Justin Trudeau has announced that a high-speed rail line will be built to connect Toronto and Quebec City.
Here’s what you need to know the rail network, train stops, travel times and more!
On February 19, 2025, the prime minister announced Alto, the high-speed rail service that will connect nearly 20 million Canadians from Toronto to Quebec City through a high-speed rail network.
These high-speed trains will be fully electric and travel at 300 kilometres an hour.
Alto, the new Canadian high-speed rail network, will span around 1,000 kilometres between Toronto and Quebec City.
Trains will stop in Toronto and Quebec City — since those are the rail line’s end destinations — and there will also be stops in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval and Trois-Rivières.
“A reliable, efficient high-speed rail network will be a game changer for Canadians,” Trudeau said. “Slashing travel times by half, getting you from Toronto to Montreal in three hours.”
Currently, a VIA Rail trip between Toronto and Montreal can take from five hours to nine hours, depending on how many stops the train makes along the route.
That’s because Canadian passenger rail service runs on tracks owned by freight rails which limits the frequency of the service and can cause delays, according to the federal government.
While Trudeau hasn’t revealed a timeline, federal government officials said last year that it could be the mid-2030s before the high-speed trains were on the move.
Alto is expected to be the largest infrastructure project in Canadian history and create more than 51,000 jobs during construction.
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This article’s cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
