Transport minister didn’t speak to Via Rail during holiday travel chaos | CBC News

Federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra was not personally in contact with officials at Via Rail during the Christmas winter storm that left hundreds of passengers stranded for hours on a disabled train, the railway’s executives told a House of Commons committee Thursday.

The executives told MPs on the transport committee that while Via Rail was liaising with Transport Canada and staff in the minister’s office during the travel debacle, the railway did not hear from Alghabra until a meeting on Jan. 11 — two weeks after the situation was resolved.

As transport minister, Alghbra is responsible for federally regulated sectors like air and rail travel. He’s also the minister in charge of Via Rail, a Crown corporation.

Conservative MP Mark Strahl, the party’s transport critic, said it’s unacceptable that it took so long for the minister to meet with Via Rail to discuss what was a scary situation for passengers — some of whom spent more than 18 hours stuck aboard Train 55 between Dec. 23 and 24 under trying conditions because of a downed tree.

Via Rail also cancelled all train service on the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal route for a four-day period between Dec. 23 and 26. The company said downed trees, prolonged power outages, frozen switches and a derailment made operations impossible.

Speaking to reporters at an event on Islamophobia, Alghabra said what passengers went through was “unacceptable” and he “shared that point of view with Via and the CEO of Via.”

Alghabra said the corporation must do all it can to ensure “these types of things never happen again.”

WATCH: Via Rail disruptions ‘unacceptable,’ Alghabra says 

Via Rail disruptions ‘unacceptable,’ Alghabra says

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said Thursday the wave of delays and cancellations to Via Rail service over the holidays was ‘unacceptable,’ as MPs and railway executives appeared before the transport committee.

Via Rail executives faced tough questions from MPs about the conditions on Train 55, which was stalled near Cobourg, Ont. after a tree fell on the train.

The railway said the train was isolated on CN-owned tracks and CN wasn’t able to safely get to the train to clear the tree in a timely manner, which left passengers in dire straits.

Via Rail apologized Thursday to passengers who did not have access to adequate food and water during the hours-long ordeal and said they’re reviewing why staff charged some stranded passengers for the little food that was on board.

The other issue was the state of the on-board washrooms — many of which were unsanitary and, at times, overflowing with human waste.

Rita Toporowski, Via Rail’s chief customer officer, said it was inappropriate to charge for food after an overnight delay. She said the company would consider refunding passengers who were charged for food and drinks on board. The company already has refunded Train 55 passengers the full cost of their tickets.

Via Rail also said it was sorry for not communicating effectively with passengers on Train 55 and other routes.

Company policy demands staff update passengers onboard a stalled train every 15 minutes — that protocol wasn’t followed in this case, said Toporowski. The company has hired an outside consultancy firm to provide advice on how to better prepare for an emergency situation like this in the future.

Toporowski conceded the washroom situation was “not a nice thing, pretty thing,” and that staff did what they could to keep at least “one or two” washrooms operational while passengers were stuck.

CN a no-show at committee

While contrite, Via Rail’s executives, including interim CEO Martin Landry, said CN is partly to blame for what transpired over the Christmas period.

CN and the Railway Association of Canada were called before Thursday’s transport committee meeting but declined to appear — a decision that prompted criticism from assembled MPs who said it was inappropriate for them to dodge accountability. CBC News has asked both CN and the industry lobby group to comment on their failure to appear but has not heard back.

Via Rail passenger trains operate almost exclusively on tracks owned by freight railways like CN and CP, which means Via Rail has little control over some operational issues, Landry said.

Those freight rail companies are responsible for maintenance on the sections they own — and helping trains that are in an emergency situation.

“It is the owner who is responsible for assisting us as quickly as possible. We were in constant communication with CN’s control system but it was facing its own set of challenges,” Landry said, adding the situation was “largely out of our control.”