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".