Atlantic to Pacific By Rail

Prologue 1

I’d hoped that this blog site would be having regular updates by now with pandemic madness largely behind us but it just hasn’t happened. I don’t know why, it’s not as if I’m stuck in a lockdown stupor and haven’t been for some time. As the world has opened up again I’ve been doing stuff which might be of interest to other people but I feel that it has not been much different to what I was doing before. I’ve shared daily holiday blogs on Facebook but apart from the last blog, which was written five months ago, there’s been nothing I’ve done that has inspired me to return to Glad To Be Grey and get writing. Until now. I’m just back from what was an epic trip and if I can’t write a blog about this then I might as well give the site up.

Prologue 2

I first had the idea for this trip about a year ago. We had booked a holiday in Canada with our daughter for the summer of this year. This involved a rather indirect journey by air to and from Victoria in British Columbia where she resides. This got me wondering if there was any way to get to Victoria without using aircraft. The environmentalists will have you believe that your flight is directly responsible for the end of the world so maybe there’s a practical way to get there without killing your grandkids. The answer is of course no, so sorry grandkids, I’m still more than happy to take a plane (or four) to get to see my daughter and have a holiday. However, a seed was planted in my mind – travel to Victoria, which is 4,500 miles away from Troon, by surface transport. I soon found out it could be done and without too much difficulty. All I would need was a lot of time and a shedload of money. The plan was to get the train to Southampton and cross the Atlantic on the Queen Mary II. Once in New York I would cross the North American continent by train. There were a number of alternative routes I could have taken, even on a continent where rail travel is an afterthought. All itineraries would have ended in Vancouver where I would then have to get myself to the ferry terminal for a ferry to Vancouver Island where Rebecca would pick me up and transport me into the city of Victoria. This was a great idea, right up until I looked into the details for crossing the Atlantic on the QM2. The crossing takes seven days which is longer than is necessary as the ship could easily do it in five. Cunard want you to make a holiday if it apparently. The cheapest fare for a single occupancy cabin, presumably in the bilges, was in excess of £4000. Whilst I’m not averse to cruising holidays, four grand for a week of seeing nothing but ocean, and possibly a stormy ocean at that, was just too much. I came up with another idea.

What I would do was take the shortest possible flight to Canada which was Glasgow to Halifax, Nova Scotia. From there I would cross Canada by train to Vancouver, ending the journey to Victoria as mentioned above. The frustrated Travel Agent in me had a great time coming up with a suitable itinerary and I booked the trip in the early part of this year. The journey would be a solo one as Elaine really didn’t fancy spending five days on a train. In the summer, Canadian airline WestJet threw a spanner in the works by cancelling the Glasgow-Halifax flight. I rebooked myself with Air Canada from Heathrow to Halifax which included a connecting BA flight from Glasgow. Once in Halifax I’d spend a couple of days there before boarding the first of three different trains that would get me to Vancouver. It would take six days and six nights and get me from The Atlantic to The Pacific and as a bonus I’d arrive there on my birthday so Rebecca could buy me a beer.

The Ocean

Halifax – Montreal

Trains in Canada are not really like trains in Europe. They give them names and numbers for a start. Train Number 15 is called The Ocean. It runs from Halifax to Montreal just two times a week. It is scheduled to take a leisurely 22 hours and, thanks to the small problem of the US state of Maine being in the way, follows a far from direct track through the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec. Despite only servicing two arriving and two departing trains a week, Halifax has a pleasant station and it was to this I walked on Friday October 14th for the 1pm departure. My extra day in Halifax had proven essential as between them, British Airways, Heathrow Airport and Air Canada had failed to transport my bag to Halifax with me and it took another thirty hours or so for it to turn up. Until it did I had visions of it following me across Canada but never quite catching me up. The bag itself required checking in at Halifax Station so forward planning had been required to liberate sufficient items into a smaller bag to see me through the overnight journey to Montreal. The bag was duly tagged through to Toronto so I wouldn’t see it again for well over a day. I was advised that there was a lounge where sleeper passengers could relax before boarding. I found it, it was full of armchairs, a coffee machine and a fridge full of pop. One Diet Coke later and I got a bit bored and went back to the concourse where I confirmed my lunch and dinner sitting and waited for the boarding announcement. When it came I excitedly head for the train. Although the train was backed up right to the buffers, it was still a long walk to my carriage, or car as the Canadians (and me from now on) call it. These sleeper trains are long and along with two different types of sleeping car, consist of normal seating cars, restaurant car, lounge car and cars for the train staff. My car was a ‘modern’ Renaissance Class one. This meant it was nearly 30 years old. These cars had been built for Cross-Channel sleeper services through the Channel Tunnel and when those services failed to take off, the Canadians bought some of them specifically for The Ocean. They are getting a bit worn now but the advantage of these cars is that the cabins have en-suite facilities. They comfortably accommodate two people on generous seats in day mode and bunk beds at night. As there was only me it seemed rather spacious by sleeper cabin standards, not that I’ve got much experience in the matter.

The train pulled out of Halifax bang on time. Whilst the cabin was comfortable I soon left it and made my way to the Lounge Car. Whilst this sounds a lot grander than it actually was, it was light and airy and you could see out of both sides of the train. It also had WiFi which I was surprised about. This, however, depended on the local cellphone coverage and as Canada is big – I might have mentioned this in previous blogs – it was a bit hit and miss as to whether there was any service. I had chosen second sitting for lunch and was called through to the restaurant car at 2:45pm by which time I was rather peckish. Sleeper passengers have meals included in their fare. A soup, chowder in this case – was followed by a choice of main courses. I had chicken schnitzel salad and followed it up with a quite a large slab of carrot cake. It was rather filling for a lunch and I can safely say I wasn’t peckish once I’d finished it. Lunch done, I continued to watch Canada roll by. Whilst I had not booked this journey in October to specifically view the autumnal colours, I was delighted to see the full spectrum of red and gold foliage passing by, sometimes tantalisingly close to the window. There were a number of stops at places like Truro, Amherst and Moncton. There were also numerous ‘flag’ stops at smaller settlements. These appear in the timetable even though we passed most without stopping. Eventually the sun set and the second sitting for dinner was called. Soup or salad for starter, a choice of three mains – butter chicken for me – and pecan pie for dessert. Soft drinks were free with meals or you could pay for an alcoholic one so it was a beer for me which I could have had for free as we were out of range of data and the card machine wasn’t working. I paid the following morning. I’m too honest for my own good sometimes.

Eventually it was time for bed. The cabin had been transferred to night mode by the car attendant. It wasn’t the comfiest of beds. I found I could only sleep on my right hand side otherwise I was likely to fall out. The train rattles, rolls and is quite noisy but despite this I slept very well. That might have been down to medication I was taking for a cold I’d developed just as I was setting out for Canada a couple of days earlier. If it was the Canadian version of Night Nurse that resulted in me sleeping like a log then I’m mightily impressed. I woke up as the province of Quebec was passing outside, not that I could see much of it due to the morning mist. The clocks had also gone back an hour as I crossed into the second of five time zones on this trip. The en-suite was most welcome and fresh as a daisy I headed for breakfast. This is done on a first come, first served basis but I walked straight in. Breakfast is a big affair in Canada. Even I, who has a healthy appetite, couldn’t manage it all. Eventually the mist burnt off to reveal flat farmland and trees that were somehow even more spectacular than those I’d seen the previous day. Eventually we found ourselves in the suburbs of Montreal and crossing the mighty St Lawrence River, we pulled into Montreal Central Station, arriving an hour late just shy of 11am local time. This was a bit of a shame as I had hoped to get myself on the 11am train to Toronto but it was pulling out of the adjacent platform as I headed to the main concourse.

The Corridor

Montreal – Toronto

I had a couple of hours to kill before the 1:23pm train to Toronto. It was a nice day so I had a bit of a wander round Montreal, at least the bit of the city near the station. I got to see Notre Dame which, unlike its namesake in Paris, appears to not be fire damaged. However, the train was calling so I headed back to the station and awaited train number 67. Whilst this specific service does not have a name, all trains that run between Quebec City in the north to Windsor Ontario in the south are called Corridor trains. Trains linking Montreal and Toronto make up the bulk of these services with five or six of them a day connecting Canada’s two largest cities. The one I was on was scheduled to take five hours ten minutes. The train itself was much the same as trains in the UK and Europe. 2-2 seating in economy/second class, a trolly service for drinks and snacks and a couple of business/first class cars at one end of the train. It was busy too with most seats in my car taken. I was happy to see my checked bag had been transferred from The Ocean directly to one of the luggage stacks in my car. We pulled out of Montreal on time and headed southeasat. A brief stop at Dorval, for Montreal Airport, turned into rather longer one than anticipated but once we got a green signal we were soon rattling along at an impressive 95mph. Both Quebec and then Ontario continued to deliver on the autumn colours for much of the journey. We followed the St Lawrence and then the western shore of Lake Ontario but only saw them fleetingly as the train tried, and failed, to make up for the time lost at Dorval. It was a comfortable enough journey. The train itself was unremarkable though there appeared to be quite a few on board for whom train travel was a novelty. We pulled into Toronto’s Union Station fifteen minutes late which was a bit of a shame as I had a hockey game to go to and it was due to start at 7pm. I grabbed my bags and set off for my accommodation for the night. It was close to the station, as was the arena but unfortunately they were in opposite directions. A quick check-in and a dumping of the bags later, I hot-footed it to the Scotiabank Arena to see the Toronto Maple Leafs play the Ottawa Senators. I was sweating profusely by the time I made it to my seat which was way up in the gods. I only missed five minutes of action so I consider it a result. Speaking of results, the Maple Leafs won, 3-2.

My accommodation happened to be a hostel. Whilst I’m not really the hostel type – actually, I’m not even remotely the hostel type – this one had private rooms with facilities. With hotel prices for a Saturday night in Toronto being insanely expensive, especially when the hockey is on, I felt it was worth the risk of encountering caftan wearing, weed-smoking young people singing protest songs badly to get a bed for the night for seventy quid. I was right. The rooms were in a separate building to the dorms, were perfectly comfortable and I got a decent night’s rest. I decided to forgo the included breakfast though as I thought it might be a bit heavy on the avocado and oat milk.

The Canadian

The following morning I went through the rigmarole of sorting out luggage before heading back to the station for the next, and mightiest part of the journey. This was the 9:55am departure from Union Station to Vancouver aboard train Number 1, The Canadian. This takes 97 hours, traverses four time zones and five different provinces. It runs twice a week on a Sunday and Wednesday and passes through dozens of stations on the way. As with The Ocean, most of these are flag stops but there are plenty of compulsory stops too, due to a strict twelve hour working rule for the ‘engineers’, or drivers as we call them in the UK.

It might be worth a paragraph to explain a bit about the Canadian railway system here. Passenger trains in Canada are run by a state owned company called VIA Rail. Prior to 1978 the two rail companies, privately owned Canadian Pacific and state owned (since privatised) Canadian National had provided passenger services but these were experiencing huge losses since the early sixties when the Trans Canada Highway was completed. Having divested themselves of passenger services, the two companies concentrated on the highly profitable freight market. They retained ownership of nearly all the rail infrastructure and as such VIA Rail has to pay them to gain access to the tracks. The upshot of this is VIA Rail’s passenger services on all but the Corridor play second fiddle to freight. The Canadian uses the CN line which runs further north than its CP counterpart. For virtually its entire length this is a single track with passing loops. These passing loops are long as they have to accommodate freight trains which can be over two miles in length. They come around so frequently you wonder why they don’t just connect them all up and make it a much more efficient twin-track system. With a top speed of 70mph being achieved infrequently, extended stops for driver changes and refuelling, stops at passing loops and some bizarre shunting required to access certain stations, the whole 2775 miles from Toronto to Vancouver is covered at an average speed of 28.6 mph. The bullet train it is not.

A far more leisurely stroll than the previous evening’s rush to Toronto Union Station, which is a very impressive building, meant I pitched up an hour before departure. As in Halifax there is a Business Class lounge where sleeper passengers could check in. It seemed very busy. Having done the necessary paperwork I went and deposited my suitcase with the baggage people and hoped I would see it again in Vancouver. Back in the lounge I wondered just how busy the train would be as the lounge itself was barely able to cope. I needn’t have worried. Once boarding was called, I caught a first glimpse of the train. It was huge. Twenty-two Stainless Steel cars, built in the 1950s, hauled by two diesel locomotives. The Canadian has four passenger classes. At the front of the train is the baggage car and two cars for the Economy (seating) passengers. Some of those seating passengers would do the entire journey to Vancouver including one woman with a large dog called Ellie. They are braver folk than me. Towards the rear were two Prestige sleeping cars each containing six luxury cabins with en-suite facilities. Behind that was the Park Car, a very well appointed lounge for the Prestige passengers with its own upstairs dome and a unique bullet shaped rear providing panoramic views of where you’d just been. Unfortunately Transport Canada, the regulator for all things public transport, had decided that this was unsafe and this particular journey was the first that required an extra empty car behind the Park car to serve as a buffer thereby spoiling the view. Between the economy and prestige sections lay the bulk of the cars which housed the sleeper passengers. There were approximately ten sleeping cars. Accommodation in each consisted of six double cabins, four singles, one of which was reserved for the car manager, and six semi-private bunk berths with night time privacy provided by heavy curtains. Passengers in these cars had access to two restaurant cars and two Skyline cars. The Skyline cars had a lounge area and a panorama dome upstairs. A third Skyline car was provided for the Economy passengers. There was another car for the train staff and I’ve possibly missed a few more so suffice it to say it was a long train. Almost half a mile long, yet still dwarfed by the endless freight trains we would pass.

For my trip I had chosen a cabin for one. A Prestige cabin would have been nice but as they were all for two people the cost might have been prohibitive and they had all sold out when I came to book the trip anyway. Having been shown my cabin by car manager Gerard I was left to get acquainted with it. It was, well, bijou. In day mode there was a seat and a footrest. A sink was tucked up in the corner and that was about it. There was a solid sliding door and also heavy curtains which seemed like overkill but I’d soon find out why. But wait! What’s this? Lifting the lid of the footrest up revealed your own personal toilet. Erm, okay… For the night a bed is pulled down from the rear of the cabin and it takes up virtually all the space in the cabin. That included covering the toilet rendering it unusable at night unless you went to the faff of putting the bed up before you used it and back down again afterwards. I never used my personal loo at all, day or night, preferring the public ‘washroom’ at the end of the car. It seemed more hygienic to dispose of one’s body waste somewhere other than place you sat and slept. With the bed down there was hardly any floor space to stand. With the hard door open and the curtains closed you could expand slightly out into the corridor which helped when you were getting ready for bed. The hard door could be locked from the inside only. Leaving valuables in the cabin took a bit of a leap of faith at first but by the end of the trip iPhones were being left on charge unattended in open rooms, corridors and sometimes in the washroom shaver sockets. Apparently there have been no reports of things being stolen on The Canadian ever.

Day One: Toronto – Hornepayne

We pulled out of Union Station on schedule at 9:55am. For the first hour or so the train passes through largely unremarkable suburbs of Toronto. Some backing up and other jiggery-pokery was required to get us onto the correct track out of the city. It was an inauspicious start but gave me a chance to discover where everything was. I soon worked out that the Skyline car was the place I’d spend most of my conscious hours on board the train. The cabin was comfortable enough but as with The Ocean, it only gave access to one window. The Skyline had a couple of spacious areas to sit and, of course, the best part of the train, the panoramic dome. Twenty-four seats with views forward, backwards, left, right and even up thanks to its full length curved windows. In short, you could sit there completely surrounded by Canada. The dome could get busy at times but only rarely was full. The car had its own steward who would organise events and double as a barman. Tea and coffee were always available along with a few snacks. Soft and alcoholic drinks were available for purchase. Meals were arranged in two sittings, I was on the second today. Whilst the first sitting were being fed the Skyline car hostess gave those of us in the dome a talk about the history of the railway and more details of what to expect. There was no WiFi on the train. Contact with the outside world was restricted to Canada’s notoriously expensive cellphone data network which for long periods of the journey was unsurprisingly absent. By the time the second sitting was called to lunch we had left Toronto behind and passing through rural Ontario dotted with small settlements. As on The Ocean, lunch was a three course affair with a rather good cannelloni as the main. I wasn’t going to go hungry on this train either. In fact my emergency rations were barely touched by the time I reached Vancouver. We passed Parry Sound, a small town notable as being the birthplace of hockey legend Bobby Orr. Our first scheduled stop, where we could get off and stretch our legs, was in Caperol. Leaving there marked the beginning of the Canadian Shield. This is a vast area between the St Lawrence lowlands and the prairies. It is largely made up of boreal forest and ancient pre-Cambrian rock. Think lakes and trees then multiply that by several million and you’ll get the idea. Although we were leaving the vivd autumnal reds of Eastern Canada behind, the scenery was spectacular in a wild and unspoilt sort of way. Canada has many ‘Back of Beyonds’, the Canadian Shield is one of them that not many people know about. Eventually the light faded and the second sitting for dinner was called, steak and mash was the main. Unlike The Ocean, I was put on any table that happened to have a space which meant socialising with other people. As a shy, retiring type I felt a bit uneasy about this. I’m a silly sod. It was fine. We all had stories to tell including me. Eventually it was time for bed. The car steward Gerard had made up the bed as I ate. I hadn’t yet discovered the knack for getting changed without any floor to stand on but I managed it. It was time to sleep…

Day Two – Hornepayne – Winnipeg

(Hornepayne was a technical stop in the middle of the night. I wasn’t tempted to step out and discover if it had anything to offer.) I had a terrible night. Whilst the bed was comfy enough and the bedding very nice, it could do nothing to stop all the rattling and racket of the train. My cabin was right over one of the car’s bogies and I felt every rough bit of track and there was plenty of that. To cap it all we had moved into another time zone so there was an extra hour in bed to endure. I needed to get out of bed and wander down the corridor to the toilet a couple of times (still better than trying to use the one in the room) and peeking out of the window the ground appeared to have taken on a white hue. Eventually nighttime became daytime and it became obvious that snow was covering the ground. Not much, but enough to turn an autumn Canadian Shield into a winter one. I pulled on some clothes and headed for breakfast. It’s first come, first served and I was stuck on a wait list. I went up into the dome, where ice on the window was spoiling the forward views, and waited. For quite a long time as it happens. I had either been forgotten about or not heard my name being called. So it was a late breakfast and last dibs for the day’s meal sittings which were being allocated by the waiting staff. It was to be first sitting or nothing which meant lunch would be only two hours after breakfast. It was an inauspicious start to my second day on The Canadian. However, things soon picked up. Each sleeping car has its own shower and it was pretty good. Refreshed, I headed back to the dome to watch a wintery looking Canadian Shield go by. It was really quite spectacular. Sure enough lunch came all too soon and in the early afternoon we came to a standstill in the only town for miles around, Sioux Lookout. It was time for a stretch of the legs again. The temperature was a chilly -4C with some light snowfall. Despite this, I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to walk, even if it was only up and down the side of the train. With the new engineers arriving late, our stay there was a bit longer than anticipated but the bonus was the town has 4G and I was able to check in with home before we re-entered the data desert. Once they had turned up, the engineers moved us out of Sioux Lookout and it was more hours of the Canadian Shield, the snow eventually running out and returning the Shield to autumn once more. In the evening we finally managed to escape the surprisingly huge province of Ontario and enter Manitoba but the Shield hadn’t finished. As I watched the sun set over the front of the train, I actually felt very much at peace with a world that was gently rolling past me, increasingly unseen. We rolled into Winnipeg at about 9pm. The stop there was a couple of hours so I got off and went for a wander. Although the station is in the city, there wasn’t much to see at that time of the evening. It was -2C too so I spent most of the time in the station building which was quite impressive. Soon though it was back on board to see if I’d have a better night’s sleep.

Day Three – Winnipeg-Edmonton

The train had a crew change at Winnipeg. Most of the onboard crew are based there. A new car manager introduced himself before I settled down for the night. I had a great night’s sleep, despite the same noise and motion problems as before. It might have had something to do with me taking another couple of Canadian Night Nurse capsules before lights out. I don’t think they should really be used as sleeping pills but never mind. The another hour had been added to the clock overnight and as I went for breakfast, we left the province of Manitoba and entered Saskatchewan. Today was Prairie day. Lying between the Canadian Shield and the Rockies are the Prairies, a vast area of lowlands and plains, largely grassland and very fertile. Despite leaving a good bit of it behind overnight, it would still take us the rest of the day to cross it. There were several introductions to the new crew members and I definitely felt as though I was getting into the swing of things as far as train living was concerned. We stopped for a couple of hours in Saskatoon. The station was out of town by a rather ugly logistics hub but it was good to stretch the legs in the cool sunshine. It took yet more reversing and waiting before we could get going again but you’ve just got to accept that that is the way with Canadian railways. Prairie day had always been a bit of a concern to me. Would I be bored crossing endless flatlands with nothing but the occasional grain elevator to relive the monotony? The answer to that was a great big no! I absolutely loved the day. The dome car was quiet so I got my preferred seat and spent virtually all day there, pausing only to have lunch. I simply lost myself in the enormity of the place. It was big country and even bigger sky. And whilst it certainly didn’t have the spectacular scenery of the Rockies or the Shield, the beauty was in the detail – a car graveyard, a Ukrainian Orthodox church, a small town with a Scottish sounding name and yes, the grain elevators. Grain is no longer transported by rail but the elevators remain, discharging vast quantities of grain into trucks, the town where they are situated proudly displayed on the side. There was even an old wooden elevator, no longer used but a reminder of an earlier, more innocent time. Eventually we passed from Saskatchewan to Alberta where nothing much changed, other than the addition of some nodding donkeys to the scene. Oil production is done on a micro scale here, such is the desire for Black Gold. As the sun set over the distant horizon it was time for dinner and socialising again. Interesting people, good food. Where else could you join in a discussion about the differences between Rugby Union, Rugby League and Aussie Rules Footie with a larger than life Australian lady and a couple from Vancouver? As we finished our dessert, the amount of lights outside the train informed us that we were approaching Edmonton. It still took an age to get to the station but once there we could stretch our legs in the late evening air. The station was a pretty soulless place. Edmonton’s city centre station, an impressive building by all accounts, is no more and the city is now served by something akin to a Portacabin on an industrial estate well out of town. It served as the destination for quite a few folk though, and the starting point for others. By the time we departed at midnight, I was already in bed. The next day was the one everyone was looking forward to, crossing the mighty Rockies.

Day Four – Edmonton – Kamloops

It was a patchy night’s sleep and I awoke at 5-30am as the train ground to a halt in the town of Jasper having arrived an hour ahead of schedule. There was a long stop here which would have been really nice if it had been scheduled later in the day when the town opened up. There was one enterprising gift shop that opened up along with a coffee shop but most of the town would remain in their slumbers until the train left. It’s a shame as it looked like a nice place. However, it was Rockies day and although we’d passed through quite a lot of them during the night, there was still plenty of Rocky action to come. The dome promised to extra busy today so I ignored the normal big breakfast and grabbed a few buffet items, claiming my seat early. It was a long wait until we set off. By then the place was understandably packed. The sun had risen over the mountains whilst we were stopped at Jasper giving us a preview of what was to come. It was, of course, fantastic. Mountains, trees, rivers, waterfalls, lakes and the regular sight of passing shipping containers heading eastwards on massive freight trains. Strangely enough, those didn’t spoil the view. What did spoil the view a bit was all the people in the dome car. It is perfectly understandable that they wanted to get the perfect photo but didn’t they know the I wanted to get the perfect photo too? After a while I decamped downstairs to the lounge area which was almost empty. You don’t get the stunning panoramic views that you get in the dome but at least there was no one jumping in front of me when another beautiful mountain gently sauntered past the window. After an early lunch I returned to a less busy dome car and spent most of the afternoon there. Emerging from the Rockies, we were told to put our watches back an hour as we entered the Pacific time zone. Finally I was in the same time zone as Rebecca in Victoria. The scenery remained spectacular, just not quite as spectacular as the Rockies. I became quite obsessed with the telegraph poles. Long since redundant, these poles, many with the wires still strung between them, once lined the entire track. Many of them remain in the Canadian Shield but they had all more or less gone from the Prairies. I suspect they were a valuable source of firewood for the harsh winters they have there. I was glad to see them back as we passed through the Rockies. Some have collapsed, some wires have snapped but many remain upright supporting cables that transmitted their last message many years ago. Eventually we started seeing signs of civilisation with some cultivated fields and isolated villages. This gave way to bigger settlements as we entered the furthest reaches of the town of Kamloops. As usual it took a lot of waiting and backing up to get into Kamloops. The town is a major railhead and the station part of the shunting yards so we were under strict instructions to remain on the platform. This was the last stop before journey’s end in Vancouver. There was to be just one last night onboard The Canadian.

Day Five – Kamloops – Vancouver – Victoria

I slept reasonably well. The route from Kamloops to Vancouver has, apparently some spectacular bits to it as it follows the Fraser River for much of the way. You don’t get to see that at night of course but I guess it’s nice to know it’s there. I woke at 6am just as the train pulled into Vancouver’s Pacific Central Station. It was two hours early! I suspect the schedule has the inevitable delays built into it. We had to disembark the train by 8am so there was time to pack and for the usual morning activities concerning ablutions and breakfast. Then, at 7-45am on October 20th, my 61st birthday, I stepped down from the train and headed up the platform to the main concourse. No bells and whistles, no ceremony, that was it. The rail trip was over. It wasn’t quite the end of the journey though. Collecting my suitcase, I walked a mile or so to one of Vancouver’s Transit stations, went on the Skytrain for a few stops, transferred onto a bus which took me to the BC Ferries terminal at Tsawwassen and bought a foot passenger ticket to Swartz Bay. The Spirit of British Columbia was the ferry charged with the task of navigating through the Gulf Islands to Vancouver Island and once there, Rebecca was waiting for me with her 18 year old Volkswagen Beetle, Frog. We stopped in the town of Sidney for lunch and that birthday beer before heading to my hotel in downtown Victoria. It was just a short walk from there to Milepost Zero, the start (or end) of the Trans Canada Highway. Although the other Milepost Zero is in St Johns, Newfoundland rather than my starting point in Halifax, and I’d crossed the country by train, not car, it seemed a fitting place to take an end of trip selfie there with the Strait of Juan da Fuca, part of the Pacific Ocean in the background. Atlantic to the Pacific by surface transport, TICK.

Postscript

It is hard to convey to you just how much I enjoyed this journey. Of course it isn’t a practical way of travelling between Troon and Victoria. After a few days with Rebecca it took me about 23 hours from leaving my hotel to walking through my front door at home. In that time I’d flown from Victoria – Calgary – London – Glasgow including a cheeky little Business Class upgrade between Calgary and London for less than half the cost of the flight out and train fares. Even if environmentalism is your thing, I can’t imagine five days on a diesel hauled train releases any less CO2 than nine hours on a Boeing 787. I didn’t take the trip for practical reasons though. The journey was the experience and for me, an experience like no other I’ve had before. I found myself getting quite emotional about the colours of the Autumn trees. I was surprised at the size of the Canadian Shield. I already knew the Rockies were spectacular but there’s nothing wrong being reminded of the fact. The biggest surprise to me, however, was just how much I enjoyed the day in the Prairies, a place where the Earth seems infinite and the skies even bigger! It wasn’t just the sights though. The staff on board both long distance trains were lovely. A special mention to the Skyline Car host on the Winnipeg – Vancouver section, Edgard, who made our days through the Prairies and Rockies even better with his knowledge and friendliness. If you ever go on this trip here’s a tip – tip! Some tipped as they went, others at the end. We Brits aren’t particularly au fait with the concept of tipping but I tipped the restaurant staff, sleeper car host and the Skyline car host before Winnipeg where the crew changes and in Vancouver when the trip ended. Another aspect of a journey like this was meeting fellow travellers. On the Ocean this wasn’t an issue as it was lightly loaded and most people kept themselves to themselves. At meals I had a table to myself and there was no dome car where people would mix during the day. On The Canadian the only way to avoid mixing with the other passengers was to stay in your cabin for the entire trip. I met some very interesting people on the way. I’m not the most gregarious of people but I enjoyed the interaction with the other passengers. Most were from Canada and the USA. There was a smattering of Aussies and Germans. One Austrian couple were on honeymoon. Surprisingly, I think I was the only Brit in our section of the train though there was an Irish chap so full of the Blarney that he knew everyone’s name and life story by the time we reached the Canadian Shield. Whilst most were towards the older end of the age spectrum and travelling in pairs, there were plenty of other solo travellers, from a young Chinese girl in her early twenties to Enid, a similar age to the only other Enid I know (my mum), who was travelling as far as Edmonton in one of the curtained bunk beds.

So, the sights, people, food and drink were great. Were there any downsides? Well yes, sleep on board a train is not the easiest. My previous experience was on the Caledonian Sleeper and I didn’t find it easy then, despite being upgraded to the best accommodation on the train. Trains are noisy, rattly and bounce around a lot. I shouldn’t be surprised at this but during the day you tend not to notice. Lying in your bed at night trying to get to sleep you do. Having said that, only one of the five nights I spent on the two trains was particularly bad. It is the price you have to pay for the full experience. Another thing to consider is that whilst tourists make up the bulk of the passengers, this is not a tourist train. The scenic highlight is, of course, the Rockies yet we passed through a good part of it at night. Then we stopped in Jasper for several hours whilst it was closed. If the Rockies is your reason for going on this train, consider The Rocky Mountaineer. That is a tourist train and is scheduled to run in daylight hours and any night stops are spent in hotels on the way. However, it wasn’t just about the Rockies for me, it was about the entire journey from Atlantic to Pacific and for that I can have no complaints. I loved it.