NEW YORK — Amtrak’s Maple Leaf has resumed service to and from Toronto, marking the first cross-border rail service to be resumed since pandemic-related cuts in 2020.
Amtrak announced this morning that the northbound Maple Leaf, operated in conjunction with VIA Rail Canada, would operate to Toronto today (Monday, June 27) with the first southbound train from Toronto to New York on Tuesday, June 28.
“The return of this vital rail connection is welcome news not just for passengers who love to travel, but for countless businesses across New York State and Canada who make it possible for visitors to experience the best of what every locality has to offer,” New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez said in a press release.
In addition to normal cross-border document requirements, passengers must meet vaccination and masking requirements, as spelled out here.
Amtrak service remains suspended to and from Montreal, as well as Vancouver, British Columbia; Amtrak Cascades service to Vancouver is not expected to resume until later this year [see “Delayed return of ‘Cascades’ to Canada …,” Trains News Wire, May 19, 2022].
Still nothing in the Detroit area. Forgot that it will take less time to operate a train between Chicago and Toronto than for it to clear customs.
That wasn’t a victim of COVD — it was (much earlier) a victim of DHS reaction to 9/11. Never should have been cancelled. It was a successful service.
Anybody can fly, drive or walk across the US-Canada border. Or cross the border as a driver of a semi truck. Somehow our government thinks that a passenger train is a conduit for terrorists.
Saw it in Canastota this afternoon. Didn’t get the locomotive number, but it was a 50th anniversary edition
On the Ontario side of the birder the Maple Leaf runs as a Via Rail local
service making enroute stops. The Adirondack and the Cascades rin as sealed Amtrak trains and thus have little Via support other than for terminal charges.
I wonder what the circumstances were that allowed this cross-border train to resume but the other two not.
I wonder what the circumstances were that allowed this cross-border train to resume without any advance notice to the riding public, with other service resumptions announced for months in the future.
On the Ontario side of the birder the Maple Leaf runs as a Via Rail local
service making enroute stops. The Adirondack and the Cascades rin as sealed Amtrak trains and thus have little Via support other than for terminal charges.