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Image: Keira Clarke | CC BY 4.0
Fleet availability for the Siemens Venture trains purchased by VIA Rail has plummeted to less than 50% over the winter, far below the industry standard of 90%. This includes the on-route failure on December 10, 2025 which stranded passengers on train 669 overnight at Brockville. Dozens of trains have been unable to start their journeys leading to last-minute cancelations, and VIA Rail instituted a policy of turning all the trains to run locomotive forward in January to mitigate issues with snow ingress but at the expense of terminal delays. One set has been stranded in Belleville for several days, awaiting replacement of a seized axle caused by freezing conditions, and the Journal de Montreal reports that there have also been a large number of on-route power failures that have been recovered without serious delay. These issues are compounded by other deficiencies in weatherproofing, including frozen doors.
In order to reduce last-minute cancellations, VIA Rail has now been forced to annul several trips in the week of February 7, 2026:
These planned cancellations will allow additional trains to be held in reserve in Toronto and Montreal, with the objective reducing unplanned cancelations and providing additional resilience in the face of expected severe weather. It is hoped that cancellations can be avoided or mitigated for the weekends of February 14 and 21, which are peak travel dates due to university reading weeks.
With the Siemens Venture trains now having been in service for several years, on top of experience gained from similar rolling stock for Amtrak services, we are now well past the point where these issues can be attributed to inevitable teething troubles for new equipment, and VIA Rail is withdrawing life-expired LRC equipment as it comes due for costly heavy maintenance, limiting the railway’s ability to cover the fleet availability deficit.
Transport Action Canada wrote to the president of Siemens Mobility Canada, Aaron Branston on December 11, 2025, asking what steps are being taken to resolve the issues with the new trains. Unfortunately, we have not received a response, and although we are aware of considerable efforts being made behind the scenes by both VIA Rail and Siemens maintenance teams the reliability issues have gotten worse over the past month, and it is therefore apparent that these efforts are not adequately resourced. Canada has invested a billion dollars in these new trains, and we should reasonably expect them to work properly in all weathers.
Siemens Mobility is a global leader in railway engineering, and it is imperative that they stand behind their product ensuring that these issues are swiftly resolved. We have also asked Siemens Mobility what measures are being taken to ensure the trains being supplied for Ontario Northland do not suffer similar levels of unreliability.