New Corporation to develop and operate corridor service

[jis]

Looks like the Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal - Quebec City Corridor development and operations will be hived off from VIA into a new corporation leaving VIA with only the rest of the VIA system.

Canada to Create Separate Railway for Corridor HFR (Updated November 11) - Railway Age

Transport Canada confirmed Oct. 31 that state corporation VIA Rail Canada has been shunted aside from its own project to construct and operate an electrified “High Frequency Rail” (HFR) service along the Corridor linking Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto—the only profitable route VIA...

www.railwayage.com

 

[Dayliner381]

Looks like the Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal - Quebec City Corridor development and operations will be hived off from VIA into a new corporation leaving VIA with only the rest of the VIA system.

Canada to Create Separate Railway for Corridor HFR (Updated November 11) - Railway Age

Transport Canada confirmed Oct. 31 that state corporation VIA Rail Canada has been shunted aside from its own project to construct and operate an electrified “High Frequency Rail” (HFR) service along the Corridor linking Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto—the only profitable route VIA...

www.railwayage.com

The comment in the article suggesting that this will be the end of public ownership of Canadian passenger rail is a bit misleading. HFR is intended to be a build/operate/ transfer project that would be financed jointly by the successful bidder and the public Canadian Infrastructure Bank. There would be very significant public sector involvement and subsidies.

The successful bidder would operate the new corridor system under contract to the newly established VIA subsidiary, much as Bombardier has operated most of the GO Transit network under contract to Metrolinx. I think it is too early to determine how the service would be the marketed, including branding.

That said, there is certainly angst about the structure among VIA stakeholders, especially labor, and the railfan community.

 

[jis]

The comment in the article suggesting that this will be the end of public ownership of Canadian passenger rail is a bit misleading. HFR is intended to be a build/operate/ transfer project that would be financed jointly by the successful bidder and the public Canadian Infrastructure Bank. There would be very significant public sector involvement and subsidies.

The successful bidder would operate the new corridor system under contract to the newly established VIA subsidiary, much as Bombardier has operated most of the GO Transit network under contract to Metrolinx. I think it is too early to determine how the service would be the marketed, including branding.

That said, there is certainly angst about the structure among VIA stakeholders, especially labor, and the railfan community.

Yeah. This appears to be what in the US is called a DBOM (Design, Build, Operate, Maintain) contract for a fixed time period. Examples of such in the US among others are the NJTransit RiverLINE in South Jersey and the HBLRT (Hudson Bergen light Rail Transit) in North Jersey.