June 16, 2003
The Train Ride
I managed to somehow get up to leave the hostel at 7:30am, then trudged down to the train station with my bags. Got checked in fine, then noticed that the queue wasn't that large, perhaps economy would be the way to go I thought. I was right the carriage was empty, in fact I'm sure the majority were in Silver and Blue Class (i.e. they get a bed and free meals). So I got two seats to myself for the whole journey although I still didn't get a decent nights sleep, why do they make the armrests so hard?
I guess you need a brief overview of the journey, headed up out of Toronto and across Ontario, not the greatest of scenery but still very pleasant. Then came the delay, we stopped at this little town after Sudbury for 40 minutes, there really was nothing to see there except water, trees and dust tracks. Everyone gets back on the train and it moves forward a few yards, then stops for about 30 minutes. Eventually they announce that a freight train has de-railed on the track ahead, so what we're going to have to do is go back and try and get on another companies rails (CP as opposed to CN). I swear this train was being driven by Mussolini as it spent more time going backwards than forwards (actually that's not such a good gag as he did manage to get Italies trains to run on time, which is more than can be said for CN).
So I went to bed about 11pm as the train was going so slow and there was nothing to see, they did at least give us free juice and cookies as way of apology (I didn't really worry, as I wouldn't have been able to check into the hostel in Vancouver at 8am anyway). I should also say that it was around this point that the two old ladies at the front of my carriage started their repeated bickering which at times were completely contradictory. Examples:
Ooh, I don't like the bus trip, this train is so much more comfortable and you get to see so much more.
I don't like the train, I much prefer the bus, you see so much more.
I've just been up in the skycar, but I don't like it you can't see anything more up there compared to down here (hmm let me see now, the skycar is atop a train carriage and is all glass, you can therefore see all around and up into the sky, in the carriage you can see out the sides)
And quite frankly the best one:
Well I don't know why they just can't move the other train (because a derailed freight train in the middle of nowhere is probably real easy to get to and move isn't it now)
There were many other classics but I couldn't be bothered to keep track of them.
Continued:
The friday really didn't provide much else in the way of scenery bar more trees and water. However I did decide to go for a proper meal that night and got talking to a few English people (one old lady who now lives in Seattle and a young couple from somewhere down south). It was actually really good value and we got free wine due to the delays. Then before bed I decided to head up and watch the sunset from the skycar but we approached Winnipeg and all the lights came up so it was a little spoiled. Still after the hour or so stop in Winnipeg I headed back up to look up at an unspoilt night sky.
The saturday started off quite dull in scenery terms but picked up after Edmonton which we got to at 3pm (still way behind schedule). From then on we went into the Rockies which were absolutely spectacular. The big stop of the day was in Jasper at around 8pm, which meant I couldn't get a decent dinner like the night before (for some very boring details I won't go into). We picked up a few more passengers from Jasper and this meant some more great moaning (I should mention the old ladies got off on the Friday evening). I spent most of Saturday in the skycar, and we got all the way through to Mount Robson whilst it was still somewhat light. There was some other entertainment in the form of what can best be described as an Arthur Ridley-esque person with a Camcorder recording the entry into the Rockies with possibly the dullest voice over in history. The funniest moment came when he wasn't filming and quite authoratively told a couple of Americans that they used Kilometres in the US.
Night shot of the Rockies
The train finally pulled into Vancouver around 1pm on the Sunday afternoon, but there was still some wonderful scenery in the morning to be enjoyed from the skycar and they gave us free tea for the last three hours.
Posted by Alexis at June 16, 2003 10:32 PM