{"id":834087,"date":"2026-07-29T17:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/834087\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T17:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:13:09","slug":"feds-announce-almost-2b-for-45-hybrid-battery-diesel-via-rail-passenger-locomotives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/834087\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds announce almost $2B for 45 hybrid battery-diesel Via Rail passenger locomotives"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The federal government has announced almost $2 billion in funding to modernize Via Rail’s passenger fleet with 45 new hybrid battery-diesel passenger locomotives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon made the announcement in Montreal on Wednesday, highlighting that 36 of the 45 new locomotives built by Swiss rail manufacturer Stadler will be assembled in Canada.<\/p>\n

“Today, for the first time in more than 25 years, we’re bringing passenger rail locomotive assembly back to Montreal,” MacKinnon said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“By combining Canadian expertise with world-class European innovation, we’re strengthening our economy while building a more resilient passenger rail network for the future.”<\/p>\n

The funding to renew Via Rail’s aging fleet of locomotives was first announced in Budget 2024.<\/p>\n

A government statement said $1.6 billion of the $1.95 billion the federal government is funnelling into the project will be used to pay for the construction of the new locomotives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another $357 million will allow VIA Rail to build a new assembly and maintenance facility in Montreal. This new facility will be built by Canadian construction company Pomerleau.<\/p>\n

The Liberal government said their nearly $2-billion investment will “support the equivalent of 1,200 full-time jobs throughout the project, including skilled manufacturing, construction, engineering and long-term maintenance jobs.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

A North American first<\/p>\n

MacKinnon’s department said in a statement that the trains will be “North America’s first hybrid-powered passenger locomotives.”<\/p>\n

Transport Canada also said that these new lower-emission trains will lay “the groundwork for future zero-emission propulsion,” but it does not put a timeline on when that will happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The batteries powering the trains will be supplied by ABB, a Swiss-Swedish multinational corporation with facilities across Canada.\u00a0The Via Rail batteries in the new trains will be supplied by ABB’s facility in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":834088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-834087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}