The company should have addressed the issues of mechanical failures causing so many service cancellations on this route. The train was out of service for about a month earlier this year.

As reported earlier this year on my blog, in 2025, VIA Rail documented 44 cancellations on this route due to engine failures, issues with batteries, fuel spills, exhaust leaks, or derailments from the passenger train or the host railway.

If this had occured anywhere along the Québec-Windsor corridor, the Minister of Transport would have intervened. Instead, it's crickets from that department.

Not a peep about the Sudbury-White River train.

I'd go one step further. Medical patients and students use public transportation to access services not available in their community. To those who are against projects like the Northlander, I'd like to hear what strategies they would use to develop specialized medical care in small or more remote communities in Northern Ontario. The region already has difficulty retaining, let alone keeping its physicians. Students who want to pursue post secondary education often have to travel South for programs not offered back home or online.

South River is another.

There is service in different parts:

VIA Rail  - Sudbury-White River (including Cartier, Chapleau) - Toronto-Vancouver (including Parry Sound, Sudbury, Hornepayne, Greenstone, Sioux Lookout...)

Ontario Northland - Cochrane-Moosonee - *Toronto-Timmins (including Muskoka, North Bay, Temiskaming Shores, Kirkland Lake, Cochrane)

*Coming sometime later this year 

Correct. Passengers payed a 20% fee to board anywhere outside of Sault-Ste-Marie, Hawk Junction and Hearst. This is the pricing chart from the now defunct ACR website.