Canadian Railroads > Day/night switch on the Canadian

The eastbound Canadian due in Toronto yesterday had accumulated close to 19 hours delay before reaching its terminus. Westbound Canadian 1(31) is scheduled to depart 11 hours late this evening, so continuing in daylight at strange hours.

Does anyone know why the eastbound train accumulated so much in delays?

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/25 08:58 by TomPittsfieldMA.

Help please interpreting “so continuing daylight at straight hours”.

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Oops - thanks. Was trying to say that the train is seeing daylight in strange hours; auto complete apparently put in the wrong word and I did not catch it while trying to proofread.

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Not surprisingly, passengers have been advised there will be no meal service today due to the late departure time.  Sleeper Plus and Prestige passengers will receive a refund of  $50 for the lack of lunch and dinner.  Considering that drinks and wine are included for Prestige passengers, good luck to them in getting a lunch and dinner in downtown Toronto for $50.

Hopefully VIA will be prepared to give the through passengers an extra lunch and dinner before Vancouver four days from now.

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I wonder what caused that extreme delay.  Actually, with the Canadian schedule as loose as it is, I don't see how it could ever become late, except for something like a freight train derailment ahead of it in single-track territory or a really bad blizzard.  On the other hand, I got curious the other day about how the Canadian's Toronto-Vancouver transit time compared to CN's intermodals.  If I read it correctly, the CN site indicated an almost 12-day trip between Toronto and Vancouver with an average speed of about 21 miles per hour.  How in the world can CN expect to be truck-competitive on that unless trucks take a lot longer than I think they do?  The last time I checked BNSF between Cicero and South Seattle, admittedly a bit less distance than on CN between Toronto and Vancouver, their fastest intermodal took about 69 hours.

The first major delay was approaching Winnipeg - caused by a freight derailment.  As far as further delays in Northern Ontario there have been vague postings on social media about weather-related issues.

NPRocky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> . . .  . I got curious the other day about how the Canadian's
> Toronto-Vancouver transit time compared to CN's
> intermodals.  If I read it correctly, the CN site
> indicated an almost 12-day trip between Toronto
> and Vancouver with an average speed of about 21
> miles per hour.  How in the world can CN expect
> to be truck-competitive on that unless trucks take
> a lot longer than I think they do?  The last time
> I checked BNSF between Cicero and South Seattle,
> admittedly a bit less distance than on CN between
> Toronto and Vancouver, their fastest intermodal
> took about 69 hours.

It's not 12 days. For marine intermodal from a Vancouver port, arrival at Brampton (Toronto) is on the sixth morning, at Chicago on the fifth morning.

The CN site provides this as a PDF file, which TO does not accept as an attachment. 



 

Just to complete this saga, train 1 finally arrived in Vancouver 2 hours 57 minutes late.

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