Transport committee  Thank you, MP Iacono. Overnight on the 23rd, in the storm situation with the trains disabled online, I can state with confidence that no freight trains in that scenario were prioritized over Via Rail trains. We maintained contact with CN throughout the exercise.

Transport committee  Over the night of the 23rd, there were significant challenges throughout the railway infrastructure. We were in contact, but not always in contact to the level we would have desired. We've met with CN colleagues at this point and have identified some methods to improve those comm

Transport committee  I would suggest that there was difficulty in some cases for them to react, due to the magnitude of the impacts they were feeling across their network.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question, MP Barsalou-Duval. There was communication through the night. In the specific case of train 55 and the tree that we struck, which disabled the train at that point, there were multiple plans in place to remove the tree. However, as the situation evolve

Transport committee  We would not be able to intervene on the track. In the case at hand, we could not reach the site to intervene. Emergency services later in the morning intervened and with some difficulty reached the site. Unfortunately, it was in a location that was very difficult to access, whic

Transport committee  Thank you for the question, MP Boulerice. During the night of the 23rd and into the 24th, I would say there was regular/constant communication by way of telephone and by way of text message between operational personnel attempting updates. When we move forward into the events f

Transport committee  Thank you for the question, MP Kramp-Neuman. Throughout the night of the 23rd and into the 24th, there was an operational disruption. We continued to have contingency plans to resolve the disruption. I'll pause there and say that I'd like to apologize to the people on board ou

Transport committee  Via Rail police were in contact with CN police. Based on the assessment of the conditions in the town of Cobourg, the term “code black” was referenced, which I'm not familiar with, but I understand it refers to a situation when emergency services will only respond to life-threate

Transport committee  Thank you for the question, MP Kramp-Neuman. To refer back to the original portion, you mentioned houses within a stone's throw. There was a subdivision nearby where there was no hydro as well. We were on an embankment with a creek running below the embankment, and to get there

Transport committee  We could also not access the buses or any other transportation to move those unfortunate passengers somewhere else.

Transport committee  Yes, we could have continued operating without a horn. The issue that kept us from moving that train was the fact that the tree came to rest on the train, with a significant portion of the trunk leaning against the train in the vicinity of the passenger windows. The assessment wa

Transport committee  Thank you for your question, MP Badawey. This was during the Christmas season, of course, December 23 and 24, and December 23 was our heaviest travel day of the year. All of our available equipment was in service. Of course, this impacted the next day's service, because we didn'

Transport committee  Thank you. I'll take a brief moment to thank our employees, who worked tirelessly through this event to try to provide service and who ultimately achieved getting all the people who boarded trains on the 23rd to their destinations safely. We did position employees in strategic l

Transport committee  In terms of our capacity, we have a finite equipment capacity. We do have, as you may be aware, more equipment coming online. We have a buffer built into our staffing levels to react to situations such as this. This did also occur over the Christmas holiday, when all of our per

Transport committee  I'll go back to December 21, with the storm coming. During the events, Transport Canada did reach out to our team. We established communication between our personnel and Transport Canada through the holiday. We maintained updates of status with Transport Canada. In meetings held