Slow-Speed Rail

     For a long time there has been talk about developing a high-speed rail network across Canada.The volume of the discussions has increased along with the troubles with our next-door neighbour. The decrease in airline alternatives and the even more dramatic decrease in the quality of the services they provide have caused people to wish for other options. At least, some argue, we should be able to run a Choo Choo through the Golden Horseshoe.
   Well, recently the government announced that a high-speed rail line would be constructed, but only part of the way across the country. More specifically, between Montreal and Ottawa. After approval (which may take a while) the construction is projected to start around 2029. Completion would likely be at some point in the year 2037. This would be good news for your grandchildren if they are very young.

Lowering Expectations

   A solution might be to just put the trains back where they once were. Credit for this forward thinking should be given to Mr. Taras Grescoe who wrote this article in The Globe and Mail: "Across Canada, There is a Grassroots Clamouring for the Return of Railway Lines That 0nce Provided a Reliable and Affordable Alternative to Cars and Planes," Jan. 30, 2026. The clamour has already been reduced to a degree by this development:
   "One evening at half past six, some time in 2026, a minor miracle is scheduled to occur in Toronto. For the first time in 14 years, a passenger train headed for the eastern shores of Ontario’s Lake Nipissing and points north will roll out of Union Station. If all goes well, eight hours and 40 minutes later, passengers in three Venture cars, pulled by a Siemens Charger locomotive in a fresh livery of brilliant blue and yellow, will arrive at a newly built station in Timmins, more than 700 kilometres north of downtown Toronto.
   The inaugural run of the Northlander – the precise date this year is still to be determined – will mark the return of Ontario Northland passenger rail service to a storied line that links the Great Lakes to the frigid waters of James Bay."

   It is suggested that perhaps the focus be shifted.
   "These days, the media is focused on the proposed 1,000-kilometre Alto high-speed rail line, the first segment of which will link Montreal and Ottawa. The corridor between Quebec City and Toronto is home to nearly half the country’s population.    But 6.6 million Canadians live in remote, rural, and northern communities, many of which have been petitioning for better public transportation. For them, the long-overdue revival of the Northlander and other passenger trains will dramatically change their lives for the better."

Examples of local approaches are offered from across the country:

Quebec:

   "In 2013, VIA Rail ended service east of Matapédia on the southern shore of the Gaspé peninsula. While the 325-kilometre ride to the town of Gaspé, one of the country’s most scenic rail routes, was loved by tourists, it is local residents who have campaigned hardest for its return. Last October, as townspeople gathered at abandoned stations along the route, Alexis Deschênes led a group of his fellow Bloc Québécois MPs on a 15-hour trip from Ottawa to Matapédia to make the case for the restoration of service."
Alberta:

   "Alberta, as always, is a special case. Seventy per cent of the province’s population lives along the 312-kilometre corridor between Edmonton and Calgary, but train service there ended with the last run of VIA Rail’s Dayliner train in 1985. Transcontinental trains used to call at Calgary and Banff, but VIA Rail’s Canadian now follows the northern route through Edmonton and Jasper. Last year, a proposal was submitted to the Major Projects Office – which is overseeing the Alto project – to link the Calgary airport to Banff with a hydrogen-powered train. The project is the brainchild of banker-turned-oil tycoon Adam Waterous, the chair of crude oil producer Strathcona Resources."

British Columbia:
   "On the other side of the country, the last passenger train ran on Vancouver Island in 2011, over the tracks of the old Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway, a line founded by coal baron Robert Dunsmuir.

   The Island Corridor Foundation, which is jointly owned by 14 First Nations and five regional districts, is campaigning to restore trains to the 289-kilometre corridor from Victoria to Courtenay, which parallels the chronically congested highways up the island’s east coast. (The right-of-way is intact, except for a kilometre-long stretch through the territory of the Snaw-Naw-As First Nation, where the tracks have been torn up to make way for a residential development.)"

News From Elsewhere   
   Grescoe, in the G&M piece, notes that in other countries, including India, our new friend, progress is being made.
   "If we’re serious about a passenger rail revival, we need look no farther than India, which has electrified 100 per cent of its rail network in the last decade. And remoteness and long distances needn’t be an obstacle: Russia powers its Trans-Siberian train – through more than 9,000 kilometres of tundra, taiga and boreal forest – entirely with electricity drawn from overhead wires."

   South of here, in the country that used to be a friend, rail travel is being improved with more and newer trains, if not high-speed ones. If you go to the Amtrak website you will find the picture above, a video and much more. Reporters from the NYT visited the Siemen's plant near Sacramento where the Airo is made and reported back:
   "Airo trains aren’t high speed — with an upper limit of 125 miles per hour, they’re not any faster than those they’ll supplant. But the new rail cars feature sleek interiors, grab-and-go food options and accessible designs for people with disabilities. Passengers will start to see Airo trains this summer on the Cascades route, in the Pacific Northwest, followed by more than a dozen East Coast routes beginning next year, including the Northeast Regional, the Carolinian, the Pennsylvanian and the Vermonter.
  Amtrak has ordered 83 Airo trains for a total of $8 billion, the largest fleet replacement since the company was founded in 1971. The trains will be built over the next several years at the Sacramento plant, which also makes light-rail and intercity trains for other customers, and at another factory in North Carolina.
   “We’re jumping about 50 years into the future,” said Derek Maier, a senior director of Amtrak’s Airo program. “It’s a more open experience. It’s better lit. It’s newer materials.”
  It is surprising that the President has not been bragging about this, but he is undoubtedly saving his praise for the new plane he is about to receive from the Qataris. 

Luxurious Train Travel
    If, like the President, you are a billionaire, but don't have your own plane or hate to fly, then you can rent a private rail car. If you are a billionaire, you will know how to do that, or have someone do it for you. If you just want a very nice train, there are many and many places to go. For example:

Great Britain:

The Britannic Explorer

   "Launched in the summer of 2025 by Belmond — the LVMH-owned company behind the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express — the Britannic Explorer allows passengers to take in the coastal charms of Cornwall, the quaint villages and dramatic valleys of Wales and the postcard-perfect landscapes of the Lake District."
U.S. 

Canyon Spirit

   "Canyon Spirit’s routes between Denver and Salt Lake City or Moab, Utah, are too gorgeous to sleep through. The solution: Guests spend nights in comfortable hotels and days in the train’s glass-domed coaches, enjoying the sights of Ruby Canyon, Mount Garfield and the Continental Divide."

And Even in Canada:
Rocky Mountaineer
  Just go to the website from which the picture is taken. There are other routes.

For more examples see: 

"Are Trains Now the Most Luxurious Way to Travel?: From Angola to Turkmenistan, Sumptuously Outfitted Railroad Cars are Taking Passengers on Over-the-top Journeys Back in Time," Matthew Kronsberg, NYT, Jan.6, 2026.

About the Hand-Car Painting
   The painting was done back when there were better rail options in Canada. Here is the caption:

DESCRIPTION

"One of the most interesting expeditions which I have ever made in my life was a trip on a hand-car," Hölzlhuber wrote. Julius Movius, the General Agent for all the railroads in British America, asked Hölzlhuber to sketch some of the stations near the Great Western Railroad from Hamilton to Quebec along the St. Lawrence River. In America and Canada the interiors of passenger cars were painted with the most interesting aspects of the country and towns through which they journeyed. Thus, artists in the countryside "are always busy." Two negroes were ordered to drive the hand-car, and a higher official, Mr. Muir, accompanied him. Here the hand-car labors across a bridge over a river while two ships ply the lake in the background. This hand-car was driven by turning a large crank rather than pump handles. Taken from Hölzlhuber's description of the scene, translated by Vera Kroner."
  The artist: Franz Hölzlhuber. It is from the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Post Script: The Trans-Canada Highway
  It is also difficult to even drive across the country. This is a piece by the Editorial Board of the G&M:

"Upgrade the Trans-Canada at all Due Speed,", Mar. 4, 2026.

   "For decades, northern Ontario residents have feared driving on their local stretches of the Trans-Canada Highway, the hazard-filled lifeline that connects their communities.

   And for decades, their requests for the provincial and federal governments to fund upgrades have been (mostly) ignored. But Ottawa’s new spending commitments for defence-related infrastructure could be the key to making much needed improvements on these roads – an essential link for this country.

    Highway 11 and Highway 17 – both parts of the Trans-Canada Highway system – are the only east-west road links connecting the country through northern Ontario. The 1,000 kilometre section of Highway 11 that runs between North Bay and Nipigon is mostly two lanes, and long stretches of both roads have no passing lanes, medians or roadside stops.....

   The impacts aren’t only local. The highway closings cut the country in half, and the 8,400 commercial trucks that pass both routes each day (including $200-million of goods travelling on Highway 11) are either delayed or detour through the U.S....
   A focus from Ottawa would be a catalyst, however: the long overdue upgrade of the Trans-Canada needs to proceed with all due speed.