Ottawa to Montreal by Chauffeur: The Drive, and When the Train Wins

Ottawa and Montreal are two hours apart in almost every direction you measure it. VIA Rail lists the train at about two hours over 185 kilometres. The drive, Highway 417 east to the Quebec border and Autoroute 40 the rest of the way, is a little under 200 kilometres and takes about two hours in ordinary traffic. The two cities are close enough that people do the trip for a meeting and come home for dinner, and far enough that how you travel changes the day. Here is what the run is like by road, and an honest word about when the train is the better choice.

The road

Leaving Ottawa you take the Queensway east until it stops being the Queensway. Highway 417 runs out past Orleans, through farm country at Casselman and Vankleek Hill, and reaches the Quebec border where it becomes Autoroute 40. From there it is Rigaud, Vaudreuil, the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge onto the island of Montreal, and the western suburbs before the city proper. There are no tolls on the route.

The two hours is the middle of the trip. The variable is the ends. Ottawa's afternoon rush slows the first twenty minutes out, and Montreal's western approaches, the 40 through the West Island and the interchanges near Décarie, slow the last twenty coming in. A Journey that leaves Ottawa at 1 PM for a 4 PM meeting downtown is comfortable; one that leaves at 3 PM for a 5:30 PM meeting should allow an extra half hour at the Montreal end, and we book it that way.

What the car is for

The case for a chauffeured run is not speed. It is what the two hours become.

• A working two hours. A quiet sedan with a table of papers on the seat beside you is a meeting room that moves. Guests who make the trip for business routinely tell us the drive was the only uninterrupted stretch of their day.
• Door to door. The Journey starts at your door in Ottawa and ends at the exact address in Montreal: a boardroom on René-Lévesque, a hotel in Old Montreal, a house in Westmount, or the terminal door at Montreal-Trudeau with the bags beside you.
• The group. Three colleagues travel in the Lexus LS460L; six, with luggage, in the Lincoln Navigator L. One vehicle, one departure time, one conversation, and nobody is sitting apart.
• Your timetable. The car leaves when you are ready and comes back when the dinner ends, not when the last train does.
• The stop on the way. A pickup in Orleans, a drop in Vaudreuil, a Guest collected at the airport on the way out of Montreal: a chauffeured run bends around the people in it.

When the train wins

We would rather tell you this than have you find it out. VIA's Ottawa to Montreal service is a good train, with roughly five departures a day each way, and there are days it is the right call.

• You are travelling alone with a laptop bag, both ends of your trip are near the stations, and you have no stops to make. The train is simple and the time is similar.
• The weather is bad enough that the 40 is a question. A February storm closes or crawls the highway more readily than it stops the train. On those days we will say so when you book.
• Your Montreal day is all downtown on foot. Gare Centrale is in the middle of it; a car in downtown Montreal between meetings is a car looking for parking.

Two honest caveats about the train. Ottawa's station is at Tremblay Road, a drive from downtown in its own right, so the two hours on the rail is not two hours door to door. And the train's timetable is the train's; a dinner that runs late in Montreal is a night in Montreal.

The two trips, side by side

	Chauffeured car	VIA Rail
Door to door	Yes, both ends	Station to station, with a ride at each end
Time on the move	About 2 hours, plus the ends in rush hour	About 2 hours, plus getting to and from the stations
Working on the way	A quiet cabin, your own	A seat and a tray
Three to six people	One vehicle, together	Separate seats, separate tickets
Luggage	Beside you, handled	Carried, stowed, carried again
Leaving when you want	Yes	On the timetable
A bad-weather day	Slower, and we will say so	Usually the steadier choice

Winter on the 40

Quebec takes winter tires seriously. From December 1 to March 15, every passenger vehicle registered in Quebec must run tires designed for winter driving, under a regulation to the province's Highway Safety Code. The rule follows the vehicle's registration, so an Ontario-plated car is not breaking the law without them, but the stretch of Autoroute 40 between Rigaud and the island is an open, wind-blown highway where blowing snow and black ice do not read licence plates. Whoever drives you to Montreal in winter should be on winter tires regardless, and it is a fair question to ask.

Both provinces publish live road conditions through their 511 services, and we check them before a winter departure. When the forecast is poor, we suggest leaving earlier, and when the highway is genuinely in question we say so plainly rather than drive into it.

What this means for your Journey

Tell us three things when you book a Montreal run: what the day is for, how many Guests are travelling, and whether the plan might move. A meeting with a fixed hour gets a departure with the rush built in. A dinner gets a return that waits for you. A flight from Montreal-Trudeau gets the terminal door, the bags, and a cushion for the West Island at the hour you need it. And on the rare winter day when the train is the better idea, you will hear it from us first.