New schedules starting October 29 2006

The new PDF timetables for VIA, starting Sunday October 29, are now online at viarail.ca. The main changes are: later departures of the first trains in each direction between Montreal and Quebec City; an additional Ottawa-Montreal train will be extended from/to Fallowfield; an extra trip added from Ottawa to Montreal on Sunday; and, a 15 minute later departure for the morning train from Toronto to Sarnia. As far as I know there are no changes outside the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, except for stations in Saskatchewan which observe Standard Time year-round.

There is also a new feature on VIA's web site which allows users to dynamically build a timetable from one station to another (date optional). I'm not sure how useful people will find this and it looks like they haven't gotten all the bugs worked out yet. You can try it out here.

The Winnipeg - Churchill train is departing earlier (2013 as opposed to 2045) and arriving back in Winnipeg theoretically at 0838 (instead of 0805.) This train has been reported significantly late so often, I'm surprised that VIA would change its arrival time by only 33 minutes.