VIA Rail
VIA Rail Canada Inc. is an independent Crown corporation offering passenger train services.
VIA Rail operates trains in 8 Canadian provinces (all except Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island) over a network spanning the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay. It carries 3.9 million passengers annually.
The name "VIA Rail" originated in 1976 as a marketing term for the Canadian National Railway's passenger train services, which were in a state of decline. VIA was created as a separate company by the Government of Canada in 1978 to take over these trains as well as the few remaining passenger services of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The sharp ridership declines in the 1960s were caused when airlines, highway buses, and private automobile travel dislodged passenger rail's transport supremacy. Similar effects had occurred in the United States, where Amtrak was created to meet the same economic conditions.
In the 1980s the company's government funding was heavily cut by the government of Brian Mulroney, leading to the closing of many routes.
VIA Rail's "transcontinental" service is provided by The Canadian, operating three times a week between Toronto and Vancouver in the west, and by The Ocean, operating six times a week between Montreal and Halifax in the east; "Corridor trains between Toronto and Montreal connect the two routes.
The Maple Leaf is a passenger service operated jointly by VIA Rail and Amtrak from New York's Pennsylvania Station to Toronto's Union Station via Albany and Buffalo. Similarly, The International operates between Chicago's Union Station and Toronto's Union Station.
There are numerous daily trains operated in the heavily populated Quebec-Windsor Corridor, which extends from Quebec City through Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, and London to Windsor, but the trains stop there without crossing the river to Detroit.
VIA Rail's corporate headquarters are in Montreal, Quebec.
In the company name, VIA is always pronounced "vee-a" rather than "vy-a."