By Justin Franz

TORONTO — Perhaps one of the greatest experiences in North American rail travel — sitting in the rear of VIA Rail ‘Park Car’ and watching as the great Canadian landscape rolls by — has been diminished after the passenger carrier began adding “buffer” cars to the Canadian and other trains using historic stainless steel equipment this week. 

The former Canadian Pacific cars have been in service since the mid-20th Century, but a recent engineering report found that there were major structural weaknesses in the cars’ frames. Those weaknesses could be exposed in a wreck. In an email to the Globe and Mail, VIA officials wrote that “the corporation has added buffer cars at the front and back end of all trains with stainless steel equipment to reduce the consequences in the unlikely event of a train-to-train collision.” In this instance, the buffer cars are other stainless steel cars that are not occupied or unoccupied LRC cars. For example, the Canadian departing Vancouver last weekend had a sleeper car on the rear. 

Officials said the measures would be “temporary” until the older cars are either refurbished or replaced. VIA is currently acquiring new Siemens trainsets, however, it presently does not have any replacements ordered for long-distance trains like the Canadian. With the stainless steel cars having been in service since the 1950s and rebuilt multiple times before, it’s starting to look like the end is near for the classic fleet.