Teamsters Canada Rail Conference

Trouble-plagued GO Transit tried to blame Canadian National Railway Co. yesterday after thousands of commuters faced a morning of cancelled trains and delays of up to almost an hour. But the commuter service later recanted and said the problem was its own.

Yesterday's blame game was sure to aggravate fed-up GO train passengers, who have complained loudly about the province's commuter train service, widely seen to have deteriorated in recent years.

Requests for an interview with Gary McNeil, the managing director of GO Transit, to clarify why GO Transit told media outlets all day that CN was to blame for the delays were turned down.

The two railway organizations have a history of bickering, as CN owns much of the track on which GO runs its trains and also operates much of GO's signal system.

Yesterday, many of GO's commuters were left fuming - and freezing - on outdoor platforms before being packed into late trains. Go said seven trains were cancelled and 53 were delayed.

All morning in its e-mail alert service for commuters, GO Transit blamed the chaos, which began on its Lakeshore East line but spread to the Lakeshore West line as well, on "CN signal problems east of Pickering."

Yesterday afternoon, GO spokeswoman Vanessa Thomas initially said CN had discovered a signal problem on GO's tracks overnight, but failed to notify GO in time.

But in an interview, CN spokesman Frank Binder said CN's rail control centre found a faulty switch on a stretch of the Lakeshore East line and told GO Transit at 2:30 a.m. - 2½ hours before its first morning train ran into delays. GO Transit, he said, is responsible for maintaining this stretch of track itself.

"As far as what happened with GO, you might want to call them back," Mr. Binder said in an interview.

Late yesterday, GO officials acknowledged that GO had got its facts wrong, agreeing that CN had notified GO of the problem at 2:30 a.m. However, GO said it was investigating why it could not get one of its maintenance crews to the signal in time, meaning repairs had to be done during rush hour. This slowed trains and causing a ripple effect of delays on the Lakeshore West line as well. (Trains on the Milton, Georgetown and Stouffville lines also experienced winter-related delays.)