TAKING THE TRAIN IN CANADA - All Aboard: The Complete North American Train Travel Guide - page 233

railcars it inherited from both Canadian Pacific and Canadian
National.
But also included in that collection of equipment were 200
classic stainless-steel cars originally built in the mid-1950s. Some
saintly soul at VIA Rail decided these vintage cars were worth sav-
ing, and more than $200 million dollars was spent to rebuild the
fleet completely from the wheels up. A number of structural and
mechanical improvements were made in the cars, but the most
important of these did away with the old steam heating systems
in each individual car. Today these beauties are all heated with
head-end power, meaning with electricity supplied by a powerful
generator in one of the diesel locomotives pulling the train. It's
a far more reliable system—if you're traveling across Canada in
the winter, a reliable source of heat is a very good thing indeed!
The trains operating in the Windsor-Quebec corridor are
designated as LRC (light, rapid, comfortable) equipment, and
indeed they are. These trains are quite sophisticated. A computer
system actually tilts both the locomotive and the cars as the train
rounds curves, permitting higher average speeds and helping to
neutralize the effects of centrifugal force on passengers.
Locomotives
All of VIA Rail's locomotives are diesel-electrics. The two types
of engines that haul the LRC corridor trains are fast and power-
ful—either 3,000 or 4,200 horsepower—and both are capable of
running at 125 miles per hour, although they won't be able to do
so until all of the track in that stretch has been upgraded.
For their long-distance trains, VIA uses good old F-40s—the
same locomotive that was the bulwark of Amtrak's fleet for years.
They're tough, durable, and reliable. They'd better be, because—
as you will one day hopefully see for yourself—all of those trains
pass through long stretches of wilderness areas, which are not