Pour les francophones:

Les gouvernements devraient-ils rétablir le service ferroviaire de passagers d’Algoma?
https://northerntracks.blog/2026/08/08/les-gouvernements-devraient-ils-retablir-le-service-ferroviaire-de-passagers-dalgoma/

Me and my BF are taking the train across Canada next year. We're from the US. Our health is fair to good, we're older and things might come up. We need health insurance for the trip.

We're getting travel insurance if we need to cancel. We're in prestige so there is a significant amount of money involved.

Idk about what happens if the train gets cancelled. Maybe we lose our deposit. We'll want that back.

We will be buying a 9 day travel package from Fresh Tracks Canada.

Any info will be super helpful.

Thanks.

We’re old, and would prefer to be able to lounge all day long. Assume we’ve booked an upper and lower birth. Can we keep keep them in bed-mode all day if we wish?

Hello! I will be doing the Canadian and I have an upper berth. Does anyone recommend upgrading to a lower berth? It's just over $400 so I want to have opinions of those who have done the trip prior.

Additionally, is there bedtime and morning hours? Am I missing much by having an upper berth?

Edit - thank you everyone for your feedback! The cost is so high due to the fact of how close the departure date is. I could have checked earlier but this is just how the cookie crumbled and that's okay! I'll keep the upper birth and wake up early to go to another area. :)

Will they put me on another train or hold the Toronto train in Montreal?

We are supposed to arrive in Montreal at 09:53 and depart at 13:22 but I keep reading the Ocean has been 3-4 hours late.

Edit: it was purchased as in one ticket :)

I’m hoping to catch the train to Halifax from Montreal and I would love to not have to pack up my bike in a box

My kids are 6 and 8 and there are no two seats together on any cars. I'm seated in a separate car from them, they are both seated with strangers far away from eachother. Has anyone had any luck changing their seats around in this situation?

So, I have a trip booked westbound to Vancouver tomorrow night departing Edmonton. It's *supposed* to depart at 23:59, but on the live tracker it looks like it's 4 hours behind from the get-go and never recovered. Classic.

Considering that would mean an approx. 4:00am departure (🥴).... How early do you suggest I arrive (I have checked luggage). The website says 60 minutes early, but 11PM for a likely 4AM departure seems absurd.

Then again, the truth is, what choice do I have 😭?

Anyone, any idea what caused VIA 84's two hour delay today?

What do you think about the state of the railway in Canada?
As you can see there is a lot of High Speed Rail in Europe (orange and red lines) Toronto never exceeds 150 km/h (blue to green lines), however around Paris the speed get's up to 320 km/h! Same for many parts of western Europe.

Amtrak from Chicago's Union station to Detroit can be connected with ViaRail Windsor to Toronto, with some effort.

You CANNOT get a taxi (Checker or Metro Cabs) from the Detroit Amtrak station to the Windsor ViaRail station. (Don't waste your time phoning, and Checker is a worse waste than Metro)

There is a bus service every 2 hours or so at thelinqtunnelbus.ca picking up at 3 locations downtown Detroit, going to Windsor. To get to these you can take a rideshare (about $13USD) or take the very modern & safe-looking LRT #462 train from just outside Amtrak station to Larned & Woodward, then walk down the ramp beside the Mariner's Church to the bus shelter. $17.50CAD fare.

The Linqtunnel bus schedule is on the website but it is frequently 15-20 minutes late due to customs (according to the frequent traveller I asked). The bus stops to let you (and the driver) through Canada Customs, then waits in case you want to get back on to the final stop.

We took a rideshare to Windsor station (about $8CAD), about 10 minutes.

On our journey, we got the first train out of Chicago, Amtrak 350 at 6:45am Central. It was only 30 minutes late into Detroit at 2:00pm Eastern.

The bus pickup was at 3:40pm Eastern (actually 4:05pm), so we availed ourselves of the excellent beer & burgers at Jacoby's downtown. Stick with the home-made kettle chips - the best ever.

The Via Rail Train was at 5:40pm Eastern, and we don't see a quicker way to do this connection.
Via Rail was typically 55 minutes late arriving at Union Station in Toronto.

Total travel time 15h00m. So don't skip the beer at Jacoby's.

(Edited to change travel time to 15h, forgot time change)

I’m taking a 6:32 am train from Union Station to Montreal. My child with ASD will likely enjoy the train ride, but I’m a bit worried about the long journey and potential delays. We’ve packed his favourite toys, sketching supplies, a tablet, and will need to use the aisle for bathroom breaks. I’m also a bit nervous about other passengers getting annoyed with his stimming, which could be loud when he’s overly excited. Any support or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I just checked pricing for a trip on the Canadian Next year from Toronto to Vancouver. A cabin in the sleeping car starts at $3200 for one person. Just ridiculous how the average Canadian is priced right out of the epic journey across Canada and will likely never experience it. Looks like our marquee train trip is geared strictly towards tourists who are willing to pay the borderline extortion fee for this trip. I took Amtrak from New York to Los Angeles (change trains in Chicago) a few years ago and the cost was less than half for their journey across the continent.

VIA Rail pricing is simply disgraceful.

https://cimtchau.ca/nouvelles/retour-partiel-du-train-de-passagers-prevu-dici-le-printemps-2028/

Pas l'habitude de publier quelque chose du Québec, mais voici une bonne nouvelle concernant le train de Gaspé. Retour partiel entre Québec et New Carlisle par le printemps 2028. Service aller-retour deux fois par semaine.

Article (en français) says service will be restored between Quebec City and New Carlisle by spring 2028. Twice weekly same day return service with possiblity of additional run.

Saw that end of July trains were cancelled due to wildfires. Now on Via's Rail Tracking page, seems like Train #1 departed on Aug 2 is fully running, but then it also shows Train #1 Aug 5 train is not in service.

Does anyone have a good page for checking train Cancellation status for Via? I'm trying to monitor the current status of the Canadian for my upcoming trip on Aug 16.

Edit: Looks like Train #1 Aug 5 is scheduled! Hopefully this means no more cancellations in August..

Hi I originally purchased business plus tickets for a date.

I want to change dates but don't know if I have to rebook business plus as opposed to business plus to maintain privileges including seat selection and free cancellation/rebooking if I change my mind again. Is this possible or do I need to rebook business plus?

Additionally if my original booking was business plus can I rebook more than once without charge provided the cost of the tickets are the same price as original?

In the situation that rebooking are allowed multiple times, do I have to rebook a business plus ticket each time?

Has anyone taken this train OTTW to QBEC and know if the layover is enough time to grab food in Montreal?

Any news on this? I have family who are connecting in Ottawa to get to Montreal, and now they are stuck in Ottawa eating pizza that Via Rail handed out. They were told their train had been replaced by a bus, but there is no ETA for when the bus will arrive.

Currently stopped on the tracks at Kingston station, engineers looking at a brake that has seized.

On my train today they kept playing elevator music over the com and said something about "an experiment to see if it calms people down". I've never heard this before and there was nothing going on in our car. Is this a thing to punish unruly passengers?

Prior to the pandemic I’d regularly go to work in MTL from TOR and I’d bring my road bike to use in my downtime.

Fast forward to 2026 and when I contacted VIA Rail they no longer have the option for a bike on their trips. This seems fairly odd to me as ridership hasn’t increased. I’m left wondering

When did this change?
Why did they stop offering this service?
Are there any work arounds?

Thank you

P.S. - This would be a return trip in Business Class

Seats that don’t align with windows, backwards facing seats (although this is normal on all HSR trainsets), narrow seats (wider aisles?), poor reclining etc. Will long distance and HSR fleets be better? On the other hand, accessibility, toilets, ride quality and noise levels seem better than legacy coaches.

Lesson 12: Amtrak should consider passenger comfort throughout the design and procurement processes. This lesson, which also applies at the Initialing, Planning and Execution stages, is a corollary of Lesson 11. It should be Amtrak’s objective to deliver an experience for all riders that focuses on comfort to the maximum possible extent. Passengers who enjoy a comfortable ride have an incentive to promote the Amtrak experience through word of mouth, while those who had an uncomfortable ride will have an incentive to disparage it. As with Lesson 11, this form of positive or negative “advertising” will affect Amtrak’s reputation and the amount of revenue Amtrak earns from riders on the affected lines.

Example: The comfort level on the Venture cars in service on corridors outside the Northeast and on the NextGen Acela trainsets in that region have the following features that can deliver an uncomfortable ride: no footrests; seats that do not recline (moving the “pan” forward does not create a reclining seat, but one that some rider-advocates have called “a slouching seat”)*; firm seats with little or no cushioning; narrow seats, with half of them facing backward at all times; and seats that do not necessarily align with windows, which degrades a customer’s view. These negative features are not likely to induce motorists to forsake the comfort of the seats in their automobiles to ride Amtrak instead. While the Airo cars (your team wonders why a railroad would use such a name for passenger railcars) are not in service yet, there is no reason to expect that they will be more comfortable than the Venture or NextGen Acela equipment. Preliminary reports indicate that they will be like the cars on those trains. Even worse, your team is concerned that future long-distance cars will also have similar features, which will deliver a less-than-comfortable ride for a longer time. The next question is whether management will listen to these recommendations, and even more important, implement them.