🚄 Canada Is Going to Make Its Own Trains Again
Author: The CANADA List Team
Published: Sept 7, 2026
You have probably already heard the headline: Canada is going to build its own passenger trains again. Here are the details behind the widely covered announcement.
The federal government is investing more than C$4.7 billion for VIA Rail to acquire and maintain 313 new passenger cars from Alstom Canada. They will be manufactured and assembled in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and La Pocatière, Quebec, with design and engineering work in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec. It will be the first time in four decades that VIA passenger cars have been produced in Canada.
The new fleet will replace equipment on VIA's long-distance, regional, and remote routes, some of which is more than 70 years old. It will include dining, panorama, and sleeper cars serving eight provinces, including rural, remote, and Indigenous communities where transportation alternatives can be limited. The first new car is expected to enter service by 2031, with the full fleet in operation by 2035.
According to the Prime Minister's announcement, the project will support nearly 700 jobs in Ontario and Quebec and generate more than C$1.6 billion in economic benefits. Alstom will draw on a network of more than 900 Canadian suppliers and maximize the use of Canadian steel in structural assemblies, supports, and fabricated components.
The procurement is being carried out under the federal Buy Canadian Policy, with production, engineering, and supply-chain work assigned to Canadian facilities and suppliers.
The passenger-car order follows a C$1.95-billion investment in new locomotives and a Canadian assembly and maintenance facility in Montreal. Together, the federal commitment to renewing VIA's long-distance, regional, and remote fleet now exceeds C$6.6 billion.
Our take
The trains are only part of what makes this announcement so good. Canada gets modern equipment it already needs, while the spending supports Canadian factories, engineers, skilled trades, steelmakers and suppliers. More of the money stays in Canadian communities, domestic industry gains a major customer, and our dependence on foreign production is reduced. Win, win, win, win, win.
This is Carney using one of the strongest tools available to government: Canada is an enormous buyer, and it gets to decide what Canadian public money helps build. Trump can impose tariffs to pull production south; Ottawa can create demand here, support domestic capacity and give Canadian suppliers a market worth investing in.
No, one contract does not make us immune to American tariffs, and not every dollar paid to a multinational remains in Canada. But the jobs, skills and industrial capacity created here will outlast this trade dispute. These trains will carry passengers; the policy behind them moves Canada toward something just as important: greater economic independence.
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