[CityTech]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

VIA is useless outside of the corridor, and inside the corridor it is slow, eccentric, strange, and heavily compromised by a lack of track priority.

The best course of action is to get one route -- just one, say Montreal-Ottawa or something similarly central but unchallenging -- up to par and then let Canadians use it, enjoy it, and develop a feel for rail travel.

Because right now we are queuing for trains at gates like flights, stopping for reasons not explained by the conductor, paying for drinks with 1970s-style flatbed credit card machines and just generally playing host to a crazy old relic of a rail system. And the result is that we barely use it, and it all becomes a vicious cycle.

They actually just fixed this (a few months ago I think). They now have proper 2010s on-board payment.

HFR and the new fleet of trains will go a long way to fixing the problems.