TAKING THE TRAIN IN CANADA - All Aboard: The Complete North American Train Travel Guide - page 225

building along its route what are to this day some of the finest
hotels in the world. Each railroad ran its “name” trains, many of
which reached into the United States for business by terminating
in major American cities such as New York, Chicago, and Detroit.
Two of the Canadian Pacific's best were the Mountaineer, which
ran during warmer months from St. Paul, Minnesota, through
the famous resort town of Banff in the Canadian Rockies to Van-
couver. Another CP train out of St. Paul was the Soo-Dominion
to Calgary. The Canadian National focused on Chicago, with
trains from there to Toronto, Montreal, and other cities. Both
railroads ran transcontinental trains within their own country.
Along Comes VIA Rail
Canadian railroads struggled against many of the same problems
that beset American trains in the decades after World War II.
In 1978 the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National merged
their passenger operations. The result was VIA Rail Canada, a
“Crown Corporation” wholly owned by the Canadian govern-
ment. VIA Rail now provides passenger train service on a 9,000-
mile system. It stretches coast-to-coast and extends more than a
thousand miles north to the town of Churchill on the shores of
Hudson Bay. A number of VIA Rail trains—the one to Churchill
is a good example—provide the only link to the rest of Canada
for hundreds of isolated communities across the northern part of
the country. Although operating at a loss, those trains are man-
dated by the Canadian government. As is the case with Amtrak,
VIA Rail owns almost no track of its own, mostly operating
instead over tracks belonging to the CN.
Also like Amtrak, VIA has not had an easy existence, waging
a constant battle against conservatives in the Canadian govern-
ment who cannot or will not see the necessity, if not the wis-
dom, of a national rail transportation system. There have been