Service type Inter-city rail Locale Vancouver Island Former operator(s) Via Rail | Status Indefinitely suspended Last service March 19, 2011 Start Victoria | |
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The Victoria–Courtenay train (formerly the Malahat), commonly known as the Dayliner, was a passenger train service operated by Via Rail between Victoria, Nanaimo, and Courtenay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The service operated on a rail line owned by the Island Corridor Foundation who also contracts out freight operations to the Southern Railway of Vancouver Island (formerly known as the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway). Service is indefinitely suspended pending repairs of the track – service had been projected to resume in 2015, however as of April 2015 repairs to the track had not commenced.
Contents
History
The train was formerly operated with one or two Budd Rail Diesel Cars. Via Rail began operating the passenger train in 1979. Although the service had been threatened with discontinuation several times, it was suspended indefinitely on March 19, 2011, due to track replacement work. Prior to further inspection of the track, service along the segment between Nanaimo and Victoria was originally planned to resume on April 8, but lack of funding prevented any of the work from taking place leaving the service out of operation for three years. A temporary bus replacement was brought in for the service after the closure, but dropping passenger numbers of less than ten per day caused the service to be discontinued on August 7. On May 10, nearly two months after suspension, the old Budd cars were moved from the roundhouse in Victoria to a secure yard in Nanaimo, in future hopes of starting commuter service from there. On November 5, they were taken off the island to be returned to central Canada; they will be replaced by a new three-car train stock if service resumes. However, in February 2012, the 6-kilometre (4 mi) stretch of track from Esquimalt Station to downtown Victoria was torn up due to bridge conditions of the Johnson Street Bridge. The bridge is planned to be replaced by a new, wider bridge which will not have enough room to place rails along the side of the road again, and therefore Esquimalt Station is now the end of the line.
In July 2014, following successful securing of funds from the local, federal and provincial governments to replace trackage and repair bridges along the line, Via Rail reached an agreement with Southern Railway of Vancouver Island and the Island Corridor Foundation to resume island passenger rail operations. Service between Victoria and Nanaimo was expected to resume in May 2015 with service between Nanaimo and Courtenay beginning later in summer 2015. But, as of April 2015 repairs to the track had not commenced, and there will be no resumption of passenger (or freight) service on the line before 2016–17 at the earliest.
Route
Until 2011, the train operated one daily round trip, departing Victoria in the morning, and returning from Courtenay in the evening. The 225-mile (362 km) trip took 4 hours and 45 minutes each way. Proposals of operating a commuter service as far as Nanaimo, or Cowichan have now shifted to focus on running a Westshore commuter service along the first 15 kilometers of track between Victoria and Langford.