VIA Rail says the August long weekend was its busiest yet with ticket sales soaring 13% over the same period last year.
The rail service says 84,400 travellers boarded trains across the country, a 9.5% increase over 2016 when 69,859 passengers boarded. The most popular destinations were Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa in the Windsor-Quebec City corridor. A total of 77,000 people rode the train on that route.
Friday, August 4 was the busiest day of the weekend with 17,000 passengers. That compares with 16,364 on July 29, 2016.
VIA says 372 trains were in operation across Canada and 33-million km were travelled between August 3 and 8.