service, the name, or a variation of it, has possibly seen use for a service which operated on CPR and CPR-subsidiary Soo Line between Minneapolis, Minnesota, via Sault Ste. Marie, Ottawa, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec to Saint John, New Brunswick, beginning in 1889 following the completion of the line to Saint John. It is possible that the name "Atlantic Limited" was officially used on the Soo Line portion between Minneapolis-Sault Ste. Marie, although only numbered trains officially existed east of Montreal between 1889 and 1955. An extension to the Minneapolis-Montreal-Saint John service operated between Montreal and Boston, Massachusetts (in partnership with the Boston and Maine Railroad), possibly using the name Atlantic Express. Atlantic In 1978, Via Rail was created out of a Canadian National Railway subsidiary to become Canada's national passenger rail service. In October of that year, Via negotiated the take-over of CPR passenger service, although routes, equipment and schedules did not change until the summer of 1979. Thus for the first few months after Via was created, the company included The Atlantic Limited in its timetable and the service continued to operate using the same CPR equipment and crews. In the summer of 1979, this was changed with the name The Atlantic Limited shortened to the bilingually appropriate Atlantic/Atlantique. At the same time, service was extended effective October 1979 with a new eastern terminus at Halifax, Nova Scotia and the 1970s-era CPR passenger station in Saint John was closed in lieu of a new station in that city's downtown. The extension of the train to Halifax was made possible by Via's decision to not continue a CN train named the Scotian, thus the Atlantic assumed that train's numbers of 11/12 (westbound/eastbound) and equipment. Under Via, the Atlantic became a well-used train, given the shorter route (by 150 miles) over the Ocean, and the fact that the Atlantic served the cities of Saint John and Sherbrooke, in addition to many smaller towns and villages in between. However increased patronage of the Atlantic did not meet Via targets, although some might say it did not cross as much politically crucial territory in Quebec as the Ocean. Thus in the Via budget cuts by the Trudeau government in 1981, the Atlantic was terminated in lieu of Budd RDC service between Halifax-Moncton-Saint John-Fredericton. During this time, Fredericton saw its first passenger trains since the early 1960s when Rail Diesel Cars were instituted