PROMISING MEDIA COVERAGE

PROMISING MEDIA COVERAGE
Promising news about the train now in the Sudbury Star. Premier pressed on Northern Rail promise.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/news/local-news/premier-pressed-on-northern-rail-promise
This news was on the first page of the Sault Star. Rail Advocates call on Ford to keep election promises.
https://www.saultstar.com/news/local-news/rail-advocates-call-on-ford-to-keep-election-promises
A rail lobby group says it’s time for Ontario’s new Premier to deliver the goods on passenger service.
Northeastern Ontario Rail Network (NEORN) says during the election campaign Doug Ford promised to restore passenger service if he became Premier.

MEDIA RELEASE October 12, 2018
Northern Ontario Rail Service Promised May 3 North Bay -Lucille Frith,
NEORN Co Chair meets Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford and MPP Vic Fedeli

NORTHEASTERN ONTARIO RAIL NETWORK (NEORN) LOOKS FORWARD
TO IMPLEMENTATION OF PREMIER FORD’S PROMISE RE: PASSENGER RAIL
It has been 6 months since our PC Leader (now Premier) Doug Ford promised to bring
 back full passenger rail service to the North[i].  At the time, this was welcome news should they be elected.
Now they have been elected and Northerners are anxious to see this promise happen.
For the past 5 years NEORN has been busy encouraging Northern Ontario municipal councils,
 First Nation councils and organizations, the Canadian Federation of Students, economic development organizations as well as several federal and provincial politicians to pass resolutions of support for the return of passenger rail to northern Ontario. Last week NEORN provided to Premier Ford and Northern Ontario MPPs copies of these resolutions from virtually every community on the Toronto-Cochrane rail line from Washago north as well as the Algoma Central Rail line from the Sault to Hearst.
As NEORN spokespeople state in their recent Northern Policy Institute commentary[ii], the NEORN LOOP is a “modern, innovative, comprehensive and integrated passenger rail service (that) could radically enhance Northern Ontario’s regional intercommunity connectivity and do so using existing rail infrastructure” along with bus feeder lines to provide service to Northern Ontario and connect it with southern Ontario and the rest of Canada.
In the past year, another group calling itself ‘All Aboard Northern Ontario’ has developed a proposal entitled ‘NortheastLynx’, a plan to revive the Northlander route. NEORN welcomes this initiative and any others that may come forth to get this train service back on the rails.
To the Provincial government, the ball is in your court.
Time to act and make good on your promise of restoring rail passenger services in the North.

NEORN CO-CHAIRS:         Lucille Frith                   Howie Wilcox
                                               705-789-8903                 705-942-9990

[i]https://www.northbaynipissing.com/news-story/8589161-ford-promises-new-northlander-to-nipissing-voters/
[ii] NPI commentary “Actions to Move Ontario Forward, Passenger Rail”
https://www.northernpolicy.ca/upload/documents/news-releases/en-press-release-multimodal-series-4-pas.pdf