Sudbury Ontario - Trains, trains, everywhere. But not a car to catch.
 
Editor's Note:  The only poem I remember from High School, the Ancient Mariner:  Water, water, everywhere, nor not a drop to drink. Water, water, everywhere and how the boards did shrink. A sailor becalmed on a sailing ship and toasting in the blazing unforgiving sun.
 
That could easily be the lament of a would-be rail rider in Sudbury, which is heavily plied by freight traffic, but decidedly scarce in passenger coaches.
 
True, there is the boonies-traversing Budd Car, which still departs thrice-weekly from the downtown station for White River, and the transcontinental Canadian, which at this time of year passes through the outskirts of the city twice a week.
 
But there is no guarantee the former service will continue, while the latter is so inconveniently located and scheduled, not to mention costly, that few Sudburians book a ticket to Toronto or Winnipeg.

"The problem with The Canadian is in order to keep the whole thing viable as a high-class tour train, they've completely dismissed local traffic," says Sudbury rail historian and author Dale Wilson.
 
To access Toronto from Sudbury Junction, an un-serviced outpost some 10 kilometres from downtown, you have to board at 01:17 and ride overnight, while a westbound passenger is looking at a 05:13 departure.
 
That's "assuming the 3,000-mile schedule is on time," notes Wilson.
 
Often, as Wilson himself experienced recently, when he took the VIA train to Winnipeg and back, it is not.
 
"We were about five hours late getting into Winnipeg, and coming back it was over 12 hours late."
 
That's because VIA "unfortunately seems to be at the mercy of CN freight trains," he says, which can stretch up to three miles in length.
 
Greg Gormick, a transportation consultant and frequent writer on rail issues, notes the transcontinental passenger train now moves at a much slower pace than it did 60 years ago.
 
"CPR was always proud of the fact The Canadian, when it was put on the tracks in 1955, ran from Toronto to Vancouver in three days and three nights," he says.
 
"Now it's four days and four nights."
 
Gormick says freight trains are hogging track because of economic priorities and industry changes.
 
"The trains are too long to pass into sidings, so passenger trains get convoyed with all the freight trains out there," he says.
 
He doesn't expect that will change any day soon, "on most corridors we just have to accept that freight is truly king, and find a way to peacefully coexist with them", but he does believe The Canadian can be improved through more frequent scheduling and a return to its original route through Ontario.
 
"The Canadian should be back on the CPR line," asserts Gormick.
 
"That line, to this day, has an image internationally. It was the wedding band of Confederation. And it's incredibly scenic."
 
Gormick has been working with Thunder Bay MP Bruce Hyer on a case to bring The Canadian back along the north shore of Superior to the Lakehead.
 
Doing so would also bring the train back through downtown Sudbury, as was the norm until 1990.
 
"CPR passenger service has always had a tremendous connection with Sudbury, and it's a tragedy that a train doesn't run through on that line now," says Gormick.
 
The consultant is fond of Sudbury and visits often, but considers the city "the poster child for bad public transportation".
 
He describes Sudbury Junction as "pretty much a trailer in the middle of nowhere," while the Greater Sudbury Transit terminal is blocks from the Elgin Street VIA station and neither the Greyhound nor Ontario Northland bus terminals are convenient to downtown, let alone each other.
 
Returning the transcontinental train to its original route wouldn't solve all of these problems, says Gormick, but it would provide a much better scenario for Sudbury.
 
He says the Budd Car could be redeployed on the CN line to visit the communities between Capreol and Hornepayne, while The Canadian would effectively take over the current role of the Budd Car.
 
"Nobody on the Sudbury-White River line would lose anything," he says.
 
"They'd gain, because they'd have a better train. And for tourist operators and outfitters, it would be a blessing to them, because you'd attract more business having that better train on that line."
 
Meanwhile the downtown station, which has been taken over by the City of Greater Sudbury, would be enhanced by the presence of a classy visitor, particularly if it made daily appearances, as Gormick feels is entirely reasonable.
 
"Just based on Amtrak experience in the U.S., we know that running a train daily does not drive the costs sky-high, but opens up opportunities to generate more revenue," he says.
 
As Gormick and his allies envision a reborn Canadian that would revive Sudbury's downtown, others are pushing the more radical idea of removing freight traffic from the city's core.
 
It's an idea premised on freeing up property that could be put to better civic use, as well as fear of a mishap involving a train toting chemicals or fuel.
 
"Lake Ramsey is the prime drinking water source for Sudbury and the CP line goes right along the edge," notes Wilson, a member of the Imagine Sudbury group, which favours relocating the rail yard.
 
"Everyone has visions of an oil train perhaps derailing, but imagine the effect of even a few cars of grain going into a main water source, it would be an ecological disaster."
 
Were the stockyards moved to an outlying area, Wilson says a spot between Municipal Road 80 and Azilda would make the most sense, and freight routed around the city, this would also benefit the rail companies, as trains could move at a faster clip.
 
"Right now CP is on 10 to 20-mile slow orders," he notes.
 
The slower speeds that trains must adhere to in the city proper have helped to spare a major disaster so far, but many residents remain nervous about the prospect of something going horribly wrong, particularly in the wake of the Lake Megantic tragedy.
 
Jean-Raymond Audet, who worked as a CN conductor for more than 20 years, says it's not doomsday thinking to anticipate a problem.
 
"I do feel trains are safer than transport trucks, but everything has to be regulated and enforced, and rail companies have really cut back on safety because of the business aspect of it," he says.
 
Audet's career spanned the transition of CN from a crown corporation to a private enterprise.
 
Before the mid-1990s switchover, safety inspectors were a common sight, he says, but less prominent once the profit motive and self-regulation kicked in.
 
Track maintenance has declined, says Audet, and many derailments go unreported, including one he experienced himself.
 
"I was on a work train in Gogama dumping slag rock, and the whole train went off the track," he says.
 
"It wasn't reported to Transport Canada."
 
These days, the former CN worker sees more cars laden with dangerous goods, sulfuric acid, for instance, as well as volatile oil, passing through town, and that worries him.
 
"These are dangerous types of merchandise, and to me we're running now on more of a risk-management policy than a safety-oriented one."
 
There has, however, been some bolstering of safety standards since the Lake Megantic disaster.
 
Companies are expected to replace old tankers with newer, more secure versions.
 
And they must now tell municipalities what types of dangerous goods are rumbling through their neighbourhoods.
 
"On a quarterly basis they need to send a list of all the stuff that came through the previous three months," says Lynn Fortin, community emergency management coordinator for the city.
 
"It's after the fact, but the material they carry is fairly constant, because they have their clients."
 
Were an accident to occur, the city would also be privy to the manifest, a detailed list of cargo, for the train in question.
 
The quarterly reporting is so new that Fortin only has one report so far.
 
She also, however, can't share the list of hazardous goods with anyone beyond emergency planning staff.
 
"To get the information, we had to sign a confidentiality agreement," she says, pointing to proprietary business issues, as well as potential terrorist concerns as the rationale for the secrecy.
 
None of it is that secret, though, as rail cars are required to have codes on their flanks and anyone wishing to look them up in a Transport Canada guidebook would quickly determine what substance is aboard.
 
In general, though, Fortin says "any one of the trains would probably have a whole mix of goods, from the completely benign to some of the more dangerous hazards."
 
More important to her than publicizing the exact breakdown is "to make sure speed limits are reasonable and followed, and training and maintenance are rigorous and up to date."
 
Her department hosts a one-day workshop each year on emergency preparedness for a rail incident, bringing together CN and CP personnel with first responders to "go through our safety response plan so everyone knows what their roles and responsibilities are."
 
As well, the Railways Association of Canada conducts training for firefighters, using a tanker that has been converted into a classroom.
 
This past May, the teaching car was in Markstay to educate that community's fire crew.
 
"It's a really useful training tool," says Andy Ash, director of dangerous goods with the RAC.
 
"It's a regular tank car that used to be in flammable liquid service, but it's outfitted now with all the different types of valves and fittings you might find on railway equipment."
 
He says the unit has visited Sudbury several times in the past and will return to the area next year.
 
Ash was on site at Lake Megantic and knows as well as anyone what kind of catastrophe can occur, but says "99 percent of the time" trains arrive safely at their destinations.
 
"The bottom line is the railway industry is a business, and it's bad for business if you're not safe," he says.
 
"I've been asked a number of times if a Lake Megantic can happen here," says Fortin.
 
"Never say never, but it would have to duplicate all of the different pieces, the fire, the brakes letting go, the slope, the same cargo, so it would be extremely unlikely, especially now that they've brought in legislation to prevent the same kind of problems happening again."
 
Train culture runs deep in Sudbury, which owes its origins to a camp of workers engaged in laying the first CPR track across Canada.
 
Junction Creek is named for that era, when water was drawn up its banks to power the early steam engines.
 
The same infrastructure soon expanded to stitch together the whole region, but this fabric has frayed over the years and now seems to be rapidly un-ravelling.
 
In some ways Sudbury, relative to other corners of the North, is blessed with active tracks and rail-related employment opportunities, even spoiled with passenger options.
 
One need only glance east and west, to our neighbours in North Bay and the Sault, or north to Timmins and south to Huntsville, for that matter, to see a darker picture.
 
Thomas Wolfe, the great U.S. author, raved:  "One of the most wonderful things in the world is the experience of being on a train. The train is a miracle of man's handiwork, and everything about it is eloquent of human purpose and direction."
 
That's from the novel "You Can't Go Home Again".
 
Many Northerners who leave their communities may indeed be able to go home again, but chances are it will now be by bus.
 
The Northlander train, by its very name a connective force for the region, was retired by the province two years ago, and the Algoma Central Railway, linking the Sault to Hearst, is on life support, with a federal subsidy set to expire.
 
"The biggest problem is rail passenger service is usually a federal responsibility, and the feds have been cutting costs for the past 20 years," says Phil Koning, a retired ONR conductor and member of the North Eastern Ontario Rail Network.
 
"Rail always seems to be one of those things to go first because it doesn't generate a profit."
 
Linda Savory-Gordon, of the Coalition for Algoma Passenger Trains, says the service north of the Sault not only delivers people to camps and canoe routes, but also feeds an important part of the regional economy, as visitors stay in lodges along the line and pump money into local stores.
 
"In southern Ontario, it's called an investment when they put money into the GO Trains," she says.
 
"Here, they call it a subsidy, as if we're on train welfare. We consider it the same as roads, that you can't have economic development if you don't have a means of transporting people and goods. It's very frustrating."
 
Sudbury's Budd Car, Budd being the name of the company that built the unique, self-powered, diesel coaches in the late-1950s, the train is properly called the Sudbury-White River train, is now a rare example of passenger service in the North, and many fear its days could be numbered.
 
Unlike the Algoma train or the Northlander, however, the Budd Car is operated by VIA, which still gets a grant from Ottawa.
 
VIA receives annual funding, $305 million overall in 2013-14, to maintain its passenger lines, including the Sudbury-White River route, and this subsidy "is expected to continue," according to Transport Canada spokesperson Karine Martel.
 
That kind of statement can only be so encouraging, though, given the way VIA is structured.
 
"The Budd Car continues to run because of a lack of road access, but it's costly because it's catering to a very unpopulated area, it's something we do as a public responsibility," says Gormick.
 
"I would say the likelihood of the Sudbury-White River Dayliner coming off at this point is low, but you can never say how long the train will last because we don't know how long VIA will last."
 
The Crown corporation was "set up improperly back in 1977, and never had what Amtrak, its American equivalent, had," says Gormick.
 
"There's no VIA act, no legislation that spells out their mandate. It was created by a whole series of backdoor moves and all it takes to stop VIA is a signature on an order-in-council in Ottawa."
 
But far from being expendable, Gormick thinks the Budd train, in conjunction with a re-purposed Canadian on CPR tracks, represents a great opportunity for economic development.
 
"Northern Ontario is a largely untapped tourism market in terms of rail travel," he says.
 
"I always laugh when I see tourism campaigns telling people to come to Canada to discover the wonders of Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver. If I lived in Berlin or Paris, what the hell would I want to see Toronto, or Montreal, or Vancouver for?"
 
Laurentian University economist David Robinson couldn't agree more, while pointing out it isn't only Europeans who might relish a train-based taste of the wilderness.
 
"One really big market is recent immigrants to Toronto," he says.
 
"If you want a bucket-list experience, you're not really Canadian until you've spent a week in the North on one of those lakes, getting eaten by mosquitoes and looking at sunsets and thinking of bears."
 
The tourism model of "motels and one-off little lodges off the highway worked reasonably well in the 1940s and 1950s," he says.
 
"But it's dead, it's hopeless."
 
More tempting to today's travellers are eco-tourism options.
 
But drawing them north on a train would also require creating a destination that affords more comfort than a tent.
 
Robinson envisions a network of rental cabins along the CP line that would dot shores of lakes, but lie within walking distance of the tracks.
 
"You could drive or take a train to Sudbury, spend a night in a hotel, go to a play, then pack your kids in the Budd Car, get off at one of the lakes and walk into a stylish, but prefab little environmentally sound cabin," he says.
 
Save for trails, the impact on the landscape would be negligible, says the economist.
 
"And suddenly what you've done is turn the whole area between Sudbury and Chapleau into a world-class park, a world-class retreat."
 
Utopian thinking?
 
Perhaps.
 
But surely no more grand an idea than running a line of track across all of Canada, spanning rivers on massive trestles, and tunneling through outcrops and mountains along the way.
 
Much of this infrastructure already exists.
 
It's just a question, say rail proponents, of political will and priorities.
 
"When you continually fund highways in preference to rail and do zero marketing on regional rail systems, it leads to a disintegration of the rail network," says Koning, who advocates not only the preservation of the Budd Car but a revival of interconnected passenger routes, and more freight service, across the North.
 
"If you look at Australia, or Europe, or any of the G8 countries, they are investing in rail," he says.
 
"Even the U.S. has got it right with Amtrak. But we can't seem to get our heads around the idea that we can move people without putting them in a car on a highway."

Jim Moodie.