Today we boarded The Canadian train, on the last day of its journey from Toronto to Vancouver, boarding at Jasper. An early start to check the luggage in meant we had plenty of time for breakfast since the train was already delayed – quite normal in Canada given the majority of rail traffic is goods trains.
Once we had eaten and packed our overnight bags, we returned to the station and shortly after arriving the train appeared. However, it needed to be cleaned which meant all passengers needed to get off for an hour. Plenty of time for taking pictures of trains!
The Canadian consists of 22 cars and engines (at least, this one did because it picked up an additional engine, making 3, which needed to be taken to Vancouver for repair) and has a mix of economy, sleeper and premium coaches, dining cars, and the famous glass roof areas – our train had 5 of these. At the back of the train is another viewing car.
Our coach (113) was attended by Mike, who was 28 years into his career with Via Rail, and had plans to retire – 2, 7 and 10. In 2 years he could retire with heavy penalties, in 7 years with a slap on the wrist and in 10 years with full pension. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but would decided in 7 years.
Once onboard we found our two cabins (113 B and C) and spent long while investigating how capacious they were – or not.
We then headed towards the front of the train and found the dining car, with a free table for brunch – so we stopped here and ate. Not bad food actually, but then this was the dining car for those not in economy (who had to make do with a very simple menu from an onboard café).
The view from the windows varied, but seemed to have 2 themes – either immense views of mountains, or close-up rock faces (obviously of cuttings).
Once brunched we went to one of the viewing areas and grabbed a table for four at the front of the area, giving the best views ahead. At first the viewing areas seemed busy, but quickly people left and it was no trouble at all getting our preferred seats whenever we returned.
An afternoon watching the view whiled away the time until our dinner reservation at 5pm. The food was again pretty good, a three-course meal with wine. The strawberry cake was particularly good.
After dinner we returned to our viewing spot, played cards, watched it get dark and then planned to get off the train briefly at Kamloops – unfortunately we were still delayed so we decided to go to bed (rather than stand on a platform of a station in the dark, and probably surrounded by insects of the biting kind). We’d let Mike know we wanted our cabin turned into night mode, with beds readied and chairs stowed, so when we returned at 9ish we found the rooms ready for sleep. Unfortunately this meant there was virtually no room in the cabin to move. Nor, as I then found out, was there sufficient space to sleep for me, as the best was 180cm long – not sure where the remaining 14cm was meant to go. Not a lot of sleep was had….
