VIA Venture Sets' Serviceability in 2025

For the last year, I've been doing some 'citizen science' to find out what VIA couldn't or wouldn't share - Siemens Venture serviceability data. Why do this? Because the constant complaining and perceived problems with the Ventures, expressed by rail enthusiasts and passengers alike, may not always have been fact-based. An earlier post published in May, 2025 includes serviceability data and On-Time-Performance data from the previous seven months. I'm still waiting for a complete response from VIA's Access To Information Co-Ordinator and have been since March, 2025. Until that happens (if ever - count me one of those who thinks the federal ATI system is broken or at least cracked), here goes...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

(Based on data from December, 2024-October, 2025)

• VIA's Venture Sets had a wide range of serviceability from 0-100%. 
• Venture Sets had a monthly mean serviceability rate of 73%.
• The Venture fleet's trainsets had a median serviceability rate of 79%.
• As more Venture Sets were delivered, the percentage of sets in service and the total number of Sets in service increased.

THE RETROSPECTIVE RESEARCH - MY METHODOLOGY

While trackside at Kingston's VIA station last winter, I decided to start 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,

while maintaining 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. 

Populating a table each week, 'VIA Ventures Not Operating November 18/24-November 8/25' (below) I hoped to compile meaningfully accurate serviceability data, (and remember, it's only data until it becomes information!) with the 32 Set numbers shown on the vertical axis at left. The weeks of each month are shown on the horizontal axis at top. The table uses the following colour-coding to show serviceability:

• Red - not observed in operation for two or more weeks. (Minimum of  two-week intervals for out-of-service, for which I'd garnered no observations anywhere in the Corridor, allowing one week perhaps for routine service, or just missed by trackside observers, although since the trainsets operate across multiple Corridor lanes, that seemed unlikely!)
• Green - train set received, prior to undergoing break-in testing.
• Yellow - undergoing [1,000-mile] break-in testing.
• White - observed in service.

Now that a year has elapsed since that chilly sittin'-in-my-van session at the station, and all 32 Venture sets have been delivered, I've decided to tabulate the data from almost all weeks in the table above.

Here's how I compiled the data:

# Red cells (total number of Sets not observed in operation)       =     # of Sets not in revenue service

   # Red and White cells (total number of Sets in revenue service)

• The quotient was the # of Sets not in revenue service that week, converted to a percentage. The 'mirror image' of that percentage (adding to 100%, i.e. 30% not in revenue service = 70% in revenue service) gave me the Venture Set serviceability for each week.
• I averaged each month's 4 or 5 weekly percentages together to get the serviceability rate (percentage of Sets in revenue service) that month.

Notes and caveats - quite a few, actually:

• The goal for my methodology was to garner monthly totals that would make a trend in serviceability, be it negative (or positive!) easier to detect.
• VIA's actual serviceability figures likely differ. They would have the advantage of being based on VIA or Siemens proprietary data, versus my collected trackside empirical data.
• Each 'week' is not necessarily Sunday-to-Saturday, nor completely within one month. Months shown may therefore include a few days of the previous or subsequent month.
• A 'week' shown 'in service' may be based on only one observation or many, i.e. the set may have been used for one day or seven days to be shown as white/in service. Tabulating daily records would create a whole different table!
• Percentages could actually be lower. My two-weeks-not-observed-before-ruling-out-of-service could mean that certain trainsets were actually out-of-service for an additional, undetected 'red' week.
• Percentages have been rounded up to whole numbers.
• Set 25 "became" Set 7/25 after remnants of both sets were combined in August, following inclusion of two cars each in Sets 12 and 24, respectively, all sets then totalling the CN-friendly 32 axles.
• Set 32 entered service during the second week of November, just beyond the scope of this table.
• I'm not a trained statistician, just a train statistician. If you find any errors, please let me know.

THE RESULTS

With the math done, I was able to summarize the compiled data in three formats, each using percentages. The first assessing the horizontal axis (serviceability trend over time); the second assessing the vertical axis (serviceability of each Set) and the third portraying the second in different form. Here are the three individual formats, described, followed by the percentages in list form. 

All data pertains to my chosen 48-week period - full months from the first week of December, 2024 to the last week of October, 2025. I did not include the last two weeks' of November 2024's data, nor any data beyond the first week of November 2025 because the number of observations decreased below what I believed was a statistically-significant level (30-50 vs. the usual 70-80 per week). That's why I can't claim a full year of data - though I would suggest that 48 weeks' data is enough to reveal any emerging, credible trends. 

1. Serviceability of Venture Sets by Month:

Using the calculation described under the table above, the results gave the percentage of Sets in revenue service each month.

2. Serviceability of Venture Sets by Individual Trainset:

The number of weeks in service for each Set over the 48 weeks expressed as a percentage. The results show that while there is one trainset - Set 1- that hasn't been accepted by VIA nor left VIA's TMC in 2025, there is another Set that I've never found to be out of service (though it is possible a Set can be out of service for the better part of two weeks and my methodology wouldn't detect that). The Sets are listed by order of delivery from 2021-2025. If you believe that the best predictor of future activity is past activity, and you're standing on the platform when your Venture-equipped train pulls in and it's Set 4 with its paltry 50% serviceability rate, does it mean you have a 50% chance of making it to your destination successfully? Not necessarily, but maybe so!

3. Serviceability of Venture Sets by Percentage Groups:

Rather than presenting Sets' serviceability in ascending (or descending) percentage order, and not to single out a particular Set for circumstances beyond its control, this is a wider grouping of Sets, with individual Sets' serviceability gathered into groups of ten percentage points. Such groupings should account for a +/- 5% margin of error in my methodology. (Plus, I was just too lazy to re-do the list showing each Set's serviceability in percentage order!)

1. SERVICEABILITY OF VENTURE SETS BY MONTH 

 (Mean = 73%)

• December, 2024: 68%
• January, 2025: 60%
• February: 62%
• March: 67%
• April: 67%
• May: 73%
• June:75%
• July:81%
• August: 87%
• September: 85%
• October: 79%

2. SERVICEABILITY OF VENTURE SETS BY INDIVIDUAL TRAINSET

(Median = 79%)

• Set 1: 0%
• Set 2: 52%
• Set 3: 32%
• Set 4: 50%
• Set 5: 48%
• Set 6: 81%
• Set 7: 67%
• Set 8: 94%
• Set 9: 62%
• Set 10: 85%
• Set 11: 75% (damaged near Mont St Hilaire on September 24, 2025 and still out of service)
• Set 12: 66% (includes remarshalling/testing as XL set)
• Set 13: 87%
• Set 14: 81%
• Set 15: 62%
• Set 16: 62%
• Set 17: 100%
• Set 18: 79% (Lumi)
• Set 19: 62%
• Set 20: 75%
• Set 21: 79%
• Set 22: 88%
• Set 23: 100%
• Set 24: 100% (includes remarshaling/testing as XL set)
• Set 25: 100%
• Set 26: 100%
• Set 27: 93%
• Set 28: 100%
• Set 29: 100%
• Set 30: 87%
• Set 31: 60%
• Set 32: 100%

3. SERVICEABILITY OF VENTURE SETS BY PERCENTAGE GROUPS

• 100% serviceable: Sets 17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32.
• 90-99% serviceable: Sets 8, 27.
• 80-89% serviceable: Sets 6, 10, 13, 14, 22, 30.
• 70-79% serviceable: Sets 11, 18, 20, 21.
• 60-69% serviceable: Sets 7, 9, 12, 15, 16, 19, 31.
• 50-59% serviceable: Sets 2, 4.
• <50% serviceable: Sets 1, 3, 5.

THE TRENDS THAT EMERGED

• It's clear from the compiled data that the serviceability of in-service Sets has trended positively over the past 48 weeks. More white, less red!

• It's also clear that VIA has a handle on maintaining the Ventures. As newer sets are delivered, they seem to spend more time in-service. We know that cracked-windshield replacement (shown above at TMC) is an example of a serviceability issue that Ventures were plagued with, but which VIA in conjunction with Siemens was able to address successfully.

• It could be argued that showing in-service percentages for each Set, with earlier-delivered sets understandably having more weeks in-service to have something 'go wrong' would make it easier for newer sets to have higher percentages in-service. But note that the final ten Sets delivered (23 to 32 inclusive) have been in revenue service for up to 42 weeks, a significant time period, with one set entering service about every 7 weeks.

• As the number of Sets increased until all were delivered, a percentage represented an absolute higher number of Sets. In the first week of December, 2024 86% represented 17 Sets in service (out of a total of 21), while a similar percentage in the first week of October, 2025 represented 26 sets in service (out of a total of 31).

GOING FORWARD 

I'm planning to continue recording the serviceability of the Venture sets from various sources. Since it's easier to prove which Ventures are in service, not just unseen in revenue service for two weeks or more, I think this will result in a table that looks opposite to what I've been compiling, but still produce meaningful serviceability data. 

Should VIA come through with their own serviceability data that I have requested, it will be interesting to compare it to what I've been able to compile as a  concerned citizen scientist!

Running extra...

'Tis the season for Christmas specials:

• CMA Country Christmas - Little Big Town yes, 'Children Go Where I Send Thee' unfortunately sung by other artists.
• Christmas from Rockefeller Center - It's not Rockette science that I watch this every year!
• Kevin Costner's The First Christmas - a surprisingly scholarly approach to all the reasons my mantle nativity scene is technically only a pastoral pastiche.

Watch for Trackside Treasure's upcoming annual Christmas post. I'll be showing you the secrets to fantastic stuffing, sharing some favourite Christmas songs as Spruce Springsteen, how to make a bunch of cheap crap out of tinsel a la Martha Stewart, and opening the 14 Rapido Trains Inc. mystery boxes that arrived yesterday. It's a wonderful life, no 'bones about it! 

First past the post...

Our neighbourhood held its quite quiet not nocturnal Santa Claus parade last weekend, in fresh snow. Very Canadian. Collecting food items and winter clothing for various local charities, donations totalled 1,300 pounds of food, 45 jackets and many bags of other clothing.