The chief executive officer for Via Rail said he was “deeply sorry” for the “unacceptable” incident in late August that saw passengers stranded onboard a train for about 10 hours in between Montreal and Quebec after two breakdowns.
Mario Peloquin, the CEO and president, told MPs on Thursday that in addition to an independent investigation, he was putting corrective measures in place including a real-time assessment should a breakdown occur in the Quebec-Windsor corridor and implementing an evacuation procedure “if feasible.”
He said he’d also asked for an immediate review of training requirements to ensure employees are “better equipped for difficult situations,” and a revision of communication protocols with Transport Canada officials to “enable a more rapid exchange” when major issues occur.
“Once again, I would like to say this was a serious lesson whose causes and consequences will be analyzed scrupulously to make Via Rail a carrier that lives up to our customers’ expectations,” he said.
“We know now that it was not a single failure, but a series of events.”
On Aug. 31, a train broke down between Montreal and Quebec City after experiencing two consecutive mechanical issues.
At the time, the company said no buses were available in the region to offer alternative transportation, and to allow for repairs and coupling with another train, electricity, air conditioning and washrooms were shut down at times.
One passenger, Chip Malt, told Global News and The Canadian Press earlier this month that after a certain amount of time, passengers began worrying about access to food and water.
“I think the most eye-opening was the staff member coming down the aisle and they had a pitcher of water and there was probably about an inch or two left at the bottom and they were just saying, ‘Does anybody feel dehydrated? This is the last of our water,’” he said.
“It was like being in prison.”
The company insisted passengers were offered snacks and beverages, and that a meal was delivered on board with additional water in the evening.
The fire department was eventually called to help transfer passengers from one train to another, with passengers reaching their destination 10 hours late.
Peloquin went on to say that the events of Aug. 31, though an “isolated incident,” was a reminder of the Dec. 23, 2022, incident in which passengers on board a number of stalled Via Rail trains were stuck on board in some cases as long as 18 hours. He said that while that incident prompted changes to communication protocols for the company, Aug. 31 showed gaps remained.
Conservative MP Luc Berthold and Liberal MP Annie Koutrakis challenged Via officials on the changes, questioning why customers on the August train said they went without information for hours if such changes were made.
“It happened right on the side of Highway 20, where there were buses, where there were towns, where there were some certain things could have done instead of stranding hundreds of people on a train for 10 hours,” Berthold said. “This is beyond unacceptable.”
Rita Toporowski, Via Rail chief service delivery officer, said there is a protocol in place for communication in “terms of escalation” but that that was where the failure occurred.
She said a team had been working on the issue that caused the first breakdown, but after taking about two hours to fix and the train to begin moving, a secondary mechanical failure — which Peloquin said was the shut down of the engine — occurred about 30 minutes later. The issue is they were trying to focus on getting passengers moving as quickly as possible, the failure came in “not escalating as quickly as we needed to.”
“The problem solving was around what can we do to fix that train to move it quickly as possible,” she said.
She also said Via had contacted about 10 bus companies in an effort to try and provide transportation for stranded passengers, but none were available. They also were in touch with CN Rail throughout the incident, which offered to move the train, but said a Via train was closer “and (in) a better opportunity to move that train in the future.”
Asking about the corrective measures, NDP MP Taylor Bachrach said he felt some like reviewing training requirements seemed similar to the 2022 incident response, but questioned Peloquin about the evacuation procedure — something the CEO said was put in place immediately after Aug. 31.
“As soon as we have an unusual situation and a mechanical failure or other, we will convene the executives together and have a conversation about what happened, what we’re finding out in real time, and make a quick decision to evacuate the passengers if it looks like we cannot get them to a destination in a reasonable period of time,” Peloquin said, though he added where the train was stopped in the August incident was not a safe place to evacuate.
In the days following the incident, Via Rail has faced ongoing criticisms, with then-transport minister Pablo Rodriguez saying he was determined to get to the bottom of the delay and that “passengers deserve better.”
Peloquin told MPs there was communication with the offices of the minister, deputy minister and board of directors around 6:50 p.m. ET that day, but said he had not spoken with Rodriguez until Tuesday — three days after the incident, a delay called “unacceptable” by multiple Conservative MPs on the committee.
— with files from The Canadian Press