This is a list of past and present

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...

owned and operated by

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Via Rail owns 78 locomotives and 619 passenger cars. The tables below list that equipment by type and include some information regarding previously owned and operated equipment. When Via began operation in 1976–1978 it was with a collection of equipment inherited from

Canadian National The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue an ...

(CN) and

Canadian Pacific The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...

(CP). Much of this equipment remains in use today. Over the years Via has supplemented this initial fleet with new orders and with new acquisitions of secondhand equipment from other operators.

Locomotives

Current

VIA Rail Budd Rail Diesel Car RDC-4 6250 at Sudbury Ontario

Via operates

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is con ...

s exclusively. Its fleet of GMD F40PH-2s was recently modernized. The newer GE P42DCs are found only on Corridor services. Siemens SCV-42s were recently added to modernize the corridor fleet.

Former

Via inherited a diverse fleet of diesel locomotives from

and

. It also received three of the experimental

UAC TurboTrain The UAC TurboTrain was an early high-speed, gas turbine train manufactured by United Aircraft that operated in Canada between 1968 and 1982 and in the United States between 1968 and 1976. It was one of the first gas turbine-powered trains to en ...

gas-turbine trainsets. Between 1980–1984 Bombardier delivered 31 LRC ("Light, Rapid, Comfortable") diesel locomotives with matching cars. The last of these was retired in 2002.

Passenger cars

Stainless steel

The core of Via's long-range fleet is a collection of

streamlined Streamlines, streaklines and pathlines are field lines in a fluid flow. They differ only when the flow changes with time, that is, when the flow is not steady flow, steady. Considering a velocity vector field in three-dimensional space in the f ...

equipment originally built by the

Budd Company The Budd Company was a 20th-century metal fabricator, a major supplier of body components to the automobile industry, and a manufacturer of stainless steel passenger rail cars, airframes, missile and space vehicles, and various defense produ ...

for

in the 1950s. These were rebuilt by AMF to use

head end power In rail transport, head-end power (HEP), also known as electric train supply (ETS), is the electrical power distribution system on a passenger train. The power source, usually a locomotive (or a generator car) at the front or 'head' of a train, ...

and thus are often referred to as the "HEP" fleet. In 2023, Via Rail joined

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

in an attempt to replace their aging Streamliner equipment.

LRC

LRC was a series of lightweight diesel-powered

passenger train A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line, as opposed to a freight train that carries goods. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) push-pull train, ...

s built by Bombardier that were used on short- to medium-distance inter-city service in the

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

and

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. The LRC family includes both locomotives and passenger carriages designed to work together, though the two can be used separately. The last locomotives were retired in 2001. While the coaches remain in service, they are being retired as new

Siemens Charger The Siemens Charger is a family of diesel-electric/ dual-mode passenger locomotives designed and manufactured by Siemens Mobility for the North American market. There are five variants of the Charger, tailored for different operators and types ...

and

Venture Venture may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *The Ventures, an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 *"A Venture", 1971 song by the band Yes *''Venture'', a 2010 EP by AJR Games * ''Venture'' (video game), a 1981 arcade gam ...

rolling stock arrives.

Renaissance

The Renaissance fleet was originally built by

Alstom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...

in the mid-1990s for the proposed '' Nightstar'' overnight service between the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and continental

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

through the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (), sometimes referred to by the Portmanteau, portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone (Kent, England) with Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais, France) beneath the English Channel at ...

. Via acquired the entire fleet in 2000 for C$130 million after the Nightstar concept was abandoned. Via entered the cars into service in 2002. Presently, two sets are in service: two on the Ocean, overnight between Montreal and Halifax, the two used on the Quebec City - Ottawa corridor have been withdrawn in favor of the newer SCV-42 lead venture trainsets.

RDC

The Budd Rail Diesel Car (RDC) is a self-propelled

diesel multiple unit A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...

railcar A railcar (not to be confused with the generic term railroad car or railway car) is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coa ...

. These were used extensively by both the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways for outlying routes. Via currently rosters seven RDCs and contracted with Industrial Rail Services for C$12.6 million to refurbish and upgrade all six. The upgraded units would include new seating, wheelchair accessible washrooms, LED interior lighting, controls, wiring, heating, air conditioning systems, braking systems and rebuilt engines that meet

Euro 2 The European emission standards are vehicle emission standards that regulate pollution from the use of new land surface vehicles sold in the European Union and European Economic Area member states and the United Kingdom, and ships in European ...

standards. The rebuilt units have also been modified to remove the control cab from one end of each unit, so passengers are never required to pass through the cab when entering or exiting the train. Following the bankruptcy of IRSI, work rebuilding the RDCs was completed by Canadian Allied Diesel (CAD) at the IRSI facility in Moncton.

Others

Siemens Venture

The 2018 Canadian federal budget included funding for the purchase of 32 trainsets to replace equipment used in Corridor service in Ontario and Quebec. With money allocated, Via issued a request for proposals in 2018, with delivery of the new rolling stock scheduled for 2022. In December 2018, VIA Rail Canada ordered 32, 5-car trainsets (for a total of 160 cars) from

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

for use on the Québec City–Windsor Corridor, at a cost of $989 million. Trainsets will be powered by diesel-electric Charger locomotives, with passenger car trainsets from the

Siemens Venture Siemens Venture is a type of locomotive-hauled passenger railroad car built by Siemens Mobility for the North American market. The cars are derived from the Siemens Viaggio Comfort cars used in Europe, with adaptations for North American operat ...

family. Similar trainsets are used on

Amtrak Midwest Amtrak Midwest is a brand name applied by Amtrak to its state-supported routes in the Midwest states of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri. , Amtrak Midwest consists of eleven named trains: * * * ''Illinois Service'': , ...

and

Brightline Brightline (reporting mark BLFX) is an intercity rail route in the United States that runs between Miami and Orlando, Florida. Part of the route runs on track owned and shared by the Florida East Coast Railway. Brightline is the only privat ...

in the United States, and

Railjet Railjet is a high-speed rail service in Europe operated by Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and Czech Railways (ČD). Branded as ''Railjet Express'' (RJX category) for the fastest services and as ''Railjet'' (RJ) for services with additional s ...

in Austria and the Czech Republic. The first 2 trainsets entered service in 2022.

References

External links

Via Rail: Our Fleet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Via Rail rolling stock Canada railway-related lists Lists of rolling stock