Editing Via Rail (section)

===1980s===
[[File:Roger Puta shot VIA LRC-2 6903 at Port Hope, ON in October 1981 (34282991950).jpg|thumb|The [[LRC (train)|LRC]] in [[Port Hope, Ontario|Port Hope]], October 1981. Via Rail ordered the LRCs in the 1980s to replace its older train cars.]]
In 1981, Prime Minister [[Pierre Trudeau]]'s government endorsed [[Minister of Transport (Canada)|Minister of Transport]] [[Jean-Luc Pépin]]'s plan which slashed Via's budget, leading to a 40 percent reduction in the company's operations. Frequently sold-out trains such as the ''[[Super Continental]]'' and the popular ''[[Atlantic (passenger train)|Atlantic]]'' were discontinued. The retrenchment of the former reduced Via to operating only one transcontinental train, ''[[The Canadian]]''.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}

Via also sought to reduce its reliance on over 30-year-old second-hand equipment and placed a significant order with [[Bombardier Transportation]] for new high-speed locomotives and cars which would be used in its corridor trains. The [[LRC (train)|LRC]] (Light, Rapid, Comfortable) locomotives and cars used advanced technology such as [[Tilting train|active tilt]] to increase speed, but proved troublesome and took several years to work out problems (by 1990 only a handful of LRC locomotives remained in service which were subsequently retired by the arrival of the [[GE Genesis]] locomotives in 2001).{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}

The election of [[Brian Mulroney]]'s [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Progressive Conservative]] government in 1984 brought an initial friend to Via, when several of Mulroney's commitments included rescinding the Via cuts of 1981 by restoring the ''[[Super Continental]]'' (under pressure from his western caucus), and the ''[[Atlantic (passenger train)|Atlantic]]'' (under pressure from his eastern caucus and then-[[Saint John, New Brunswick|Saint John]] mayor [[Elsie Wayne]]). Prime Minister Mulroney's government gave Via funding to refurbish some of its cars, and purchase new locomotives, this time a more reliable model from [[General Motors Corporation|General Motors]] diesel division.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}

It was during this time on February 8, 1986, that Via's eastbound [[Hinton train collision|''Super Continental'' collided with a CN freight train]] near [[Hinton, Alberta]], as a result of the freight train crew missing a signal light, resulting in 23 deaths.

By the late 1980s, inflation and other rising costs were taking their toll on federal budgets and in the Mulroney government's [[1989 Canadian federal budget|1989 budget]], Via again saw its budget slashed by $1 billion,<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last1=Drost |first1=Philip |last2=Desson |first2=Craig |date=January 1, 2023 |title=What we can learn about the future of rail from its past |url=https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whatonearth/rail-travel-canada-1.6681160 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101090556/http://www.cbc.ca/radio/whatonearth/rail-travel-canada-1.6681160 |archive-date=January 1, 2023 |access-date=January 7, 2024 |work=CBC |url-status=live }}</ref> surpassing even the 1981 cuts under Trudeau.