Canadian Railroads > VIA slashing corridor service

This comes as no surprise.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/important-update-on-via-rail-services-in-response-to-the-omicron-variant-828571955.html

Business Class is being suspended until further notice. Prestige Class on the Canadian was supposed to resume in mid-February. That is now planned for April 3rd (ex-Vancouver) and 9th (ex-Toronto).

Oh, good grief

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No surprise. While the covid case rate may be going down in certain parts of the USA like the Greater NYC area, that's not the case everywhere. It seems that it's in the best interest for VIA to reduce their corridor frequencies. For those people who ride the VIA long distance trains(a friend and I have a trip planned on the Canadian the end of March), we hope that the dome cars will be open to passengers before this winter is up.

A senior VIA employee told me that VIA hopes to be back to normal (that would be the current normal) by the beginning of March. That doesn't include Prestige which is due to re-start by the second week of April.

Passenger loads always drop off in early January and from what I have seen in the past week or so the number of passengers has dropped sharply from December. There is little justification in maintaining six daily trains each way between Toronto and Montreal and Toronto and Ottawa, for example.

Until this morning I had not checked Reservia. I see that the previous normal frequencies are available as of March 1st, including Business Class. Nothing is certain, of course, but that is the way it is now. There is no indication whether lounge and Park car access will be restored by then or if wine, etc. will be offered in Business Class and sold in diners.

DrawingroomA Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A senior VIA employee told me that VIA hopes to be
> back to normal (that would be the current normal)
> by the beginning of March. That doesn't include
> Prestige which is due to re-start by the second
> week of April.
>
> Passenger loads always drop off in early January
> and from what I have seen in the past week or so
> the number of passengers has dropped sharply from
> December. There is little justification in
> maintaining six daily trains each way between
> Toronto and Montreal and Toronto and Ottawa, for
> example.
>
> Until this morning I had not checked Reservia. I
> see that the previous normal frequencies are
> available as of March 1st, including Business
> Class. Nothing is certain, of course, but that is
> the way it is now. There is no indication whether
> lounge and Park car access will be restored by
> then or if wine, etc. will be offered in Business
> Class and sold in diners.

A friend and I are booked on Canadian Train # 1 out of Toronto on 3/27 arriving into Vancouver, BC on 3/31. Both of us would like to know from VIA as soon as possible whether all lounge cars including the Dome cars will allow passengers to travel in.