Oh, I think the Rens are gone regardless. I don't think I've seen a Ren set west of Montreal in years (I do recall one or two showing up a long time ago) and VIA is really only doing two round-trips with them Montreal-Quebec City (out of the five such trips on the timetable), and based on the present timing it might well be that they're only running two sets:
QBC-MTR 0620-0943
MTR-QBC 1300-1612
QBC-MTR 1245-1626
MTR-QBC 1745-2058
Flushing the Rens isn't going to take a lot of work. However, the Budds are another story:
-They provide the only checked baggage-equipped trains Toronto-Montreal (which is a thing)
-They likely ease moves from the J/S train out of Montreal and the occasional all-Budd Ocean
-From what I can tell, they're still heavily used on the SW Ontario routes (I'm counting 3x daily round-trips, and I don't think any of those are timed for a same-day turn).
-Also, I don't think they really need to "reinforce" the LD fleet: The Canadian probably never runs with more than two coaches, and based on pax numbers I doubt the Hudson Bay train does either. The Prince George/Prince Rupert route might occasionally pull a third coach in summer, but that's all I can really see.
So in VIA's shoes, I probably keep running one Budd train each way between Montreal and Toronto each day and use the others in SW Ontario as-is, or maybe slide them to Montreal-Quebec (which has high-level platforms anyway).
QBC-MTR 0620-0943
MTR-QBC 1300-1612
QBC-MTR 1245-1626
MTR-QBC 1745-2058
Flushing the Rens isn't going to take a lot of work. However, the Budds are another story:
-They provide the only checked baggage-equipped trains Toronto-Montreal (which is a thing)
-They likely ease moves from the J/S train out of Montreal and the occasional all-Budd Ocean
-From what I can tell, they're still heavily used on the SW Ontario routes (I'm counting 3x daily round-trips, and I don't think any of those are timed for a same-day turn).
-Also, I don't think they really need to "reinforce" the LD fleet: The Canadian probably never runs with more than two coaches, and based on pax numbers I doubt the Hudson Bay train does either. The Prince George/Prince Rupert route might occasionally pull a third coach in summer, but that's all I can really see.
So in VIA's shoes, I probably keep running one Budd train each way between Montreal and Toronto each day and use the others in SW Ontario as-is, or maybe slide them to Montreal-Quebec (which has high-level platforms anyway).