r/worldnews • u/MilkyWayObserver • 16h ago
Prime Minister Carney announces the largest investment in VIA Rail’s history to bring passenger rail car manufacturing back to Canada
https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2026/09/03/prime-minister-carney-announces-largest-investment-rails-history451
u/fraggle_captain 15h ago
The Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced that, for the first time in four decades, VIA Rail passenger cars will be built in Canada. The federal government is investing more than $4.7 billion for VIA Rail to acquire and maintain 313 new passenger rail cars from Alstom Canada. The cars will be manufactured and assembled in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and La Pocatière, Québec, with design and engineering work taking place in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Québec.
That's amazing, but $4.7 billion for 313 passenger railcars. A touch over $15 million each. I never would have realized they are that expensive!
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u/TheAeroDalton 15h ago
the cost most likely involves building new manufacturing centers for them to get built. once the 313 are made, they could just pivot to make something else
also, manufacturing is expensive
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u/totallyclocks 15h ago
Both manufacturering facilities already exist and already build street cars and subway cars for the TTC in Toronto.
But this contract does include maintenance for the service life of the rail car , so that’s probably where the $15 figure comes from.
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u/Much-Neighborhood171 10h ago
They are also are building cars for Vancouver's SkyTrain and Montreal's REM.
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u/fraggle_captain 15h ago
I think another part of it that I'm missing is the maintenance piece (they are paying for purchase and ongoing maintenance). If that's over ten years maintenance could be just as much as the purchase price. (According to my quick ChatGPT search - I am certainly no railcar manufacturing expert).
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u/_John_Dillinger 15h ago
idk about hsr, but train components are generally built for 20 year duty cycles.
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u/Much-Neighborhood171 10h ago
The cars that are being replaced are up to 72 years old.
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u/_John_Dillinger 10h ago
i get that. the cars have ablative components like side bearings and draft gears that go out way sooner
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u/Much-Neighborhood171 10h ago
Probably way sooner than 20 years. I'm more amazed that VIA has kept the old Budds running for so long.
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u/_John_Dillinger 10h ago
eh, depends on what kind theyre rockin, and what sort of usage they get put through. i know canadas bill for both tends to be higher because of the temp stress they get (less the cold, more the frequent flame baths...)
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u/Much-Neighborhood171 10h ago
I meant that the wearing components would need replacing earlier. I'm sure they could make the cars last longer with proper maintenance.
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u/No_Magician5266 10h ago
This simply isn’t true. A broad example is truck rebuilds which are mileage based with major rebuilds happening roughly every 5 years for freight. VIA follows a fairly regimented preventative maintenance program provided by Siemens for the Venture fleet with various components and systems, with different things on different schedules. Water filtration for example could be on a 3 month schedule vs various air brake components that are replaced on an annual basis.
In the industry, this service provided by the manufacturer is called TSSSA (Technical Support and Spare Supply Agreement) and is baked into the total cost. Siemens provides it with Venture fleet, Stadler will provide it with the new locos, and Alstom will undoubtedly provided it with the cars.
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u/Agitated-Vanilla-763 11h ago
The manufacturing facilities have been there for more than 50 years. The first bilevel cars as well as the first mr73 cars came out of both of these same factories.
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u/MAHHockey 15h ago
That's $4.7bil CAD. A little cheaper when you look at it in USD ($3.41bil)
For a rough comparison, the Amtrak Airo trainset order (83 trains consisting of 563 cars and 77 locomotives) ran around $8bil USD.
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u/Superduperbals 15h ago
Definitely worth investing in domestic production in the long run, if we have any hope of catching up to the rest of the world in terms of high-speed rail development it would be a shame to remain import dependent.
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u/cardew-vascular 15h ago
It's also adding infrastructure for building them, not just the cars themselves but if they last 70+ years that doesn't seem like such a big deal. Plus I'm hoping we get a new series of passenger rail investments in the country.
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u/three_crystals 9h ago
Building the infrastructure and keeping the talent in Canada is key. That is the real key for maintaining public infrastructure long term.
Really glad to see this announcement!
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u/MenacingGummy 14h ago
They included the wording build & maintain so I wonder if there is some maintenance funding for a set period.
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u/BrovaloneSandwich 9h ago
Yeah a preventive maintenance contract exists long after the product is finished and is generally where the bulk of expense goes 💪
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u/Devils_Advocate6_6_6 14h ago
I'm IMMENSELY concerned that Alstom is designing the railcars. Those smooth brained mouth breathers couldn't find their way out of a paper bag.
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u/Sensitivevirmin 16h ago
It never should have left but it’s good to have it back.
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u/jyeatbvg 11h ago
We desperately need to start bringing other industries in-house. Can’t keep relying on certain third parties that could become unreliable at the drop of a hat.
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u/Failedmusician87 16h ago
Maybe we can also make transit by rail more affordable while we're at it?
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u/F1shermanIvan 15h ago
Montreal to Ottawa in the train was under $100 and took an hour and a half last week.
How affordable should intercity trains be, because they’re not public transit like a subway is. They’re airlines on rails.
The Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka is more expensive than flying between those cities.
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u/Infamous-Mixture-605 13h ago
Montreal to Ottawa in the train was under $100 and took an hour and a half last week.
And if you buy it well in advance it's a lot cheaper.
I'm travelling from Montreal to Ottawa next week on Via. I bought my ticket at the end of July and it was around $50.
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u/cardew-vascular 3h ago
Train service like that doesn't really exist on the west coast. I can't take the train to Whistler or Kelowna from Vancouver. There really should be passenger rail from Vancouver to Whistler at least.
The only real local passenger rail we have goes to the states and 8 hrs and $200. For 100$ more you can save 6.5 hours.
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u/mrcoolio 15h ago
Transit by rail is actually pretty affordable - especially when compared to air. It's my favourite way to travel by far between Montreal and Toronto and everything in between.
Driving from Ottawa to Toronto is about $50 in gas alone, nevermind the wear on your vehicle.
A train ticket is $55 so long as you aren't looking at last minute. Not sure what more you want.You can't compare prices to Europe because you could pass through two countries in the time you've gone from Ottawa to Toronto. It's apples to oranges. Both fruit but very different.
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u/swabbie 15h ago edited 15h ago
Cries from west coast...
Ticket from Vancouver to Kamloops is over $100 and only runs twice a week.
No affordable train to get to Calgary by rail, but discount flights are ~$105-130
Rocky Mountaineer premium train has packages starting at $2500 and jump as high as $15k.
Damn mountains. Damn beautiful majestic mountains.
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u/twattewaffle 15h ago
Cries from Vancouver Island...our rail line hasn't been used in over 15 years.
That said, I'm still very happy for the investment and benefits it brings Canadians, and I look forward to one day doing a cross Canada rail trip!
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u/TheLostSkellyton 14h ago
The cheapest possible tickets on off dates no one wants to travel on to take Via Rail from Edmonton to Vancouver start at $600 round trip, and the trip takes over 24h each way because the track is owned by freight companies so the Via train has to stop and wait for the freight trains to take precedence at multiple points along the trip. The only way it makes any sense to travel by train nowdays is if you have an insurmountable fear of flying.
It breaks my heart, because I have fond memories of the freedom I got through train travel as a student. The 8hr trip from Montreal to Toronto was perfect for me—safe, comfortable, didn't break the bank, got me from home to college and back to visit very easily. I would love to see Via Rail make a comeback as a viable mode of travel, but I don't see how that's possible without the government either intervening to do track buybacks or build a lot of new tracks.
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u/Big_Knife_SK 14h ago
It's not the mountains. It's the same shit service across the prairies, too. I'd love to have functional rail travel from Saskatoon to Edmonton, Calgary or Winnipeg.
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u/Kingofcheeses 14h ago
I always wave to the Rocky Mountaineer passengers when they pass by my house
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u/swabbie 13h ago
So do we. We're up on an apartment building overlooking the Fraiser River and the tracks. My wifes' a serial train waver and had car-fulls waving back through their glass ceiling back to us.
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u/F1shermanIvan 13h ago
Well of course. Vancouver to Kamloops is 350 kms or so, and ends with a city of less than 130,000 people.
Rail is only really viable when the population can support it, and outside of the Toronto to Montreal corridor, Canada doesn’t have a dense population at ALL.
A daily service to a place like Kamloops would never even be remotely feasible because people just wouldn’t use it.
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u/swabbie 13h ago edited 13h ago
Point is it's the first and only major stop for commuter travel before going across Canada and we only get two trains a week. We have 5.5 million people in BC and no real commuter train travel... anywhere (except inner-Vancouver skytrain).
We used to have many more rail options including smaller 50k-150k cities, but cheaper air has taken over. Even inter-city bus service has mostly collapsed.
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u/F1shermanIvan 13h ago
Yeah, because you have cheaper, faster air service.
Nobody is gonna run a train into cities when nobody is on it. And nobody is on it because it’s been supplanted by air travel. You can argue the fact that air travel is inconvenient with security and all that, but Canada is a big, wide open, extremely sparsely populated country for the most part.
It’s hard to justify big long distance permanent railways for passengers outside the Toronto-Montreal corridor because nobody lives there. Railways in other countries rely on density to be viable, and Canada doesn’t have that much.
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u/ana_log_ue 12h ago
Russia is also a big wide open sparsely populated country, and its passenger rail network dwarfs Canada’s. Investing in air travel over rail travel is a policy choice. I’m hoping this government announcement is the beginning of the shift toward prioritizing more passenger rail travel.
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u/Hawco 15h ago
It’s often cheaper to fly to a province or two over than taking the train there, provided you aim for lowest cost ticket. Plus, there’s all the time saved from flying; however, the train will always be less stressful and more comfortable than flying. VIA Rail typically offers a 10-15% discount on Tuesdays too, but it still doesn’t beat cheap airfare.
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u/mrcoolio 15h ago
It’s 2100 km from Ottawa to Winnipeg, just the next province over.
It’s 1800 km from Barcelona to Berlin.
Lmao
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u/Hawco 15h ago
Yes, so adjust according to the region’s geographic reality, but often flights will still be faster and cheaper.
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u/mrcoolio 15h ago
It’s about 3 hours to fly Ottawa to Winnipeg or 30 hours by rail. And you are surprised rail is more expensive? Prices go by how long companies need to take care of you not how long you’re inconvenienced for.
Until we get some sort of Japanese bullet train, taking rail from province to province just doesn’t really make sense for anything other than a long joy ride. But within shorter spans I really do believe there is a lot of potential there to be expanded upon.
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u/happyscrappy 13h ago
I agree there's a big part of that. If you think of it 30 hours means you have to include some part of a stay in the cost. Like a hotel room although coach seat is obviously not as nice as a hotel room.
This applies to land but definitely more to sea. If you take a ship across the Atlantic of course it's going to cost more. They have to tend to you for two days and feed you a couple times. It's just going to cost more, no two ways about it.
It is a bummer.
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u/Onironius 13h ago
What I want is for it to be cheaper than flying for any distance closer than one city over.
Flight from Vancouver to Edmonton- $162, 1.5 hours
Train from Vancouver to Edmonton- $280, 1 day
Almost 2x the cost, taking 16x the time.
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u/mrcoolio 11h ago
It’s priced on how long you’re using the service and they’re taking care of you. Not on how much it’s inconveniently long, unfortunately. Find me another example of something that is 16x more for only 2x more money lmao.
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u/TheWardenShadowsong 15h ago
During ilesoniq at least it was cheaper to fly from toronto to montreal than take the train, imo that should never be the case
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u/Lambs2Lions_ 10h ago
This is a lie. And a weird one at that.
On average they’re $80 one way. $20 for luggage. $200 for 9 hours on a train in the worst possible seat.
WestJet and air Canada regularly have round trip tickets for 1 hour 5 minute nonstop round trip $203 flight with luggage.
$50 is a door crasher flash sale that only comes up once every so often.
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u/mrcoolio 9h ago
Go to via rail right now and look up the cost to go from Ottawa to Toronto in 2-3 weeks.
That’s what I did before I commented.
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u/Lambs2Lions_ 9h ago
I did. I picked Thursday the 24th. It’s $81 for the base fare, plus luggage. You can get slightly cheaper for even worse seats. Plus taxes it all comes out to $180-200 round trip once you include luggage. That’s round trip airfare price for 1/5th the time.
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u/mrcoolio 9h ago
Not sure what to tell you. I checked the prices to confirm before saying anything. Would be a weird thing to lie about indeed.
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u/Unusual_Cap3030 7h ago
Imo this is one of the only genuinely nice things about Southern Ontario, you can quite reasonably, quickly and affordably travel between most cities by rail, by-passing almost all urban traffic. Not to the standards of Japan, but it's there. I haven't actually lived there in 30 years, but it's something I take advantage of when I visit. And I'm always dumbfounded when I meet so many people there who don't use it.
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u/islandpancakes 16h ago
Small steps. But they add up!
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u/Agoraphobicy 15h ago
It's almost like we had a mutually beneficial relationship with USA that got blown up and USA did not, in fact, have all the leverage.
The official White House of America statement said they did though.
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u/summer_nights16 15h ago edited 15h ago
This is great news! Can you please work on expanding the railway now and add more destinations? The train won’t even go to Gaspésie.
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u/Hennahane 15h ago
In the press conference Carney said service expansion is a focus of the government. Gaspé track repair is already in progres
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u/Neptyo 14h ago
We badly need the train back on the Sea to sky in BC aswell 😅
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u/BaronVonBearenstein 12h ago
I dream of the day where I can get on the train, sleep, and wake up in whistler instead of being stuck in traffic. I don't care if it's slower, I can spend the time reading and drinking my coffee
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u/nottodayoilyjosh 14h ago
Omg I would love a train through the Laurentians stopping at Tadoussac/les Escoumins and going all the way to Gaspé!
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u/nottodayoilyjosh 14h ago
Omg I would love a train through the Laurentians stopping at Tadoussac/les Escoumins and going all the way to Gaspé!
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u/R3M1N4T0R 11h ago
That would be so amazing! Scenic wagons so we can watch the beautiful nature all the way.
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u/VinlandRocks 1h ago
NL humbly request one train route across the island from the ferry to st.john's. We still have the railbed from the tracks that were torn up when the government got rid of of our narrow gauge trains. Shipping here with trucks is expensive af.
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u/Silicon_Knight 16h ago
Economic change doesn’t happen overnight like crashes. It takes years. We (Canada) is a wealthy country we can afford things like this that bring jobs and provide economic benefit here.
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u/hotDamQc 15h ago
Now cancel that F35 deal and tax American big tech. Then do like France and get Microsoft out of the government.
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u/Corn_viper 14h ago
I don't think those CF-18s can fly another decade
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u/hotDamQc 11h ago
We need to get a non American fighter but mainly drones. Ukraine war proved drones are a modern day battlefield requirement.
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u/Sharp_Barnacle_9123 15h ago
Canada which is a well educated, sitting on massive resources and wealthy country did fine before free trade.
Canada does not need the USA.
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u/one-happy-chappie 13h ago
I'm really happy seeing these announcements hosted on the government website and not on X. I'm not sure if this is new, or if we're now just sharing the website more. But it's appreciated
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u/cdnirene 12h ago
No, it’s not new. I’ve been checking this page every day since Carney was elected: https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news
I usually check in the evening when Carney’s public agenda will be posted for the next day. If a public announcement will be made, I check back after the time listed for announcement, to see the details.
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u/Vin-diesels-left-nut 15h ago
Does CN and CP still have track priority ? If so kinda kills the via idea.
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u/n_mcrae_1982 15h ago
Let’s get some more service for western Canada. As a Winnipeg resident, I’d love to take a train ride to Edmonton or Toronto, but there’s only one cross country train a week and it passes through around 10 PM on a Tuesday.
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u/boughbow 10h ago
Would love to see passenger rail service in Alberta, especially between Edmonton and Calgary. Seems like there's an opportunity for a nation-building project here. If Ontario/Quebec are getting high speed, why can't the rest of us?
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u/No_Magician5266 10h ago
There’s 2 departures a week but I understand and agree with your overall point
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u/Goat_Wizard_Doom_666 15h ago
That's cool, but can we get a passenger train that goes from Vancouver to Whistler/Pemberton?
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u/ebz37 15h ago
He just got the autism vote.
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u/No_Magician5266 10h ago
It’s funny because all these VIA Rail announcements are such a big political win for Carney but the procurement processes for both the locomotives and cars started in 2024. He just gets to reap the benefits of making the announcements
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u/LittleGreenSoldier 9h ago
God could you imagine how much money and emissions we'd save if they put a "business class" car on the high speed that politicians could take instead of flying from Toronto and Montreal to Ottawa?
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u/Hobolint8647 15h ago
No longer the Teflon Don, everything Trump touches now a days, blows up spectacularly in his face. He is his own shit volcano. Good on Canada - you stand in the sunshine, while the shit rains down on a vile man and the country that put him in office - twice.
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u/silicondali 15h ago
Truly momentous to see good news involving Thunder Bay make international headlines.
I'm very intrigued to see what the knock on effects are--especially if this means expansion of the Port of Thunder Bay for materials and ancillary supplies.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 13h ago
I sincerely hope PM Carney lives a long and healthy life because without him we'd be in serious trouble.
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u/Withoutsocks 14h ago
Can't we start with independent tracks for Via and CN so there is no more 8 hour delays in Belleville?
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u/Sad-Advisor4004 13h ago
Really great. Let’s build Canada. We need a high speed rail in this country.
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u/ghost_n_the_shell 12h ago
This is amazing.
Let’s keep this sort of thing up.
Build things we need and the world wants.
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u/Equivalent_Dimension 8h ago
Great. Now can we also build them some tracks to run on so the a train trip from Toronto to Vancouver that should take 48 hours doesn't take four days?
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u/NaughtyGaymer 15h ago
FINALLY. I've been saying for so long how shameful our rail infrastructure is in Ontario especially. 50% of our entire population lives in Ontario corridor and we have dogshit rail supporting it.
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u/Bromeromyme 13h ago
Goood for Canada. 🇨🇦 we deserve everything bad that’s gonna happen to the 🇺🇸 because of MAGA
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u/bentmonkey 14h ago
Good a strong rail infrastructure can be an economic backbone, and it lets passengers cross the country with ease.
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u/Due-Wind-3324 10h ago
We’re building rail cars. What do you mean rail infrastructure? I obviously missed something here
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u/bentmonkey 9h ago
oh yeah huh, well hopefully a robust rail car manufacturing industry will lead to more railroad investment in general.
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u/Immediate-Grand8403 16h ago
Good job y’all. Congrats from us (unfortunate) meth lab residents. Elbows up.
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u/testthrowawayzz 7h ago
They shouldn't have allowd the sale of Bombardier Transportation to Alstom in the first place.
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u/Ok_Material9377 5h ago
I wonder if one cent is earmarked for Western Canada
I love taking trains when I visit the Quebec Windsor corridor, but anywhere else in Canada (beyond Quebec and Ontario) has been a pain in my experience
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u/happyscrappy 3h ago
This is just replenishment, right? That's what it seems to say. People are getting excited about "development" here, but this just looks like new rolling stock and some system upgrades on existing routes.
This is a good thing, it's keeping what works going. But it's not new development.
Can anyone suggest what would be good future routes would be for VIA rail? I feel like the biggest service markets are already served by Go Rail and the next biggest ones by VIA in Quebec and eastern Ontario.
Its's really hard to see anything west of, I dunno, London doing a lot of business with intercity rail. I guess maybe you can include Windsor/Detroit. VIA does already go there, but I don't know how big that business is.
I'm probably missing something though. What is the "next big thing" in terms of service areas for VIA?
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u/JimmythePitbull 2h ago
We could save 3 billion dollars if we gave the workers for those 700 jobs $2 million each and told them to go away.
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u/WhitewaterEchidna 1h ago
Love that he said, "Our rail cars on our long distance and remote routes are more than 70 years old. They were built when the NHL had six teams. Goalies wouldn't wear masks. The Leafs would win the cup. That's a long time ago."
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u/mightocondreas 15h ago
Under Mark Carney's leadership, Canada is becoming the wealthiest country on earth.
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u/informavore 16h ago
Great news and about time we started really developing our rail infrastructure.