"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!

VIA's Kool-Aid Contest, Summer 2000

A Kool-Aid contest in March 2000 led to 6404, 6405, 6406, 6411, 6424, 6432, 6433, 6439, 6453 and 6454 wearing a colourful livery, for a few months, April to August 2000. This Kool-Aid wrap appeared on more locomotives than any other wrap, pre-rebuilding, and was arguably the most colourful and eye-catching of the plethora of wraps VIA applied to its F40 fleet. Spiderman wraps were numerically second with six in May 2004, though for much longer, with 6408 staying wrapped from 2004-2011! VIA 6433 at Kingston (below at Kingston - Tim Reid photo):

It took me 25 years, but I recently (thanks, Jason Paul!) acquired this brochure that was distributed to kids during the consist. The brochure explains the contest, as well as featuringsome puzzles to challenge young minds:

Kool-Aid-wrapped 6432 leads No 65 at Kingston on May 12, 2000 as the engineer greets our kids during the station stop. Our kids rarely if ever drank Kool-Aid. So sugary. (Though I hope they drank the Kool-Aid when it came to our parenting style!) Now they have grown and moved on to more 'adult' beverages. Nor have they been 'drinking the Kool-Aid' when it comes to watching trains, although they do occasionally send a message when something interesting and/or colourful rolls by!

The contest even made the newspaper wire service:

Combine kids, trains and a healthy dose of Kool-Aid and what do you get? An award-winning campaign that brings to life Kool-Aid's fun and wacky branding and embodies its brand essence of "Kool-Aid takes the Ordinary and makes it WILD!" And it also delivers bottomline results for the client. The Kool-Aid Kool-Train program was an unprecedented success, partnering Kool-Aid, VIA Rail Canada, YTV, Kidsworld Magazine and TV Guide to create a synergistic and integrated media campaign to reach both the kid and Mom target. (It won the Best of Show at Marketing Magazine's inaugural Media Innovation Awards last November. And this June, it made the short list in the Media Lions competition at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes.) - From Marketing magazine, Jul 30/01 Vol 106:30

UberVIAphile Tim Hayman contributed this photo (below) to my fourth book on VIA Rail, one of several featuring Tim's fine modelling of VIA's comparatively small yet diverse fleet. The locomotive is a Rapido F40PH-2D that he painted with a variety of Tamiya paints (custom mixed to match), and decalled with Highball Graphics (formerly SGS) decals. Weathering was done with airbrushed acrylics. The model represents 6404 as it appeared in late summer of 2000, when Tim rode behind it on a trip from Ottawa to Brockville. Unique among the other Kool-Aid units, 6404 was the only locomotive in that scheme that did not have a small Canada flag between the numberboards. It also had a cab sunshade on only one side, and had an early version of the air-conditioner that would soon become standard on the 6400's. Unlike the later yellow air-conditioner units, it was white, with "Genesis" lettering on the sides, for which Tim custom-printed decals.

For those who prefer RTR models, Rapido Trains released this attractive paint scheme on their F40PH-2D model in 2018. 

Lots o' links:

• VIA 6411 rail pictures photo
• on video thanks to the prolific late David Othen
• HO scale decals by Highball Graphics
• brass model Pacific Fast Mail

Is a Kool-Aid unit still out there? Looks suspiciously so, based on these clandestine photos taken in North Bay...turns out it's a former Roberval-Saguenay unit:

Running extra...

From inside the lines at VIA, I received a message this week: "...when your blog is being used as reference during the Teamsters Union call to give employees information...", it makes blogging feel even more worthwhile. Trackside Treasure does not represent a particular side in the protracted CN-VIA Venture/crossing speed-reduction polemic: management, union or passenger, but attempts to represent all and moreover, the truth.

The trade war continues...albeit in volleys of comments following the recently-published Globe & Mail article on Rapido Trains Inc. There are some commenters who hit the nail on the head but are woefully unaware of what the company actually does. Then there are counter-commenters who know the company's talking points all too well:

First past the post...

Thanks to the unnamed grey-top who kindly handed over two of her Tim Hortons napkins to us on our napkin-less sit-down at the mall food court with our granddaughter this week. The octogenarian may have seemed grandmotherly in her demeanour, but she then whipped out her tablet and it like a boss immediately afterwards!

Pop-up Post: Two Days in March 2025, Freight Cars

For the second time in two months, an online crafting event for my wife meant an anticipated three days trackside: March 21-23, 2025. My goals were to visit some Kingston railfanning locations I hadn't been in awhile, and to catch some doublavay Venture eastbounds. Each train was listed by time, direction, train number if known and notes in Part 1, Day One.  In Part 2, it's Day Two and in this third pop-up post it's freight cars I photographed on those two day's trains! 

Day One - Irving lumber aboard AOK 29813 on No 305

Day One - CNPX 160193 on CN No 731

CITX 151566

NKLX 201887

More Irving lumber on CN No 305

Day One - CR TTGX 981037 on CN No 271

Day Two - GACX 54158-54163 on CN No 372

Wheel flatcar AOKX 44125 on CN No 372

Day Two - Lebel lumber on CN No 305

W&W AEX 23898

GAEX 100293 blue pole flatcar

Day Two - PHLX 107 on CN No 306

PHLX 183

PHLX 200

WC 85061

Running extra...

On May 1, I was pleased to present my Paralysis Analysis PowerPoint presentation to the 75 Zoom attendees participating in the Virtual Prologue of the Railway Modellers Meet of British Columbia (RMMBC). Thanks to blog partner Marc Simpson for the invitation and fellow presenters blog partner Matthieu Lachance and Chris van Der Heide for their presentations on weathering and 3D car printing and prototypes, respectively. I had to have a nap, as my time slot began at 2245h, three hours later than Pacific Time! I'm looking forward to taking in the second evening Prologue on May 15. Feedback:

On May 7, I was pleased to be a volunteer Heritage Fair judge at my grandsons' school. Neither of them were participating, being too young for the Grades involved: 5-7-8. Feedback for this one was in the form of a nice hug from my older grandson who was touring the displays, a signed Thank You card from all the participating students and juice and cookies from the teachers co-ordinating the Heritage Fair. One lad's display on the Canada-Denmark "Whiskey War" did not include free samples, and I don't think the two displays on Maple Syrup did either!

Today is VE-Day. Eighty years ago, the Germans finally gave up. The CBC coverage of the Liberation of Holland largely by Canadians has been excellent. Major-General Richard Rohmer at 101 years of age valiantly made the trip with a small group of centenarian veterans to honour the 7,600 Canadians who gave their lives in the pursuit of peace in that then-devastated country.

First past the post...

It was good to chat with former fellow Whig editorial board member (and renowned local historian and author) Peter Gower at the Heritage Fair. Not only has Peter devoted his time in the past to preserving Kingstonians' contributions to World War I and historic Kingston objects in book form, but in the present he inquisitively wondered why on a recent train trip CN freight traffic had been non-existent!

Pop-up Post: Two Days in March 2025, Day Two

After spending Day One near Gananoque Junction after capturing VIA No 60/50, the first of two doublavays at Bayridge Drive overpass, I headed slightly east on Day Two to capture VIA No 60/50 from the Sir John A Macdonald overpass near Mi 175 CN Kingston Sub (top photo).

0953 EB - VIA No 60/50 Sets 11 and 24 Youtube video link. It was a cold one-hour wait - trains from Toronto were late due to a Metrolinx trackwork detour (see below). I then headed to Mi 174 at Queens East, at the site of the former CN-CP interchange. 

On the north side of the mainline was formerly Queens 1 with a lead to the interchange, lifted in the 1990s. Now an expanse of ballast, a few tie remnants and invading brush, (which I had ample time to tame), I tried to include the old-timey westward-facing Queens East signal gantry in many of my photos. These signals are bound to be replaced, some year. One of the signal targets was loose and could be heard banging when the wind came up.

1052 WB - VIA No 643 Set 13:

 

1103 EB - CN No 372 2934-midtrain DPU 3976 ex-Citirail:

1124 WB - CN No 271 all (empty) auto racks, all the time 8843-8901:

1138 WB - VIA No 63 (unphotographed) 910-3463-3467-3341-3350F(uture)-3312R(en).

1235 WB - CN No 305 2949-midtrain DPU 2872:

1321 EB - VIA No 62/52 Sets 2/10:

VIA No 62/52 Youtube video link 2'20" late due to Newmarket/York Sub Metrolinx detour around 'three sides of the square'. One hour late leaving, took 1.5 hours to reach the Kingston Sub, schedule had been adjusted to accommodate the detour, but still! All I know is that minutes before I left home that morning, it said "expected to depart on time"!

These trains seen from the south side of the mainline at Queens East Mi 174 CN Kingston Sub:

1327 WB - VIA No 65 913-3478-3455-3342-3356F-3351F, 40(years)-3355F.

[1350 - wellness check from CN Police constable, who dryly noted this location is usually frequented by mentally distraught people, or family of the unhoused living nearby.]

1410 EB - VIA No 40 6411-3470-3465-3368(hand-painted blue)-3350?F-3369:

1416 WB - VIA No 53 Set 7 (unphotographed).

1441 WB - VIA No 47 917-3472-3371-3309R-33xx-3338F (unphotographed).

1450 EB - No 64 6440-3460-345?-3352-33xxF-3336:

Driving home via the Kingston VIA station, CN No 306 came out of the setting sun.

1635 EB - CN No 306 3108(CN100) - midtrain DPU 3919 ex-Citirail:

a large cut of Parrish & Heimbecker covered hoppers:

Day Three really didn't get off the ground. It was sunny but cold, and our grandsons were arriving for an afternoon visit, so I did not find myself trackside. However, this bonus pop-up post shows freight cars from the first two days!

Running extra...

I published this April 23 update on VIA's case in the Quebec Superior Court:

The Superior Court of Quebec has chosen not to intervene and grant an interlocutory injunction against CN. The Court's decision says that Transport Canada, as the authority responsible for rail safety in Canada, is best-positioned to decide this matter. VIA's CEO shared the outcome, and VIA does not view this as a loss. In fact the main legal case - a request for permanent injunction - is still ongoing. In the course of the legal process in Quebec, VIA  and Transport Canada (TC) were able to obtain key information from CN that had been previously unshared. These new insights will significantly support VIA's ongoing discussions with TC and CN. VIA claims that CN's latest data confirms that none of VIA's trains are detected at crossings any differently than other trains operating in the Corridor. VIA's General Counsel is reviewing the Court's decision and evaluating next steps in the legal, operational and administrative avenues.

YouTube recommendations:

• Thanks to Jim Lowe for this YouTube recommendation from Gatineau, QC. So many models I recognize and remember!
• I met Greg Wiggins at both of my OVAR presentations. A very humble and quiet guy modelling what I used to model, only much, much better.
• Yet another Youtube trip on the Canadian! Here's Part One and Part Two. Just like Day Three, Part Two gets truncated.

First past the post...

Jesse McLaughlin kindly updated me with OS's from all across America and as far east as Belleville as VIA's Venture Set 29 was delivered this past Wednesday. The first daylight delivery through Kingston since Set 11 was delivered back in December, 2023! Jesse also sent screenshots from various Virtual Railfan webcams along the route as the power changed from UP 6916 to CN 8918!