Canada - In a recent column, Chris Selley argued that VIA Rail's transcontinental passenger train, the Canadian, should be axed.
 
While I share some of his concerns, he misses some key points that are vital to any debate about the train's future.
 
When it was launched in 1955, the Canadian was the pride and joy of the privately owned Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), as well as Norris Roy (Buck) Crump, who went on to become the company's president.
 
When I interviewed him during his retirement years, Crump criticized himself for spending $40 million, the equivalent of nearly $400 million today, to buy the train.
 
But he quickly added that "his" Canadian had been one of North America's finest and most popular long-haul trains, and it was.
 
Inaugurated on the same day in 1955 as the less-dazzling Super Continental owned by Canadian National Railway (CN), the glittery, dome car-equipped, Canadian grabbed headlines and showed a small profit in its first years.
 
It drew on three markets, tourists making long-distance trips, intercity travellers on shorter trips, and residents of isolated communities who lacked other travel options.
 
Profits started drying up when the Trans-Canada Highway was built immediately adjacent to the line (Crump said it burned his caboose to see public money being stuffed into a highway that was competing with his privately funded trains).
 
At the same time, publicly funded airports were built to prop up the Crown-owned Trans-Canada Air Lines (now Air Canada), which was the expensive plaything of Liberal "minister of everything" C.D. Howe.
 
As a result, the slender profitability of the CP and CN passenger trains evaporated.
 
VIA was created in 1977 to relieve the two railways of the red ink being generated by the remaining passenger trains, which were being bludgeoned by heavy public spending on every mode of transportation, except trains.
 
Politically hog tied from the outset, VIA won back lost passengers, but at high cost, due to its lack of modernization.
 
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's government, which created VIA, then knocked off a fifth of its trains in 1981.
 
On the 1984 campaign trail, the Mulroney Conservatives said they'd put it all back, promising to "create public excitement about going by train."
 
But heavily influenced by vested interests, including bus line owner Paul Martin, they ignored their own Rail Passenger Action Force's warning, "We know of no other way to stop the drain of government funds to VIA than to modernize the corporation, in fact, the only alternative is to scrap it completely."
 
After reinstating several trains cut by the Liberals, the Tories rejected the recommendation that new, Canadian-built, high-performance, equipment be bought, which would have allowed it to transport more customers at a lower cost, thereby reducing its reliance on government subsidies.
 
Instead, half of the system was hacked away in 1990, including VIA's Canadian on the CP route.
 
It was ham-handedly combined with the former CN Super Continental and reduced from daily to tri-weekly, and then to bi-weekly service, for all but a few summer months.
 
As well, the original CP stainless steel equipment was beautifully restored for luxury service, with some lower-cost coaches thrown in for those unable to afford the upscale accommodations.
 
Today, the Canadian really only serves the high-end market.
 
It is bitterly resented by those who can't afford its high fares and can't make use of its erratic and unreliable schedule.
 
And who could blame them?
 
Their tax dollars are shoring up a service that's beyond their reach.
 
But at a time when residents of northern Ontario and the Prairies have lost bus service, and have few, or no, air travel options, cost-effective passenger rail service is required more than ever.
 
VIA's publicly funded American equivalent, Amtrak, provides the answer.
 
Despite unsuccessful attempts by some politicians to dismantle it, Amtrak operates several trains on long-haul routes that are similar to the Canadian.
 
But it uses the double-deck equipment, some of which was built by Bombardier in the 1990s, that the Mulroney government refused to buy for VIA.
 
As a result, Amtrak's daily Empire Builder train, which runs between Chicago, Seattle, and Portland, and was named after Ontario-born railway baron James J. Hill, the "empire builder of the Pacific Northwest", offers more than three times the service and carries five times more passengers than the Canadian, with one-third the subsidy.
 
Public transportation is vital to the economic, social, and environmental health of any nation.
 
Countries with which Canada competes all have modern and efficient passenger rail systems.
 
A failure to re-envision, re-equip, and re-staff VIA, will only make Canada less mobile, accessible, and attractive to investors.
 
Investing public funds in rebuilding it, including the flagship Canadian, would pay back three times its investment in economic spin-offs and job creation.
 
With the benefits to passengers living in remote areas and the economy as a whole, the government could once again use the railway to unite the nation.
 
Greg Gormick.