OTTAWA - The federal government is committing $300 million to what's being hailed as the largest-ever investment in passenger rail service between Montreal and Toronto.
  
Via Rail's CN Kingston Subdivision Project is a series of infrastructure improvements along the 539-kilometre double-track rail line that are designed to reduce bottlenecks and limit delays for passengers.

Sections of new third-line track will be added to the existing track at five locations between Brockville, Ont., and Oshawa, Ont., to allow three or more trains to pass by without stopping.

A fourth track will be built at Via Rail's busy Belleville, Ont., station.

"We will make passenger and freight service more reliable, more frequent, and more competitive," said Gary Goodyear, minister of state for science and technology, who unveiled the funding Thursday at Toronto's Union Station.

More than 400 Via trains operate on the busy Quebec-Windsor corridor, which accounts for 90 per cent of the Crown corporation's ridership.

Bottlenecks can be a problem, however, since the rail lines Via trains use are owned by freight railroads.

Donald Wright, Via's chairman of the board, hailed Thursday's investment as "nothing short of a reshaping of the Canadian railway map."

Via's hope, Wright said, is that by the time the project is completed in 2011, a half hour will be shaved off the time it takes to travel from Toronto and Montreal.

Via trains carried about 4.6 million passengers in 2008, and that number should increase by 40 per cent over the next five years, he added.

"We are witnessing the birth of a new era in passenger rail service in the Quebec-Windsor corridor," Wright said.

The new money comes out of $407 million set aside for Via in January's economic stimulus package.

The federal government is also studying whether a high-speed rail system would be a good fit in the Quebec-Windsor corridor. Goodyear said Thursday's announcement was unrelated to those plans.

"(High-speed rail is) probably a decade out," he said.

"We need interim answers right now, and this is a perfect solution."

Along with expanding Via's rail network, the funding will also go towards installing new and upgraded signals, warning systems, and island platforms at certain stations along the corridor.

Work is expected to get under way this summer. The project is expected to create more than 100 jobs.