MONTREAL — Martin Imbleau, CEO of the Montreal Port Authority, has been named as the first CEO of VIA HFR, the VIA Rail Canada project office for the construction of the passenger-only High Frequency Rail corridor between Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City.
VIA HFR, which operates as an “arms-length” affiliate of VIA Rail to co-manage project development, announced the appointment by its board of directors on Monday. The appointment is effective Sept. 8.
Imbleau’s background before joining the Port Authority in 2021 was in the energy infrastructure industry.
“Martin Imbleau is exactly the right person to lead the development of Canada’s largest transportation project in more than 60 years,” Robert Prichard, board director for VIA HFR, said in a press release. “Given his knowledge of the partners within the corridor and more specifically in Montreal and its surrounding area, Martin brings valuable experience and perspective to the project. We are very fortunate to bring him on board.”
Imbleau said he is “both thrilled and humbled to have been offered the opportunity to guide this strategic transportation project, which will offer Canadians better and faster passenger rail service between Canada’s two largest cities and to Quebec City and Ottawa. I look forward to working with all stakeholders to move this project forward.”
Canada’s new Transport Minister, Pablo Rodriguez, said in a statement that he welcomes the appointment.
“The unprecedented nature and scale of the High Frequency Rail project requires a strong corporate leadership team. With his many years of executive-level experience in the transportation sector, I am confident Mr. Imbleau will be successful in leading the transformative and visionary High Frequency Rail project.”
Imbleau’s appointment comes as Transport Canada prepares to receive Requests for Proposals from three consortia selected in July to advance the project. Then-Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said at the time that the timeline for the project had been pushed back and would aim for the start of operations in the mid-2030s, more than 20 years after VIA first proposed the concept [see “Timeline for Canada’s high-frequency rail corridor …,” Trains News Wire, July 21, 2023].
60 years ago, Canadian National’s passenger trains were still in their glory with the ‘Super Continental’ and the ‘Ocean’ (neè ‘Ocean Limited’ as the railway’s premium trains.
Meanwhile, American passenger trains were downgraded, truncated, and discontinued as the 1960s advances. CN passenger train timetables remained thick while those of American railways got thinner.
“Canada’s largest transportation project in 60 years …”
This isn’t a project, it’s a concept or a proposal. It becomes a project when funding is identified and when a realistic timeline for implementation is sketched out.