Via Rail to offer access to entertainment from CBC, NFB on Windsor-Quebec route

TORONTO – Via Rail passengers will soon be able to watch movies and keep up with the news as they travel in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor.

The company announced on Monday that on-board entertainment will be available on all Via Rail trains operating along the busy route starting this spring.

Passengers will be able to connect to the on-board entertainment portal on their own devices through the existing free Wi-Fi service.

Programs include movies, shows, documentaries and animation provided by CBC/Radio-Canada and the National Film Board of Canada, along with history vignettes provided by the Historica-Dominion Institute.

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Programming will be available in both English and French and news broadcasts will update every hour.

Hubert Lacroix, president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, told a news conference that CBC’s involvement only “made sense.”

“The first radio programs were in fact broadcasted on trains,” Lacroix said.

Marc Laliberte, president and CEO of Via Rail, said “we want to transport people in Canada and we also want to sell Canada. People are coming from outside … I think it is a good opportunity for us to work with our partners to show more of what Canadians can do and what they can produce.”

Laliberte said that he hopes to expand the entertainment service to Via Rail’s other routes, with the trains operating between Montreal and Halifax being next in line.

Wi-Fi capability will be functional on those trains by this summer, while other routes will take longer because complete Wi-Fi coverage is not available in some less densely populated areas.

“The main issue is the coverage,” Laliberte said.

“If you go from Toronto to Vancouver, 50 per cent of the time, you don’t have a link to connect to the Wi-Fi, so that complicates the installation,” he said.

The entertainment service recently finished a six-month test phase on three trains, and all trains along the Quebec City to Windsor, Ont., route are to be incorporated by June.