How to Kill a Passenger Train - No Targets

The Liberal government would like you to believe that Ontario Northland is unsustainable and the Northlander had "stagnant" ridership in spite of millions of dollars invested by them.  I will leave the sustainability of the company to be determined by the amount of the projected savings found by the Auditor General, but I take issue with the idea that they invested anything, money or effort, into the passenger service they were so desperate to eradicate.

There is an old adage that it takes money to make money.  My concerns in this post however, center around the business decisions of the ONTC passenger service, more than the lack of their fair share of government financial assistance.

The Polar Bear is an essential service and no matter how much it costs the government, it is far cheaper than building and maintaining an all-season road to Moosonee, so it did not face the same pressure as the Northlander for its existence.  It has room for many improvements, and the communities it serves are entitled to still better service, but for the sake of this post, I will focus on the Northlander, since it has already disappeared.

In a previous post, I commented on the importance of pricing and briefly touched on the issue of marketing.  The Northlander had a dual mandate that sometimes presented conflicting issues, it was a connection to the provincial capital for people in Northeastern Ontario and it was supposed to be an economic development tool used to bring people up north and promote tourism.

It is ironic that the Northlander ended up being trashed for "stagnant" ridership, when there is no evidence that was ever a priority for the government.  If increasing ridership was the top priority, why did they stop setting any hard targets for it?  

Recent figures are hard to come by, since the government has stopped posting annual reports on the website, (the most recent Annual Report posted, is 2008-2009), but in the last posted Annual Report, there is not even a breakdown of the Northlander's ridership. There is a reference to the fact it was down due to the anomaly of a time period with no buses in the previous year.  In the past there were ridership targets set and the odd event like a seat sale used to drive up ridership. 

Speaking of marketing again, around 2005-2006 the ONTC partnered with The Bike Train and provided a baggage car for this service.  It was well received for its inaugural run but within two years, the partnership was transferred from the Northlander to the Motor Coach division, where, not surprisingly, it did not survive.  Other markets have survived with rail participation, but the Northlander was not given the same chance.

 Then, shortly after, ridership targets seemed to disappear.  

If the MNDM had set hard targets for increased ridership, they would have been forced to provide some resources to management, so those managers had a reasonable chance of achieving their goal.  Different decisions might have been made, if there was a corporate focus on bringing more people on the train.   

The Ministry of Tourism paid for a Ontario Tourism Infrastructure Research Study in Feb 2009.  Although that report seems to have a bit too much focus on Toronto, it does accurately reflect the importance of transportation infrastructure to tourism.  

"Rejuvenation of the rail network, like upgrading Northern Ontario’s highway 
system, is an expensive and long-term solution to tourist travel. However, 
improving rail service could provide economic returns and tourism sector 
growth and investment. In the 2000 Travel Activities and Motivations Survey22  Americans travellers stated they were more likely to be motivated to take a trip to Ontario for nature-oriented attractions such as an overnight train tour through natural terrain."

Oddly though, even though MNDM staff were interviewed, Ontario Northland is not mentioned as a possible tool for tourism initiatives.  In fact, the existing role played by the company is downplayed as much as possible, to the point that temporary service disruptions are highlighted, as is the fact that the train does not go to Timmins.  The fact that there is a connecting bus service to Timmins from Porquis does not get mentioned at all.


In addition to Via, passenger rail service is also provided by Ontario Northland 
Railway. The Ontario Northland Railway provides transportation option for people traveling between Toronto, Cochrane, Moosonee, and various points along the way40. The two major cities with the provision of passenger services are North Bay and Toronto. 
The Northland Ontario provides one regular service per day from North Bay to 
Toronto (and vice versa). On the 19th of November, the Ontario Northland website noted that train service has been replaced by bus service between Toronto and North Bay due to operational difficulties41. The regular Northland train service was still operating between North Bay and Cochrane. 
There is an Ontario Northland route that connects Northern and Southern Ontario between Cochrane and Toronto along the Highway 11 corridor. This service goes through the Central Ontario tourist region. 
The passenger rail service provided by Ontario Northland Rail does not provide full coverage inter-city transportation service between major tourist areas in the Northern Ontario


During my time on the Northlander, I met two individuals who I thought could have been instrumental in attracting more riders on the train for longer trips.  One was Daryl Adair, of Rail Travel Tours and the other was Ron Brown, noted Ontario author and travel guide.

Both of these gentlemen approached the ONR on their own and booked groups  to travel on the Northlander, but they were never engaged in a formal business relationship to partner with ONTC.  There are all kinds of rail tour companies in Canada, why would the ONTC not begin a business relationship with these two men, then go after more?

If they wanted to attract riders from the largest metropolitan area in Canada, they could have employed one staff member there, instead of a contractor who made $100,000 per year selling 90% of his tickets in the hour and a half before the train departed.  That would have left 6 hours a day for an employee to do some marketing and maybe develop packages with attractions up the line.

Starting with Washago as the first stop, Casino Rama, could have been used to draw people onto the train and use the short run as an opportunity to introduce people to the North.  Videos, brochures and engaged employees could have explained about further adventures in parts of the province unknown to most GTA residents.  

The adventure and appeal of a train ride could have been expanded to Gravenhurst, where a visit to Norman Bethune's house may have been of some interest to the Chinese community in the GTA. Or maybe a lunch trip on the Segwun would appeal to some people...again, if you bring them on the train, you have a captive audience for a couple of hours while you get them there.  Some tourism businesses might pay something for that kind of targeted advertising, but most would certainly be interested in a free opportunity to participate in it.

There are more attractions at every stop and as you build traffic on the train, you stand a chance of enticing them back and further North.  These things were not done, however, and while there were some efforts made to bring Japanese tourists on for the fall colour tours, the lack of support from the government made it impossible to add a dome car to the experience or grow the business to any extent.

The only answer I can see, is there was never an intent to grow ridership, there was only an effort to cut costs.  That focus was the cause of a "stagnant ridership" and the organization that controls the purse strings is the one who bears the responsibility...Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.