN.

Although my last experience on timekeeping into WPG was on the old schedule, we were into WPG right on  time.  Today I noted on transit docs that #1 is running only one hour late. My guess is that if the train does not lose any more time, it will be into WPG tonight on time because of pad in the schedule.  The hard part is often west of wPG!

You can watch progress of #1 and arrival times at WPG at trainsitdocs.

And as others have said, #1 has run far north of Lake Superior for years on the CN.  Of course, many of us wish it were on the CP routing close to Lake Suprerior.

Just do your trip and enjoy the ride on the best regularly scheduled passenger train in North America!