VIA needs a buffer

In today’s normal, nothing-to-see-here news: VIA Rail is adding ‘buffer cars’ to its oldest passenger trains to absorb impact in the event of a crash. 

What happened: After being advised to do so following an independent inspection, 

cars will be added to the front and back of VIA’s stainless steel coaches built in the 1950s. 

  • No single incident led to the inspection, but rare instances of structural defects in these cars during heavy overhauls caused concern, and more tests are on their way

Now, if you’re thinking, “surely these cars that have been in use since before man went to space must only be a small part of VIA’s fleet”, then you would be sorely mistaken. 

  • The cars are still linchpins of the cross-country Toronto-to-Vancouver line and make up some of the Montreal-to-Windsor line, which carries 94% of passengers annually. 

However, the measures are only temporary, as the affected cars are set to be either reinforced or replaced by new ones (ordered in 2018 for a cool $1.5B) in the near future 

Yes, but: New cars or not, it still means many passengers riding with VIA were taking trips on trains which did not meet safety standards for, who knows how long. 

  • “The older fleet should have been replaced long ago,” a Unifor exec representing railway employees told The Globe and Mail, “It’s a wakeup call for the government.”

Some critics point to the fact that buffer cars needing to be introduced at all shows a chronic lack of government investment in VIA—a problem that has been going on 30+ years.

Why it matters: VIA is a vital service for many Canadians. In 2019, its last year of full operation, 5 million people chugga-chugga-chose VIA to get them from Point A to Point B.