Some VIA Rail Trains Are 'Immobilized' Due To The Storm & People Have Been Stuck Since Yesterday
"On hour 18 of my 4 hour via rail train ride!!!"
VIA Rail Canada sign. Right: VIA Rail train.
Travel has been quite the nightmare over the past 24 hours due to the extreme weather that hit Canada. The storm has wreaked havoc on holiday travel, causing flight cancellations, dangerous driving conditions and stalled train travel.
People have been flooding the internet with their experiences of being stuck on VIA Rail trains, and it's not for just a couple of hours. There have been reports of travellers stranded on their trains for over 18 hours and for some, there is still no sight of hope.
\u201con hour 18 of my 4 hour via rail train ride!!!\u201d— gabrielle (@gabrielle) 1671898629
Gabrielle, a passenger tweeting from one of the stalled trains, told Narcity that she boarded at Toronto's Union Station at 5:45 p.m. Friday, December 23, and has been on the train for nearly 20 hours. Her final destination is Ottawa, a train ride that is usually only 4 hours.
"Hoping I get there before Christmas eve dinner at this point," she said.
The passenger said they have been given several different estimated arrival times, but that the estimates kept getting pushed.
A VIA Rail representative told Narcity that "due to extreme weather conditions, several trains in the Québec City-Windsor corridor were immobilized (55, 59, 69, 669, 79, 48, 54, 68, 668) or cancelled this morning (60, 50, 41, 61, 62, 52 and 40)."
"From power outages to trees on the tracks and even a tree falling on a locomotive, conditions make it impossible to move some of our trains." They added that their, "first priority is the safety of our passengers and, although stopped, our trains are able to keep passengers warm and safe while on board."
\u201c@RobTyrie @sjkski @CP_stylebook @iancapstick @VIA_Rail @CBCNews @CBCAlerts @CBCMorningLive @OPP @TheCurrentCBC @mattgallowaycbc @VIA_Rail Chaos is brewing on train 55. Some passengers have gone rogue and started jumping off the train. Via staff are crying. Many people are calling 911. This needs immediate de-escalation.\u201d— CP_stylebook (@CP_stylebook) 1671888006
"It really feels like a fever dream at this point!" Gabrielle added. "I didn't sleep at all and there was a poor baby on board who seemed confused as to why he was on a train for 15 hours. There was a saddening lack of information passed along so we'd be stopped with no updates for hours on end. People were very understanding tho and no one got mad. Our 2 attendants are the absolute best!!!!"
Passengers, like Gabrielle, have taken to Twitter to tell their accounts of the pause in travel. "Been stuck on a Via Rail train for 12 hours from Montreal to Toronto with no updates from Via except for the occasional hopeless message. It's okay though, they've given us water and pretzels and won't turn the lights off," a person tweeted 8 hours ago.
This same user posted a follow-up stating, "[i]t's going to take us another 10 hours to get this Via Rail train to Toronto if we stop and go at 10km/h the whole way. Currently on hour 14 of this nightmare."
They also added that engineers were meant to arrive to solve the "delay from the fallen tree" and that they hadn't had "food or water in hours."
Others have been using Twitter to find the whereabouts of some of the trains. For example, someone tweeted, "can I have the status of train 69 that left Montreal at 5 pm yesterday please ? Thank you so much," and another answered, "On 69 now, still stopped at the Cobourg station without further announcements."
\u201cThe culprit that has kept #viarail #train55 stuck since last night.\n\n17 hours on the train. Made some new friends. Slept on the floor. Booked and then cancelled a hotel room. It's a Christmas Eve to remember.\u201d— Lucy Ellis (@Lucy Ellis) 1671885349
A concerned parent tweeted, "my daughter is on Train 48 TO-OTT on her 12th hour now stranded outside of Napanee so close to the station but can't get there? She's considering trying to get off the train in the middle of the field with her cat and suitcases! What is going on?!"
The parent followed up, tweeting "[a]t 7:30 am they were told it would be one hour to get an engineer on board. That was 3 hours ago," they added.
The VIA Rail spokesperson told Narcity that "passengers who are travelling on these trains will be provided a full refund."
They added that "[t]hroughout the night, our efforts have been focused on keeping our customers as comfortable as possible in the current circumstances and on bringing them to their final destinations as quickly and as safely as possible while making every effort to find alternative solutions to reach the trains that are immobilized."
Given this, anyone looking to travel by train today should expect significant delays, and VIA Rail is asking them to check their website before going to their stations.
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.