The Canadian federal government announced that it selected Alstom as its supplier of 313 new cars for its long distance fleet, replacing the aging Budd-built and Renaissance cars currently operating outside the Corridor. Alstom will upgrade its Thunder Bay, Ontario facility and the “Adessia” cars will be manufactured in Canada.
One question that has arisen is: how many cars does VIA currently use on its long distance routes?
There are seven long-distance routes currently in operation:
- The “Canadian”: Toronto to Vancouver
- The “Ocean”: Montreal to Halifax
- Winnipeg to Churchill
- Jasper to Prince George
- Montreal to Senneterre
- Montreal to Jonquiere
- Sudbury to White River
VIA currently has the Montreal – Gaspe route “suspended” as well as the Vancouver Island route.
Alstom’s announcement says that “the new fleet will connect eight major routes across Canada”. The communities they list include all routes in my list above, but also includes the Gaspe route.
Current Fleet Requirements
Let’s count how many cars the current long distance trains require. I’m going to assume a normal summer consist for all trains.
Note that I’m ignoring Renaissance cars and using the all-Budd Ocean consists from years ago. The reason I chose to do this is because later I will compare current vs future fleets and much of the Renaissance fleet is out of service and/or scrapped now. I believe it would artificially inflate VIA’s current fleet.
| Train | Sets | Baggage | Coach | Diner | Skyline | Manor | Chateau | Park |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 2P | 1P |
| Ocean | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | |
| Churchill | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Prince George | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Senneterre | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Jonquiere | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| White River | 1 | 2 | ||||||
| Total | 12 | 25 | 8 | 14 | 27 | 9 + 6P | 4 + 3P |
That’s a total of 108 cars… far short of the 313 requested. To be fair, this does not include any spares or any extra cars that might be added for special occasions, charters, or heavy traffic times. The omission of Renaissance cars may mean that the Ocean car counts are lower than they should be.
Current vs Future Fleet
The following table is a comparison of the current fleet (from the 2024 Trackside Guide) and the future fleet (from Alstom’s announcements).
| Type | Current Fleet | Future Fleet |
|---|---|---|
| Sleeper cars | 27 (Chateau) | 78 |
| Coach cars | 41 | 58 |
| Panorama cars | 8 (non-Prestige Park) | 38 |
| Baggage cars | 17 | 29 |
| Accessible sleeper cars | 4 (Prestige Park) | 26 |
| Dome cars | 14 (Skyline) | 25 |
| Dining cars | 12 | 20 |
| Prestige sleeper cars | 4 (Prestige Park) | 20 |
| Berth cars | 42 (Manor) | 19 |
| Total | 165 | 313 |
Quick Thoughts
The first thing you may notice is the dramatic increase in the number of cars. As I said above, I’m ignoring Renaissance cars, so that accounts for some of them.
The second thing you might notice is the number of every type of car will increase. This bodes well for A) added routes (hello, Gaspe) and B) longer trains or increased frequency.
I’m really struck by the large increase in baggage cars. 17 to 29 is a big jump. That definitely says “more trains” to me.
Same for the increase in sleeper / berth cars. More overnight trains coming?
New Car Types
There will be two main sleeper car types – “Sleeper” and “Berth”. This roughly corresponds to the existing Manor and Chateau cars, although the Chateaus have both berth and room-type accommodations.
There will be “dome” and “panorama” cars, replacing the Skyline and Park cars. The dome cars, mockup shown above, are similar to the Skyline cars. I imagine the “panorama” cars would be much like the Rocky Mountaineer cars or the ex BC Rail 172x cars with glass roofs.
I understand there will be no equivalent to the Park car’s “bullet lounge”, which will be a real shame. I get that VIA is trying to keep the number of different car types down but I think that will be a loss.
Accessibility
The car types and number of cars in the future fleet point to a large increase in accessibility. VIA has been working to improve accessibility in its trains and stations and the future fleet will bring a big increase.
Currently the only accessible sleeping cars are in the four Prestige Park cars (on the Canadian) and in three Renaissance sleeper cars (on the Ocean). With 26 accessible sleeping cars, they should be able to put accessible sleepers on every train that has sleeping cars (bringing accessibility to Churchill, for example), and increasing the number of accessible bedrooms on the Canadian and Ocean.
The new cars will be more accessible than the existing Budd cars, of course, since they are built to modern standards. Another win for accessibility.
Increased accessibility benefits everyone.
No More RDCs
I firmly believe this will be the end of RDCs on the Sudbury – White River route… so go see or ride them while you can.
Locomotives
This announcement only covers the passenger cars behind the locomotives. What’s going to pull them?
I think VIA expects to use the existing fleet of F40PH-2D locomotives for all of the long distance trains. Some of them will come off Corridor service once all of the Venture fleet is in operation.
Does VIA have enough locomotives for the expected train frequencies?
EDIT: Pat and Chris pointed out that the federal government announced in late July that they will acquire 45 new locomotives from Stadler. Most will have final assembly in Montreal.
Your Thoughts
What do you think? Are my numbers wrong? Let me know!
The new Stadler locomotives were announced in July: https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2026/07/passenger-rail-locomotive-assembly-returns-to-canada-through-a-195-billion-government-of-canada-investment.html
Thanks, Pat – how did I miss that?
I enjoyed this summary. Thank you for putting it together and sharing it here with us. Those new car counts are significantly bigger than the current fleet. I too hope that means more trains. I feel like the current fleet is stretched so thin that hopefully this also builds in some extra cars.
You mentioned about the engines and I agree with the F40 thoughts especially as (sadly) the P42’s are starting to be cut up. I recall this announcement for new locomotives back in July:
https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2026/07/passenger-rail-locomotive-assembly-returns-to-canada-through-a-195-billion-government-of-canada-investment.html
And ending with agreeing on the urgency to see and ride the RDC’s that remain in service both to experience them but also the communities they serve the way they do it. I know the places won’t change when the trains do but somehow the bare feeling of riding in an RDC always seems to filter the emotional experience of a ride like this.
Thanks, Chris, I agree that the current fleet is stretched very thin and hopefully these new cars will provide some badly needed “slack”. Thanks for the Stadler link.
These new cars are going to be very nice but there’s something about the rawness of an RDC powered by diesels under your feet that should be experienced.
An interesting comparison might be with a rough comparison of the fleet as it started when ordered by CP all those decades ago (and the harder part guessing what CN would have ordered for those non-CP routes). This would give an idea of the attrition/losses over the years and perhaps a better idea of how much the current order numbers are inflated to allow an acceptable fleet size in 20, 30 or 40 years.
A big reason for the lack of a “park”type cars in the order is that it is nearly impossible to economically build them in a way that meets modern crash requirements.
That makes sense – hard to crash “proof” a car that has that much glass on the end of the car. Where do you put the structural members that provide crash resistance?