VIA Rail: What Were You Thinking?
Traveling by train is a real trip. It’s the only mode of travel where you can move around or eat in a restaurant while the countryside whips by you. Buses don’t offer the same freedom. In addition trains go through areas of the country people rarely see while buses travel mainly on highways and most of your scenery at times is traffic and four-lane highways.
Trains these days are a novelty vacation, and expensive – a way to get to your destination without taking the usual modes of transportation. So, many people book in well advance to take their “Cross Canada Trip.” This was just what they did for this year on VIA Rail. That was until the short-lived strike.
In the media it seems like everyone is happy that the VIA engineers are back to work. Everyone except the people whose vacations were ruined by the short strike. You see, many of these people scrambled to cancel or make other arrangements and the revelation that VIA is back on track just produces anger. And that’s not to mention the foreign and domestic travel agencies who canceled VIA trips during the past few days and whose clients won’t be rebooking.
Who were the bird-brained wonders in VIA’s office that thought that engineers, the people who drive their trains, should go 2 years without a contract? And why did they play this game of inches with them during a year where every passenger is a gift? And did they even think of the other people besides passengers that might suffer? This would included every level of business that services VIA’s customers.
The engineers, its seems, wanted reasonable allowances like 2 days off in a row. They didn’t want cash. But maybe VIA thought it was not doable. Whatever their grievances VIA – who gets lots of taxpayer’s money – should not have pushed this issue during tourist season. This is bad management.
These are short-sighted people who should not be in such important positions because they have sent a message to the travel agencies around the world that there is a chance that Canada’s expensive rail service is not that dependable and travelers have a chance (even a small one) to have their plans altered. And where was the government in all this? Why did the applicable agency not force binding arbitration? After all we won a lot of the company and out representatives should have acted beforehand.
BTW: VIA is offering short-term deals for its stranded passengers if bookings are made by Monday – 60% off.
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