Letter: Proposal to reroute Via Rail in Saskatchewan way off track

A reader offers his criticism of a pitch to move Via Rail passenger service in Saskatchewan from Saskatoon to smaller communities.

Published Dec 27, 2023 • Last updated 13 hours ago • 2 minute read

A man takes a photo of a child inside the VIA Rail train as it leaves the station in Saskatoon, Sask. in August of 2017. Photo by Kayle Neis /Saskatoon StarPhoenix

The proposal by Prairie Rail North Passenger Train Inc. to reroute Via Rail’s transcontinental passenger train, the Canadian, sounds like it came straight from American activist investors in CN who want to improve the company’s operating ratio by getting rid of passenger rail on their tracks.

In presenting their case, they have cherry-picked their statistics or outright falsified them. Some glaring examples include stating the speed limit on the CN mainline is 50 miles per hour (80 kilometres per hour), when in fact it is 80 mph (129 km/h) for passenger trains.

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In a population comparison between the two routes, they’ve also excluded the population of Saskatoon, where the Canadian currently travels through, to make it look as though their proposed route further north travels through a more populous region, when it is the exact opposite.

Their contention is laughable that a bright future awaits long-distance train travel if only they reroute the Canadian over a dilapidated branch line with a lower speed limit that is a hundred kilometres longer than the current route over the CN mainline.

As for the Saskatchewan communities the proposed route would serve, these are the same people that voted overwhelmingly for the Saskatchewan Party and then couldn’t contain their delight when they eliminated the Saskatchewan Transportation Company, thus ending any effective inter-city bus transportation to their communities.

The chances of VIA Rail picking up any more passengers in Humboldt or North Battleford than they do in Saskatoon is zero. This is not to say that these areas shouldn’t have passenger rail service. They should.

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It just shouldn’t be at the expense of gutting our only transcontinental service to satisfy CN’s absentee owners.

Ronald P. Haskell, Melville