TrainAtlasAmong the most delayed train routes for the week of 12-18 July 2026, North America took more than its share. Below are the North American routes running furthest behind schedule, ranked by the typical (median) arrival delay. This page refreshes every week from real arrival data.
3 of this week's 6 most delayed North American routes touch Toronto.
The most delayed North American train routes that week
| # | Route | Typical delay | Late (5+ min) | Trains |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TorontoWindsor (Toronto to Windsor) | 37min | 100% | 28 |
| 2 | TorontoOttawa (Toronto to Ottawa) | 32min | 93% | 55 |
| 3 | MontréalToronto (Montréal to Toronto) | 30min | 90% | 39 |
| 4 | OttawaQuébec (Ottawa to Québec) | 22min | 86% | 28 |
| 5 | Boston SouthWashington Union (Boston South to Washington Union) | 15min | 73% | 63 |
| 6 | BakersfieldOakland-Jack London Square (Bakersfield to Oakland-Jack London Square) | 10min | 60% | 35 |
Bars are scaled to the worst route this week. "Typical delay" is the median across every tracked run; "late" is the share arriving 5 or more minutes behind. Only routes running 10 or more minutes late on a typical trip, with at least 25 tracked trains, are listed.
Catch a North American train?
This is last week. TrainAtlas tells you about your next one - live delays and platforms for your saved routes, across Amtrak and VIA Rail and 30+ operators.
Why are North American trains so delayed?
Three things compound:
- Passenger trains ride freight-owned track. Outside the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak and VIA run on tracks owned by freight railroads, where freight movements often take priority and passenger trains wait in sidings.
- Long single-track corridors. Much of the network is single-tracked with limited passing loops, so one late train meeting one coming the other way can add tens of minutes.
- A few long runs dominate. The worst delays sit on long intercity routes - VIA's Quebec City-Windsor Corridor and Amtrak's state-supported services - where delay accumulates over hundreds of miles with little chance to recover.
How we measure this
- Arrival delay, not departure.
- We measure how late a train actually arrives - departure delay understates how late trains really run.
- Median, not average.
- Each route shows the median across every tracked run that week, so one cancelled or extreme train cannot distort the ranking.
- A 25-train floor.
- A route needs at least 25 tracked runs that week to appear, so a single bad day cannot put an obscure route on the board.
TrainAtlas is independent and not affiliated with Amtrak and VIA Rail or any rail operator. These are our own measurements from public data, not official punctuality statistics - operators publish on-time percentages using their own, more generous thresholds, so our median-minutes figure will usually read worse. Data source: Amtrak real-time data via the Amtraker community API, and VIA Rail public train-status feeds. Spot an error? Tell us and we will correct it and note the change in the archive.