Security logs show rise in anger and violence on Via Rail
Global News spoke to three current employees about their experiences on board in separate interviews and agreed not to identify them over their concerns Via Rail would punish them for speaking out.
Bisson, who retired in January, said he only remembers one or two major security incidents a year on the Canadian for the bulk of his career. But the Drummondville, Que., native and his former colleagues said that security incidents have now become common on Western Canadian routes, sometimes involving more than one angry or violent passenger on the same trip.
Internal emails reviewed by Global News show that Via Rail employees told management about their concerns during discussions on a company health and safety committee as early as April 2019. Bisson and others also warned company management and other federal officials orally and in writing, including through a letter to Transport Minister Marc Garneau in May 2019.
Despite those warnings, internal Via Rail statistics indicate that security incidents on the Western Canadian trains continued to escalate.
From January 2017 until fall 2018, when many bus routes disappeared, there was an average of less than one reported incident per month on the western trains, according to Via Rail’s security logs released to Global News through access to information legislation.
h/t Sean
The biggest surprise here is that Mr. Bisson was not charged with aggravated assault. That is how our current Lieberal legal (NOT justice) system works.
Did anyone catch the names? Any of those violent perps called Mohammed, Ahmed, Sayed, Osman, or Soliman?
But let me tell you this: train ticket prices in Canada are obscene. I did math and came up with the cost of a train ticket equal to the cost of gasoline that would take my entire family and luggage an equal distance. This is not possible! A train takes 300-400 passenger from point A to point B on a practically straight line, while a car rides across the street lights, stop signs, twists and turns. It cannot cost for each passenger the same as driving a car!!! $500 from Toronto to Winnipeg. You gotta be kidding me. Needless to say, I always drove, never rode.
Around 1990, I called VIA for prices, Hornepayne to Edmonton, two return tickets. (Just after The Canadian was moved from CP to CN)
$1200/each/coach!
I kindly told the lady at VIA, “No wonder nobody rides the train.”
I rather suspect they have names like Bill Paul and Bob George.
Because diesel train fuel is MASSIVELY more expensive than petrol? Ha ha ha ha ha
My REAL suspicion is that these rail lines are “priced for American tourists” … not for the Canadian people. Those RICH $$ Americans, with their more valuable dollars.
Who woulda thought poor people who ride buses wouldn’t integrate well with wealthy cranks who refuse to fly?
“Did anyone catch the names? Any of those violent perps called Mohammed, Ahmed, Sayed, Osman, or Soliman?”
No tarararam dum dum. It’s FN’s causing the problems.
The solution to this problem is to reinstate bus service.
Out of sight out of mind.
Does “FN” stand for “First Nations” or “Effing Natives”?
Either way it was an interesting VIA rail ride through northern Ontario back in the late 1970’s
Winnipeg to Toronto.
Luckily my buddy was 6’4″ and I was no slouch.
Where are these lost souls getting the money for train tickets?
From the big screen TV fund?
Tv prices keep going down … the Big Screen stipends going UP!
As for my experience, the Via employees bring a lot of it on themselves. They think it’s a little fiefdom and the customers are their serfs. Prices absurd. Service terrible. And,…drum roll please, it’s antiquated, slow, and noisy way to travel. No Orient Express level of sophistication, more cattle car with seats kind of feel.
Large % of french talkers… special tribes.
Riding mass transit in Ottawa is like waiting at a bus stop for a train that has flat wheels while the bus is at another bus stop.
When I was in the army in Ottawa I rode my bike from Vanier to down town in the summer, and when there was too much snow I ran. Couldn’t ride the bike and it took too much time to walk, but I could run it in less time than the bus took. In Ottawa in the winter you’d freeze to death waiting for a bus in a transit system that doesn’t understand the concept of running on a schedule.
Re: Violence is rising on Western Via Rail.
Public transit in Western Canada is at an all time low. Greyhound is gone, Saskatchewan Transportation Company is gone, and from where I live in SW Sask. I don’t know how far I’d have to drive to a Via Rail station.
I was a part time car and truck salesman for years when I farmed. . I remember delivering a new 1996 Ford F-350 to a customer from Quebec. He was a Via Rail engineer; when he retired he got on the train, came out west to buy an F-350 that had special camping equipment that he was looking for. I believe he had to get off near Yorkon, and get on an STC bus to Regina where I met him. He took his truck, I got on the STC bus to get home, and everything ran smooth. Somewhere down the line, they let STC fall apart, it’s now gone. As for Via Rail, here out west, they always had problems because of the freighters running on the same lines as passenger trains. And just look at what happened recently when native gangs blockaded rail travel. The government sat back and laughed.
Yet I took a High Speed (TGV) train in France, it was one of the best travel experiences I ever had. My nephew is a teacher in Japan, he rides the Mag Lev trains from time to time. Fast and smooth. Conclusion: We’re 100 years behind the rest of the world.
I’ve been on the high-speed rail systems in both Japan and China, and they are pretty amazing, and France is probably similar. However, the capital outlay for developing these projects is effing insane. They can’t possibly survive in Canada as private operations, unless someone like Buffett is willing to piss away his billions. These train systems were built with massive government assistance with no expectation of ROI, which totally changes the feasibility of the projects, and both China and Japan also have non-high-speed lines operating in support of the main lines. But both countries at least have the population/usage profiles to keep the operating costs relatively profitable. Canada does not, especially western Canada. Any such project contemplated here, for the foreseeable future, would, as a matter of course, devolve into a boondoggle.
It’s the fucking downstream effect that makes efficient railroad worthwhile. Stop being short-term penny-pinchers, you, genius government planners!
Currently Canadian sheepulation is herded in the 100 mile strip along 49. There is no development anywhere outside, while the traffic gridlock in the 100 mile zone is frightening. If anyone in Canada was serious about development, Canada would have had cities. It does not. It only has suburbia megapolices. A joke of a country.
I ride the Via a coupla times a year. Got a trapper buddy up in the bush in NWO. Train goes right past his door.
Done it all, coach, berth cabin.
Meals are better than most restaurants. Yes it is expensive and its rarely on time.
Coach travel is cheap. Bus cheap. If your in coach your in with the unwashed. East of Winnipeg the natives travel to the rez in the bush.
Lot of fwenchman take the train because they are catered to.
Mo takes the train but not in any numbers.
My observation is that once Greyhound packed it in their customers moved over to the train. Not in great numbers but enough to lower the bar and brought along their inherent problems.
holy jamoley !!!!!
more karma visiting VIA Rail.
ha ha ha !!!!
I had a SERIOUS problem with VIA ‘security’ a LOOOOONNNNGGGG time ago.
had to do with getting kicked by a drunk in the waiting area and getting blamed for the whole thing
despite the existence of a dozen+ surveillance cameras.
which the cops thumbed their noses at for some still unexplained reason.
the reason being the so-called VIA ‘security’ LIED about what happened.
so ya, THIS gets added to a long history of Ms Karma CLOBBERING my enemies.
dont think so? try this: my mother was a sexual abuser who died from ……. from ………………..
(quote) “massive brain hemorrhage”.
far out. I just didnt realize at the time the exact reason that satanbrain got what she did.
I also got attacked by the school yard nazi in grade 7 who got the SHYT knocked out of him by moi,
the kid who *always* lost the fight (what fight was that??). decades later I put it all together and realized
she, Ms Karma was there the whole time and SET IT UP. knowing full well puberty kicked in a good year ahead in my case.
including my very own very first . . . . . adrenaline rush !!!! wheeeee !!!!!
the windfall was I NEVER had to deal with ANY sandbox bullies the rest of my time in grade school.
it was my first application of nuclear deterrence.
anyway, a bit off topic but I DO enjoy relating stories of how she sees to it that those who are
abusive towards me pay an crushing penalty.