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| - I'd rather go trough the US customs and back in Canada with Amtrak than cross-country with VIA Rail (I'm Canadian, and in fact, I already did a cross-country with Amtrak from Los Angeles to Montreal). I went from Montreal to Vancouver with VIA Rail last November and wasn't impressed at all.
First of all, most crew members were unable to serve me in French, despite VIA Rail taking pride into being "bilingual". That's a joke. After Toronto, going West, I would either be answered back in English, in broken French or be given a blank stare. Only two in-station employees (one in Winnipeg and one in Edmonton) could communicate with me in proper French.
It's also expensive. Even with the US $ vs Canadian $ rate, as a Canadian it's still cheaper to use Amtrak to cross-country if my depart/arrival city is Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal. Prices tickets are also fraudulent. When I tried booking a ticket from Montreal to Vancouver, it was more than 600$. However, when I booked separately Montreal-Toronto and Toronto-Vancouver, the total was about 490$. I traveled quite a bit with Amtrak and never noticed such thing. This may be because VIA Rail is a private company that's around for profit, whilst Amtrak is partly funded by the US government.
Another thing that's unprofessional and ridiculous is their cancellation policies. In short, you cannot even get a refund. If you have to modify the dates of your trip, they charge you almost half the price of your ticket. For my trip between Toronto and Vancouver, I would've had to pay almost 200$. In comparison, Amtrak issue you a 90% cash refund or a travel voucher of 100% the value of your tickets if you cancel your trip, even if you cancel it only 1h before departure. Needless to say there is no modification fee either.
The food sold by VIA Rail in the café car is crap. You might not care if you're not going a long way or if you prefer to eat in the restaurant, but if you'd rather stay healthy and keep your money for something else than an expensive meal, I'd recommend you bring a lot of foods or avoid long-distance on a VIA train. Btw, I'm vegan, so this was a disappointment to see that not a single item in the café was vegan. Not a single meal in the restaurant was vegan, either, and most employees seemed not to understand the word "vegan" at all, or confound it with "vegetarian" and offer me a cheese pizza... Again, Amtrak does it better as they at least sell veggie burgers, pretzels with hummus and overpriced fruits in their café car. Sure, that's not the best, but that's still better than the literally nothing that VIA has to offer to their vegan passengers. I sure hope I'm not the only vegan who'd rather travel by train than flying and having a much bigger impact on environment in the process.
On a good note, many employees are welcoming and professional (despite many other being snobbish). One lady in particular was really passionate about her work, I believe she's working between Vancouver and Winnipeg. She would talk to the passengers, give them some cultural and historical details about trains and the regions we were in, etc. Also, I appreciate the fact that The Canadian has a long layover in Winnipeg, and that VIA modified their schedule to fit the daylight with the best scenery, on The Canadian at least.
Still, to me the negative points far outweigh the positive aspects, and having heard so much good feedback, I was very disappointed and under-impressed. Let's not forget that with only 2 weekly departures for The Canadian (or 3 during the peak period), this doesn't allow much flexibility, especially with their ridiculous (non-)cancellation policies and inflated fraudulent fares.
Edit: I went from Vancouver to Toronto trough the US with Amtrak to avoid using VIA Rail as much as possible, and to avoid flying. Although the US border patrol questioned me extensively due to my personal situation, I didn't regret it. At that time The Canadian wasn't even operating between Winnipeg and Toronto and VIA didn't seem to care enough to issue a full refund -- rather, it seems, from the articles I've read, that they only issued a partial refund to their customers, not even trying to help them find alternative transportations.
I also used VIA Rail to go from Montreal to Halifax. This train is VERY old-fashioned, and going from my car to the cafe/lounge car I felt kind of claustrophobic as the hallway is only large enough for one person. As a coach passenger, I was also forbidden to sleep in an empty space in the lounge car at night (where people didn't even pass trough)...Seems a bit stupid to me, as it wasn't used and I would ALWAYS do it in Amtrak trains with no problem...
It seems like the VIA crew can serve you in French if the route begins/ends in Montreal. Still, it's an insult to me that the longest route, The Canadian, doesn't have a bilingual crew.
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