"What is Happening with VIA's New Venture Trains?" Seven Months after CN Imposed its Crossing Speed Reductions

It's been seven months but it feels like seven years.

To say it's become somewhat of a Trackside Treasurobsession covering the implementation of VIA's Ventures here on the CN Kingston Subdivision, if not earlier in the MOQ (Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec) triangle is an understatement within a minimization of an archetype wrapped in a microcosm. And the imposition by CN of crossing speed reductions on VIA's new Venture trains at around 300 crossings within the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor has been the big story of the implementation...

...not the newness of the trains, or their accessibility, their speed, their comfort, not even their flexibility due to bidirectionality. For your humble blogger, the delays faced by VIA passengers and only minimally acknowledged by VIA management have been as disturbing and disingenuous as they have been borderline-deceitful, but moreover, unnecessary and unproven by CN therefore unwarranted and unbelievable! Witness this westbound Venture on April 30, 2025 at Mi 179 Kingston Sub, accelerating from one such crossing (all photos in this post).

My initial Ventures in Service post grew to three, including all the links to all my other posts on the topic. I even published a rare opinion post. I tracked the serpentine sequence of contemporaneously non-conclusive court cases launched by VIA, and I've also heard that these posts have been read in VIA Rail Canada's C-suite and within the Teamsters hierarchy. But what are the facts of the implementation?

In this post, I'm presenting independently-garnered facts gathered seven months on, showing how the Venture implementation has downgraded and downwardly-denigrated On-Time Performance over the past seven months, and how many of the tragically troubled trainsets have been serviceable over the past six months.

VENTURE TRAINS ON-TIME PERFORMANCE

The "VIA Venture Trains On-Time Performance October, 2024+" table (below) covers the imposition of the CN crossing speed reductions from Day One. Column headings explained: 

• Week - Almost always the Monday of each week.  I chose Monday to monitor Venture OTP because it's usually the day of the week with the highest number of Venture-equipped trains. 

• Daily # of Venture Trains - The total number of Venture-equipped trains on each Monday that I monitor OTP, even if the trains deviate from the planned Corridor rotation. So, if a normally-HEP train is Venture-equipped for one day, I include it.

• All Ottawa/Montreal/Toronto trains OTP - Until February, I lumped both service lanes' Venture-equipped trains together. I split this total into two destination-specific columns once the 'Doublavay' J-trained Ventures began operating on VIA Nos 60/50 and 62/52 in early February...

• ...Ottawa/Toronto trains OTP - Reflecting the OTP on the Brockville-Ottawa VIA trackage, though subject to delay due to CP switching at Smiths Falls. Venture trains can make up time here.

• ...and Montreal/Toronto trains OTP - 28 crossings with speed reductions in 100+ miles of CN trackage from Brockville-Coteau. Venture trains only get later here.

• Late Departure Train #'s - Significantly late (15 minutes +) departures, often caused by the late arrival of a previous run-through Venture-equipped train or mechanical issues.

• Doublavay OTP at Kingston - Doublavays Nos 60/50 and 62/52 at Kingston should arrive here On-Time due to exceeding CN's 32-axle limit with a Doublavay totalling 48 axles and not having to slow for the 58 crossings with speed reductions from Toronto to Brockville.

• Doublavay OTP to Ottawa - after splitting at Brockville, No 50 and 52 arrival OTP at Ottawa.

• Doublavay OTP to Montreal - after splitting at Brockville, No 60 and 62 arrival OTP at Montreal.

VIA VENTURES NOT OPERATING NOV 18/24-MAY 17/25

While train watching at Kingston's VIA station in February, I started recording the serviceability of the Venture sets from various sources I could cross-reference: personal observations, credible trackside reports from others, video and still photos, with a high bar for veracity so as not to over-report or sensationalize the challenges VIA staff and operating crews have faced with this implementation, as well as the aforementioned acrimony of VIA's passengers as they switch to Ubers, planes and GO trains to their destinations, while slagging VIA on social media. 

Colour-coding in the 'VIA Ventures not Operating Nov 18/24-May 17/25' table (below) comprises the following colours over the last six months:

Red - not observed in operation for two or more weeks. (I allowed up to two-week intervals for which I'd garnered no observations anywhere in the Corridor, allowing perhaps for routine service, or just missed by trackside observers, although since the trainsets operate across multiple Corridor lanes, that seemed unlikely!)

Yellow - undergoing [1,000-mile] break-in testing.

Green - train set received but not yet undergoing break-in testing.

White - observed in service:

WHAT IS HAPPENING...NEXT?

VIA's Corridor change-of-card is on May 26. VIA is maintaining the disposition of 14 Venture sets in daily Corridor service. Look for more experiments with Doublavays. One several-day recent experiment saw a Doublavay travel across the Corridor with space in most of the 10 cars being sold - those in the centre of the cab-car-coupled double consist necessitating only one stop at each station. 

I'll continue monitoring and augmenting both tables on an ongoing basis. Until the CN-imposed crossing speed reductions are lifted, VIA will not be enlarging the number of sets in service. This seems to be a self-limiting implementation block. There are an average of 13 Venture sets in use weekly since February when the number of Venture-equipped trains in the Corridor rotation was reduced to 12 (after being increased from 12 to 13 sets in early November). On May 7, VIA introduced a new 14-set rotation, increasing the number of Corridor sets by two, both of which are now serving Southwest Ontario daily.

As previously described on Trackside Treasure, the constant slow-down, speed-up for CN's selected (and unmarked) crossings takes a toll on crew alertness, causes fatigue, negatively affects morale, and can therefore limit crews available for service. Who will initiate the lifting of the reductions? Not CN, unless forced to. Not VIA, unless supported by Quebec court action. Not Transport Canada apparently, though their pivotal regulatory role in promoting public safety is undisputed.

VIA cancelled some trains in February, and has signalled that it will preferentially and slowly replace HEP consists with Ventures before attempting to reinstate the cancelled trains, at least until September. That may make only one HEP set left, down from the current three.

With 29 sets delivered and only 14 in service, and based on the tables above, the implementation will continue to founder.

Running extra...

Sometimes the spammers are lazy. Recently, some have actually done creative writing to get their desired link buried in this blog. Here's one from the previous Kool-Aid contest post, "This is such a fun and unique piece of history from VIA! A Kool-Aid contest train promotion is definitely something you don't see every day – pure nostalgia! It's great to reflect on those creative marketing campaigns from the past, and how different travel experiences can be. Speaking of getting around, I was just thinking about the convenience of a dubai car rental for exploring a big, modern city. Anyway, thanks for digging up this cool "tracksidetreasure"!

Also eminently emanating from the emirates is a lot of 'wingspam' about the new Boeing 747-8 Air Force One. With 1,000 nmi. additional range, the currently-attainable Washington to Tokyo extends to Washington to 'Jina'. Perfect for that next face-to-face he-said-Xi-said summit on tariffs! With 29 feet greater wingspan and 19 feet increased length the new version is the longest commercial jet available in the world. Perfect for your next fighter escort over Gulf nations. What the F-15??

First past the post...

Arriving on Track 1 from Montreal, a mystery visitor with sistery history pulled into town aboard an LRC consist this week. The weather was not much to write home about, though Timbits, coffee, rhubarb-strawberry muffins and pizza sweetened the day. Blood may be thicker than water, but successfully crossing that artificially-drawn line (that looks like it was drawn by a pencil and a ruler) trumps everything!