I wouldn’t be surprised, the govt loves investing in things and then just giving it away to private companies to squander. It’s the 3pp way.
Also: via rail sucks. They don’t actually maintain their tracks, they just keep slowing down the trains instead.
VIA rail doesn’t own much track at all. Almost all (97%) of the track they operate on is owned by other companies, like CN.
And that is why their service sucks. They get second priority to any cargo trains that CN wants to run down them.
Ah makes sense.
I wasn’t even concerned about the low priority of passenger cars. I meant the physical condition of the track itself, and the resulting reduction in top speed along many section in the maritimes.
The plan notably excludes involvement from VIA Rail, Canada’s only company with experience running a national daily passenger rail service.
Alto is officially known as VIA HFR – VIA TGF Inc., and their website says,
VIA Rail provides advice on the technical and operational aspects of existing passenger railway services.
So does that directly contradict the article or is it a semantical difference that doesn’t detract from its thesis?
It certainly seems to contradict the notion that VIA has no involvement - in fact, as near as I can tell, Alto is still a VIA subsidiary. But maybe that’s wrong, it’s a little unclear.
I don’t think it necessarily invalidates the idea of it being a “fast track to privatization,” or that ticket prices will be high.
Hopefully the contract being awarded doesn’t preclude the option for regulation of things like fare caps.
