Via Rail to ship train out of Churchill, cut service

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This article was published 04/10/2017 (2927 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Via Rail will ship its stranded train cars to Montreal from Churchill, the Free Press has learned, despite a pledge from local residents to prevent such action from happening.

“It’s really to preserve the long-term services in Manitoba,” Via Rail spokeswoman Mariam Diaby said Wednesday. She served notice of reduced service elsewhere in the province.

The railway said its two locomotives and five rail cars have started to rust, and moving them now will save on costly, time-consuming repairs.

As rumoured, the train will be leaving on the MV Nunalik, a ship the provincial government has commissioned to deliver 2.2 million litres of propane to help Churchill residents survive winter, at a cost of $6 million.

The vessel is scheduled to arrive Sunday unless there is a weather delay.

The news is a crushing blow to the northern town of about 900, which lost rail service 19 weeks ago because of spring flooding between Amery (northeast of Gillam) to Manitoba’s “Polar bear capital of the world.”

Residents have said they would set up a blockade to prevent Via from removing what’s seen as the town’s last remaining federal asset.

Via Rail is a Crown corporation and at least one of its rail cars in Churchill is festooned with a celebratory Canada 150 banner.

Dave Daley, president of the Churchill Chamber of Commerce, recently said his anger wasn’t aimed at Via Rail, which supports the town’s vital tourism sector. But he said the decision to send the cars south on anything other than the rail tracks as a symbolic declaration Ottawa is abandoning the community.

Via Rail will also reduce service on its remaining northern Manitoba routes. Starting Nov. 1, the twice-weekly return service between Winnipeg and The Pas will be cut to once a week, and there will be two, instead of three, weekly trips between The Pas and Thompson.

Three weekly return trips will continue between Thompson and Gillam.

In a statement, Via Rail president Yves Desjardins-Siciliano said the marooned train in Churchill has hampered the agency’s reliability along existing lines.

“This revised schedule will allow us to continue to fulfil our commitment to remote communities until the service to Churchill resumes,” he wrote.

An engineering report completed during the summer said in order to restore service before the November freeze-up, repairs to the line would need to start by early September.

Instead, that’s when the federal government started talks aimed at having Denver-based railway owner Omnitrax transfer the rail line and Port of Churchill to two northern Manitoba groups, OneNorth and Missinippi Rail, likely with some funds from the federal government.

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said Tuesday Ottawa’s negotiator was “working diligently” and “reports that there is regular progress.”

Officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Churchill Mayor Mike Spence, have refused to say outright the rail line won’t be operating this year. On July 29, Trudeau promised Spence the transportation link would be restored.

On a Tuesday visit to Ottawa, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister said he’d briefly discussed the rail line with federal officials.

“No progress yet, sadly,” he said. “I am somewhat frustrated by the delays.”

Pallister said he was “sympathetic” to Omnitrax being a difficult negotiating partner, but said he was concerned for the “economic growth and social protections” of northern Manitobans.

In a recent interview, Winnipeg Centre MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette said his six Manitoba Liberal colleagues in caucus have been watching the issue carefully.

“Sometimes, rushing a deal is not always the best option,” he said, adding the Prime Minister’s Office wants an economically viable solution that will last decades.

“I see the bags under the eyes of a couple PMO staffers who have been debating late into the night on this issue,” Ouellette said. He said the two groups vying for ownership have studied the Winnipeg Airports Authority as a governance model.

“We’re slowly getting this puzzle together, to where it actually can hopefully fit and be a nice-looking picture.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca