VIA Rail to resume Montreal-Halifax service on February 28

VIA Rail will resume train service connecting Montreal to Halifax this week.

The passenger rail transport company announced that its Maritime route, The Ocean, will resume service with trains 14 and 15 on Friday, February 28.

Earlier this month, VIA Rail cancelled all its trips until further notice because of ongoing Wet’suwet’en solidarity rail blockades on the tracks it uses.

So far, 723 trains have been cancelled because of the blockades, impacting 127,000 customers, VIA Rail said.

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The protesters on the train tracks are supporting a group of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who are trying to prevent a natural gas pipeline from crossing their traditional territory in northern BC.

After Mounties moved in to arrest supporters of the hereditary chiefs, demonstrations sprang up across the country denouncing police actions.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline would transport liquefied natural gas to port in Kitimat, BC.

“We continue to work with the infrastructure owner, CN Rail, on making sure that normal service can resume on all other routes and that passengers can be welcomed back on board our trains as quickly as possible,” reads the VIA Rail statement. “Even though we look forward to sharing updates on resumption dates of our services in a timely manner, the safety of our passengers and employees remains our top priority throughout this process.”

The following routes will be going back into service:

VIA Rail

With files from Megan Devlin