Why Were CN's Mixed Trains In Newfoundland Not VIA RAIL's?

If the mixed trains between Winnipeg and Churchill were (or are still) part of VIA's operations, why weren't those in Newfoundland?
Thank you for any insight on this.








XC

Interesting question, and I believe your answer has more to do with Confederation agreements than anything else. Many of the western Canadian providence have railway services written in theirs, while Newfoundland has ferry services included.

Great question! In the US, only a few railroads stayed out of Amtrak and each time it was for a good reason. The Rock was too broke to afford it and the Rio Grande thought it would free up track space. In Canada, you had all types of trains that stayed out of Via. BC Rail RDC run, Algoma Central, Ontario Northland, and the Newfie Bullets. Even odder, today CN took over the ACR trains and gets crown funding to run them, thirty-five years after CNR spun off Via to operate all their passenger trains. I try to make sense of the Canadian passenger train concept and I just can.

Also, it is generally accepted that Canada is slighty more left/liberal than the US, so why is Via such a punching bag when it comes to crown funding?

Understanding Via is like trying to understand SEPTA... your head hurts if you're not from the area.

Weren't the Newfoundland trains canceled before the start of VIA?

CHTT1 wrote:Weren't the Newfoundland trains canceled before the start of VIA?

No, Mixed Trains continued to operate until the railway was abandoned in 1988.

CN also operated the cross island bus service until they sold the operation to DRL in 1996.

Both physically and organizationally, Newfoundland was separate from the rest of the CN intercity passenger network that was the foundation of VIA. Aside from the fact that Newfoundland was a narrow gauge operation that used passenger cars incompatible with the rest of the Canadian network, CN's mixed trains were operated by Terra Transport, a CN subsidiary that ran all of CN's freight and passenger rail as well as truck and bus services on the island. Terra Transport in turn was partially subsidized by both the Federal and provincial governments. The Newfoundland mixed trains that survived into the VIA era largely served rural areas with no other passenger transportation and thus were run as a social service.

I spent a week up there in the summer of 1980, riding the mixed and chasing freights, and I'm really glad I did. The CN narrow gauge was a fascinating operation but was already living on borrowed time by then.

To add to Mr. Nelligan's post:

For a passenger service to be incorporated into the VIA network there likely had to be some decent expectation of it doing well upon takeover. The NFLD mixed trains were more or less freight runs with 1 or 2 passenger cars coupled on. No doubt the demise of rail operations on the island was due to the narrow gauge trackage (though the ties appear to have been wide enough for standard gauge).

It's a real shame the RR was abandoned 25 years ago. The recent spike in economic activity on the island would probably have benefited freight rail operations to no end. Maybe one say it'll return in some form

TomNelligan wrote: I spent a week up there in the summer of 1980, riding the mixed and chasing freights, and I'm really glad I did. The CN narrow gauge was a fascinating operation but was already living on borrowed time by then.

I took your “Passenger Train Journal” article with me for reference in summer 1981....And when I rode the Clarenville-Bonavista Mixed I let the crew have a look at it as I sat with them up in the cupola instead of the coach (....just the casual atmosphere of the NFLD operation! )

The Newfoundland Bus and Mixed Trains were shown in the VIA Timetable with the notation that the services were operated by Terra Transport.









After the railway was abandoned and the demise of Terra Transport, the buses reverted back to using the “CN Roadcruiser”name.

It might have been for a bus, but as late as 1996 when CN sold the bus operation to DRL, you could still buy a CN Passenger Ticket nearly 20 years after the creation of VIA.