Ottawa spending $4.7B on new made-in-Canada Via Rail passenger cars

THUNDER BAY – Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a $4.7 billion contract to build 313 new passenger cars for Via Rail on Thursday.

Carney made the announcement at the Alstom plant in Thunder Bay, Ont., where the cars will be built.

“Our rail cars on our long-distance and remote routes are more than 70 years old. They were built when the NHL had six teams. Goalies wouldn’t wear masks. The Leafs would win the (Stanley) Cup,” Carney said.

“Those old cars have served our country well, but they’re long overdue for retirement. It’s time to build new ones, to build them here at home.”

Carney emphasized the fact that the new cars are being built in Canada.

“For the first time in four decades, those cars will be produced and assembled and maintained in our country. Cars that used to be built in the United States will be built right here in Thunder Bay at Alstom, by the best workers in the world,” Carney said.

Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon called the investment the single largest in Via Rail’s history and said the project will lead to 700 new jobs.

“This is a truly Canadian project. Canadian supply chains, workers, and it’s a renewed investment in that passenger rail service that connects us all,” MacKinnon told The Canadian Press following the announcement.

He said the first new car should be delivered in 2031.

In the 2024 federal budget, the previous Liberal government announced new funding for VIA Rail to replace its aging fleet on routes outside the Québec City-Windsor Corridor.

MacKinnon said the procurement process has been ongoing since then and the work is “long overdue.”

“That we’ll be able to replace it with Canadian-made equipment is an unbelievably good bonus,” he said.

Via Rail last imported passenger cars in August 2025 through a 2018 contract with Siemens Canada to replace locomotives and cars in the Windsor-Quebec City fleet, the company told The Canadian Press.

The cars and locomotives were manufactured at Siemens’ facility in Sacramento, California.

The contract is for nine different types of passenger cars: 78 sleepers, 58 coaches, 38 panorama cars, 29 baggage cars, 26 accessible sleepers, 25 dome cars, 20 dining cars, 20 prestige sleepers and 19 berth cars.

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office said the average age of passenger cars along Via’s long distance and remote routes is 77 years.

In July, the government announced plans to spend $1.6 billion to replace 45 of Via Rail’s aging locomotives and another $357 million to build a new assembly plant and maintenance facility.

The locomotive contract was awarded to Stadler, a Swiss company which will use its facility in Valencia, Spain to design and manufacture much of the fleet. The government said 36 of the 45 locomotives will be completed in Canada.

Those new trains are also expected to be delivered in 2031.

At the time of the announcement, the federal government said the new locomotives would improve Via Rail’s reliability and on-time performance, which Canada’s auditor general found had dropped to a dismal 30 per cent in the first three months of 2025.

Conservative transport critic Dan Albas said in a media statement that Conservatives have pushed the Carney government to ensure taxpayer dollars support Canadian workers and industries using Canadian sourced materials.

“We expect that the Liberals will have put in place safeguards in the contracts to ensure these rail cars are built on time and on budget,” said Albas. “As the auditor general has reported, the fundamental issue is Via Rail’s reliability. Having new passenger cars does not address this.”

Albas also said the Conservatives call on the government to “stop paying Via Rail executive bonuses and address the deterioration of service.”

“While the Liberals are good at spending taxpayer money, they are not good at fixing problems,” he said.

MacKinnon said Via Rail will run the contract management, adding there are safeguards in place.

Addressing concerns about Via’s reliability, MacKinnon said the Crown corporation will be under new leadership soon.

“There are things they don’t control, meaning they run on someone else’s tracks, and that’s a very hard obstacle to get over, although I’m also hoping that we can get to a better running arrangement with CN,” he said. 

“But on the things that Via can control, customer service, reliability, we have set high expectations for the things they can control, and I don’t think I’ve made any secret of either my impatience or concern for some of these problems to get resolved.”

After the announcement, Carney met with pop star Bryan Adams, who was scheduled to perform in Thunder Bay on Wednesday and Thursday. The pair went to a bakery to try a local pastry before visiting the Terry Fox National Historic Monument.

Carney later toured the Thunder Bay Fire Management facility.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2026.

— With files from Nick Murray in Ottawa.