Ontario Northland is connecting with the communities that will be served by the return of Northlander passenger rail service.
The first event was held last week in Timmins, with another dozen slated to take place into next year.
Chad Evans, President and CEO of Ontario Northland, says they’re providing updates on how the reinstatement of the service is coming along, and more.
“Equally important, we’re using the opportunity to get feedback from the communities about preferences, ideas and input about what they’d like to see from the service once it’s operating,” he says.
Evans says that includes ideas from menu options to the trains’ exterior look and paint job.
He adds the target for receiving the new train sets is still the ‘mid-2020s’, but there will be tell-tale signs the service is getting closer to taking on passengers once the Timmins-Porcupine station is built and station shelters are in place.
“I’d say the most important indicator is once we receive the train sets the first thing we need to do is testing and commissioning of those train sets. It takes a number of months for us to do that,” Evans says. “But once those trains start to pass through your communities the date will be very close and by that time, we’ll be announcing it.”
A specific date for North Bay’s community connection event has yet to be announced.
Sessions are slated this month in Matheson, Cochrane, Kirkland Lake and Englehart.
