Urban Sky
Senior Member
Why? Ottawa pays (through VIA) for the operation of VIA’s network, but all the routes which have disappeared since 1990 (Gaspé, Senneterre-Cochrane, Pukatawagan-Lynn Lake, Vancouver Island) have been lost due to the reapective provincial premiers’ refusal to fund the necessary infrastructure to sustain passenger service. To the best of my knowledge, it was no different with the Albertan givernment of the day, which refuses to pay more than a measly $1 million to fix the dangerous level crossings along the Edmonton-Calgary route (presumably less than what the federal government paid annually for maintaining the service) and that’s how it was lost in 1986 (?), at a time where routes were revived across the country (e.g., Moncton-Edmundston, Toronto-Havelock, Jasper-Vancouver).
I’m certain that Calgary-Edmonton would have survived the 1990 cuts as a “Corridor” service if the Albertan government had been willing to save the train in the mid 1980s by paying for upgrading its infrastructure…