Train 2: the last breakfast

Before going to sleep I changed my watch forward one hour. We’re now on eastern time, and I am back in my native time zone. However, there are still many more kilometres to cover. I walk back to the restaurant car, having decided that for my last day on-board the Canadian, I should treat myself to the proper sit down breakfast just one more time. Outside, raindrops are falling horizontally against the windows of our carriage. I recall that the last time I was in Toronto it rained as well. I hope my second visit isn’t marred as well.

It’s a short walk back to the ‘Fairholme’ restaurant car, through our Skyline car and three sleepers. It appears that the first two are the ones that are running light with our train, because there are no signs of occupation on board. I get to the restaurant a little before 06.30, and find one table already partly occupied by some of the friendly faces from coach class. It seems I am not the only one up front who has decided it’s not worth eating a picnic breakfast today.

Each splashes out, and I go for fruit yoghurt followed by French toast. My dining companions are excited to be drinking real coffee again, not the slightly harsher liquid served from our take out counter. We talk about our journeys: one girl is going to a conference in Montréal, another is returning to Halifax at the end of a thirty day North America Rail Pass trip like me, and the third is an English student, touring Canada with her bicycle. She has yet to decide whether to get off the train in Parry Sound this evening to cycle and camp, or stay on board as far as Toronto and stay with friends: the weather is likely to decide for her. As the coffee flows, the conversation picks up energy. Much amusement is being derived throughout the car from the pair of loud Brits in our car (brothers it seems, both easily identifiable thanks to a identical wardrobes and goatee beards). They seem to be trying hard but failing to make friends with members of the opposite sex while on the train. Might have something to do with their opening line being “Hello. You’re pretty.” I carry a great deal of shame and embarrassment for Great Britain.

Our table is served today by a pair of young employees, who one reveals are on their first proper tour of duties. My order is fluffed to begin with, and I’m delivered pancakes instead of French toast, but since everyone on the table has had waiting experience and is about the same age as our servers, we are more than happy to wait. Strange how the older you get, the angrier people like to get with waiting staff. I’m more than happy to leave a tip for the friendly service.

Train 2: sunset over Ontario

Train 2: third and final night

I sink back into my book, and watch the sun go down on northern Ontario. I’ve been warned before that while beautiful, this stretch will seem like the longest part of my trip. I am already glazing over as we pass forest after lake after forest after lake after forest etc. This thinly populated region is in the heart of the Canadian Shield, and it marks a period of the trip with few guaranteed stops.

I make myself another bagel (“ooo… salami and cheese, no there’s a combination I’ve not had before”) and head back to the lounge car to read some of the newspapers that have accumulated there. I start talking with the man who nearly missed the train because of a choice between Dijon mustard and mayonnaise. He works in construction, and lives near Guelph, Ontario. We’re both very familiar with the business of building houses, only he reminds me how little I know about the most reliable way of pouring concrete. We compare how our professions differ, and talk about life in Canada. Wherever I go in the world, I like to ask myself “How would it be to live here.” I’ve been doing this even more in Canada than I have elsewhere, and while it may add up on paper I’ve yet to be absolutely convinced. As he points out, the high tax economy is not the best for someone who works hard and puts in a lot of overtime. I later think to myself that it would be fairly easy to ease off on hard work and overtime, though, if pressed…

During our conversation I spy a beautiful sunset out of the opposite window. I run back to get my camera, and for once on this trip I don’t miss it. The obligatory appropriation of every beautiful sky or landscape continues.

I finish the day with a hot chocolate from the take out counter beneath the Skyline observation dome, and talk for a little while with two French girls, one from Montréal, the other from Lille in France. They’re desperate to speak English while on holiday, and I’m desperate to speak French before I forget everything I’ve learnt in the last six months. We come to a mutual compromise, and speak Franglais for the rest of the conversation. My eyes are getting heavy by 23.30, and I decide to go to bed.

Or rather, go back to my seat. I suspect that re-adapting to sleeping coach class will take some time.

Train 2: Sioux Lookout

We reach Sioux Lookout just before seven o’clock in the evening – incredibly we’ve made up almost forty-five minutes and are now just fifteen behind schedule. This is the next major stop for the ‘Canadian’ and there’s fifteen minutes for me to hop off the train and do a walk to the end of the carriages while the train is fuelled up. Some passengers have crossed over to Sioux Lookout’s main street to get food from the local stores or sandwiches from the town’s ‘Subway’ franchise. Our attendant explains that fifteen minutes means fifteen minutes, and they scamper off.

My walk to the end of the train takes significantly more effort and time than it did on the ‘Hudson Bay’ but it’s worth it for the exercise. Along the train at every open door stands a VIA Rail attendant, smartly dressed in a uniform with a small yellow step on the ground. Each says hello or asks how I am… these people do not miss a beat. Amtrak would do well to send some of their on-board crew for a railroad holiday in Canada to pick up some useful tips.

I reach the end of the train and talk to a couple who are going on to Halifax. They’re travelling in the luxurious ‘Silver & Blue’ class, and we chat standing next to the elegant streamlined Park car at the end of the train. We joke about how VIA Rail like to keep some distance between the cheap seats up front and the classy folk at the back. I make my excuses (namely that I’ve got a long walk back to my coach) and head back to the front of the train. Everyone, it seems, has re-boarded, and it’s just left to the coach attendant to stall the anxious locomotive driver as he yells “all aboard!” at an ever louder volume to the stragglers coming back from town. The steps are lifted up, the door is closed and the conductor calls ‘highball’ over the radio to the engineers, the signal that we’re safe to leave.

But as the train starts to roll, something is not right. The seat behind me is empty, and along with a girl across the aisle, we realise someone has been left behind. Just as we call down the carriage to the conductor, our missing passenger appears off to our left. Leaping like a startled hare, the man is flying across the dusty yard beside the track. His feet barely touch the ground, and when they do they send small puffs of dust up into the air. Moving like an Olympic athlete, he leaps over the sidings, leather coat flying out behind him, one arm in the air, the other holding onto a ‘Subway’ sandwich bag. Frantic radio calls are made, and the train is able to come to a halt within the station. A small cheer goes up as our nearly abandoned fellow passenger walks, breathless, down the aisle. It’s a beautiful moment.

We start up once more, and continue on our way. The army may teach you to never leave a man behind. But VIA Rail have timetabled slots along stretches of single track to keep to. So next time you use a smoking stop to go and buy a sandwich, be sure to avoid those pretentious ‘fresh’ sandwich bars where the server asks you more questions than you’d answer in a driving test.

Train 2: Malachi

The flat fields of Manitoba begin to disappear, and we enter the forests that will lead us into north-western Ontario, the province that train 2 spends the most time in on it’s journey across the country. We make a request stop at the pretty little lakeside halt of Malachi to let one passenger off. As the train pulls away I see her standing back from the track with a suitcase by her side and a big smile on her face. She joins the thick album of mental snapshots I have of people who wave as we go past. Top honour in that category, unfortunately for her, goes to the UPS delivery driver who drove past me while on the California Zephyr somewhere in Utah a few weeks ago. As he overtook the train on a long dusty road, he gave a wave and a friendly smile to all of us along the length of the train through his open sliding door. Thirty minutes later I saw him going the other way, still waving, still smiling.

Seen from a train: pylons

Train 2: like an old friend

I collect my bags and return to the waiting lounges in the VIA Rail ticket hall. It’s a great shame that most of the large railway stations I’ve been in on this tour offer you very little preview of the tracks that you board your train on. Travelling by train is a special event, and it’s rather disappointing to always be herded through waiting rooms and ticket halls that are separated from the tracks by escalators or stairs. When train 2 does pull in, about one hour late, everyone is informed of it’s arrival by the immense sound of heavy cars clanking over tracks above our heads.

The lounge areas here are divided for sleeper car passengers and coach passengers. Both sides are pretty full, and they get busier as the passengers who’ve stepped off the train for a short break re-join us for boarding. The platforms are closed off at Winnipeg in between disembarkation and boarding so that the platform crew can service the train. Winnipeg is also a VIA Rail crew base, so the entire on board team is changing here. Winnipeg based crew operate on three roundtrip routes: to Toronto and back, to Vancouver and back, and to Churchill and back. Less experienced staff generally work without an ‘assignment’ – meaning that they do not know until a day or two before their next departure where they’ve been scheduled to work. Tara, my chef and sleeper attendant on my last two trains, told me how this was her first season with an assignment, and therefore with the benefit of knowing where and when she would be working next.

Just after 12.05, a boarding call is made for the sleeper car passengers. This causes much commotion in our coach lounge, and of course the human instinct prevailed: we all form a neat line ready by the gate for when it’s our turn. I recognise a few faces who had been one or more of my preceding trips on train 2: our overlapping and interweaving itineraries make for enjoyable brief friendships that come and go.

A few minutes later, the gate opens, and the neat orderly line gradually transforms into an eager rush to get on the train, and to find ‘good’ seats. Most people seem to have differing opinions of what a ‘good’ seat is, so to be honest there probably isn’t much need for rushing. I emerge onto the platform to find train 2 occupying significantly more of the length of the tracks than train 692 had this morning. Like a long silvery snake (hey, no criticism, it’s hard finding synonyms for a big long silver train) the front and back ends of train 2 dwarf the length of the station shed, stretching almost to the ends of the platforms.

I later saved myself a long walk, and got the attractive sounding roster of our train from my coach attendant. The train consists of:

Two locomotives, baggage car, coach, coach (me), Skyline (dome), Jarvis Manor (sleeper), Draper Manor (sleeper), Lorne Manor (sleeper), Skyline (dome), Fairholme (restaurant), Blair Manor (sleeper), Douglas Manor (sleeper), Macdonald Manor (sleeper), Chateau Vercheres (sleeper), Skyline (dome), Kent (restaurant), Amherst Manor (sleeper), Drummond Manor (sleeper), Dawson Manor (sleeper) and the Banff Park car.

Two of the first sleepers were ‘dead-heading’. It took some further polite questioning to work out that this meant they’re empty, running without staff or paying passengers. This does mean, however, that every crew member should have a bed to sleep in, which always makes for happier crew.

I find a seat that meets my amateur’s definition of a ‘good’ one (un-obscured window, middle of the car, away from the doors and axles) and settle in. I’m mostly surrounded by continuing passengers from Vancouver and Edmonton, but a number of people get on Winnipeg. This car has an interesting mix of younger travellers and older passengers. A friendly coach attendant checks my ticket, and we’re soon on our way, running about one hour behind our schedule.

I’ve chosen a very warm day to be leaving ‘Canada’s Chicago’. As we turn to cross the Red River through a beautiful old steel bridge, our welcome announcements begin and I head to the dome car behind my coach. We running along a track that is now heading straight east out of Winnipeg, on an embankment that affords me an even better view from the raised viewing section of the Skyline car. We skim along the treetops of St. Boniface, and the green suburbs eventually give way to the suburban commercial and industrial strips. Even out here, everything is somehow green: roadside tracts of grass and the tree lined streets are in full colour, and under a blue sky it feels good to be back on a fast train again. Winnipeg’s eastern freight yards pass us by to out left, and continuing along a dead straight stretch of track, we begin to pick up speed.

I’ve substituted the inhospitable true north of Canada for the prairies that I know and love. In doing so, it’s amusing to notice that I’ve also substituted an entirely Canadian group of fellow passengers for a mix of tourists from all over the world. It seems that it’s only usually Australian, Kiwi, Polish, French and English folk who’d consider taking a train from Winnipeg to Toronto. Snippets of a conversation in the lower level lounge is filtering up into the dome. I can hear two British men discussing Home and Away and Eastenders with a family from Australia.

We have 1,943km ahead of us, and we’ll be in Toronto by tomorrow night.

Winnipeg (twice in one week)

When I descend to the Winnipeg station ticket hall, the monitors are advising the train 2, my eastbound ‘Canadian’ is running on time, and will be departing at 12.25. It should even arrive before then to allow for servicing, so I decide not to stray too far from the station. I cross the imposing foyer, and out onto the street. A little roadside diner across the street caught my eye last time, so I head over the VJ’s Drive Through to eat the ‘special’ hamburger. It was very special indeed, and although the air is still fresh, I sit outside with a newspaper and enjoy the sunshine.

When I cross back to the station a short while later, the screens are telling a different story, and the train is now running late. So I leave my bags at the ticket desk and go for a walk in the Forks. This redeveloped are sits to the south-east of the railway station, in the small parcel of land cut off from downtown by the railway tracks. Old warehouse buildings have been refurbished and opened up into the Forks Market, and what looks like an old pumping station or generator house is a television and radio station. An old CN caboose and an old passenger carriage stand in the car park. The Caboose is intact, the train car is now a sweet shop.

I have a look round the indoor market, which is bustling at ground level with dozens of food joints, fruit and vegetable stalls and other small shops. I spend thirty minutes on a computer sending a few e-mails and bashing out a quick blog entry, and then wander a bit more. To one side of the markets is more modern steel and glass viewing tower, with a stair and an elevator that carry you up to an open air platform. The views from up here of the Forks, the river and across the train tracks towards the skyline of downtown Winnipeg are pretty impressive, and I take a few photographs in the warm sunshine. This would be a good place to watch the ‘Canadian’ sweeping across the bridge into the station, but since I don’t want to miss it, I decide it would be safer to go back to the station.

I cross beneath the tracks just south of the station, stopping briefly to peer into the windows of a car similar to one that I’ve arranged to rent when I get to Halifax. Despite a bit of driving when I was in California, I don’t how easy it will be to return to piloting myself in a vehicle; I’m rather used to being chauffeured around (so don’t forget BMM… bring your license :-)

Train 692: into Winnipeg

I wake up to the familiar sights of Manitoba. We’re back on the mainline, heading towards the town of Portage la Prairie. It’s home, amongst other things, to the world’s largest can of Coca-Cola (click on the photo and see if you can find it!) Next time I’m in town I’ll have to do my own tour of Manitoban big things to compensate for my earlier Albertan tour. I had toyed with the idea of getting off here and joining the ‘Canadian’ here before it reached Winnipeg so as to spread my layovers over a wider variety of cities, but the ticket agent at Winnipeg station had advised against risking it. It is actually better to have more time in the morning on the train – I am less rushed to get packed and off

I take a shower and have a shave to start the day. Although we’re scheduled to arrive in Winnipeg just after eight o’clock, this train always runs slightly late, so there’s no rush this morning. I know for certain that I will make my connection with the eastbound Canadian later today, so I’m not fretting. Refreshed from my shower, I re-pack my bags for the short interval between trains. Breakfast is still being served, so I go forward and have one last meal in the ‘Annapolis’ dining car. I have a hot coffee, and get teased by Carmel for asking if I can have some jam to put on one of my own bagels. Sorry VIA Rail, we Rail Pass passengers aren’t going to help you turn a profit this year.

Tara is in the process of converting our berths back into seats when I return. I shift my bags out of the way while she finishes, and settle down with my book as we race towards Winnipeg. ‘Race’ may not be the most appropriate verb, but it feels like we’re sprinting in after the crawl we moved at for most of the journey.

The suburbs of Winnipeg soon appear beside the tracks. Modern family homes are being construction in faux-communities further and further out from the downtown district. We pass underneath the outer circular highway, and begin to slow as we enter the broad sets of tracks around Winnipeg’s busy railroad freight yards. Passing the VIA Rail maintenance facility, I catch a brief glimpse of the obsolete ‘Northern Spirit’ trains that worked this service for a few years. They’re easy to spot because of the bizarre oversized decals of Manitoban animals that are applied to the sides of the stainless steel carriages. Interesting, but probably of limited interest to the actual Manitoban wildlife who get to see the train pass by every three days.

We arrive in Winnipeg’s station just before 11.00. Tara helps Vera and me down from the sleeper car, and wishes us both a pleasant trip. I’ve been travelling with a small stock of CD compilations that I have been giving to those who have hosted me during my trip – both friends and the volunteer hosts of the Hospitality Club. Since I spent four nights in her company, and she’d been such a good attendant, I apologised for not being able to leave a gratuity, but gave Tara one of the discs. Few recipients are likely to enjoy the whole album, but given my sporadic taste in music there should be something in there somewhere that she’ll enjoy. We bid each other farewell, and I complete my 3,394km round trip by heading downstairs to the ticket hall.

Train 692: The Pas

We arrive at The Pas. The train is quiet, and virtually empty save for about a half dozen coach passengers. I step off the train and take a quick walk around the old station building (which apart from the VIA Rail ticket office, is now used as offices by the Hudson Bay Railway company). The locomotives fuel tanks are being filled, and the water tanks underneath the carriages are being filled. There aren’t many people about, and only five new passengers join us.

The sun is setting out of sight, and turning the western edge of the sky pink. The colours reflect in the windows and on the stainless steel of the train. They may be over fifty years old, but these cars are still very elegant. Even on a modest and purely function train like this one, they cut a dash at every station they stop at.

I get back on board, and prepare to enjoy my last night in the comfort of a VIA Rail couchette. Tara has once again been called into action to fold, collapse and unfurl the third pair of berths. One of the passengers who boarded at The Pas has upgraded from coach to a bed, and will be joining us for the night. It takes Tara about five minutes to perform the conversion, and soon we have another pair of beds ready for the night. I’ve enjoyed this little bit of luxury immensely: it’s an affordable and extremely fun way to make an overnight trip by train more comfortable, and I would definitely consider it again, especially instead of a more expensive private room. I’m not particularly fussy about privacy, and the comfort of a berth is more than enough to make a night time journey easy to sleep through.

I close my curtains for the last time and lie in my snug berth with the blind up. In my line of sight I can see the sky dropping from a deep aquamarine, to blue, to pale blue, to grey, to white and to pink. Thicker and deeper silhouetted forests are now speeding past us as we rejoin faster tracks that will carry us in our wide curve through a slice of Saskathewan and back into Manitoba early tomorrow morning.

I tumble into my dreams very rapidly, and sleep soundly.

Train 692: Sunset in The Pas

Train 692: dinner

I take a break from my book and my cheap dollar store su-doku puzzle book, and take a seat at the far end of the restaurant car to make myself a salami and cheese bagel for supper. At the other end of the car, the restaurant only serves three meals tonight. The economies of this train would give a private company a collective heart attack. But the joy of this journey is the reminder that passenger trains are not meant to turn an operating profit. Their benefit to communities and individuals cannot be measured, because they make otherwise impossible connections impossible, as well as providing employment to the people who operate the trains and the businesses that survive because of them.

As we get further south, the landscape gets greener once again. I kid myself that I can feel the warmth of the sun through the window. North of Cormorant, we pass close by a lake, and the bright sun reflects along a sparkling line from the horizon to the edge of the lake next to the train. The sky is blue, and the water is bluer. At perfect moments like this, it’s only the strangest of sights that interrupt the view. We pass alongside a gravel road between us and the lake, and we catch sight of a hearse parked beside the road. The driver has stopped, and is getting out as we pass to take a photograph of our train.

Train 692: like trains in the daytime

The afternoon passes me by. I’m deep in my book, so forgive me for not repeating myself in describing the scenery as we re-trace the route that carried us north two days ago. I’m transported back to the first half of the twentieth century in The Blind Assassin, reading the life story of a Canadian woman who would never have imagined herself visiting northern Manitoba.

South of Sipiwesh (marked by the strange white poles that stand either side of the track as part of an experiment to monitor the permafrost level beneath the track) we pull forward into a siding to allow the northbound ‘Hudson Bay’ train 693 pass. An identical train to ours slips past, but the shaded windows don’t reveal any faces in the bright sunshine. I imagine another blogging traveller on board that train, trying to think of something poetic or apposite to describe our two trains passing, like ships in the night. That synonym wouldn’t work of course, because it’s broad daylight.

We reach Wabowden about fifty minutes behind schedule. The speed restrictions of the track have held us up, but I am assured by both Tara and Carmel that I’ll have no problems making my connection tomorrow in Winnipeg. When we first came through Wabowden it was raining – not it’s a bright sunny afternoon. Several of the passengers and our conductor cross to the ‘Lucky Dollar’ general store to buy lotto tickets. Tonight’s draw is worth five million Canadian dollars, which could probably persuade even the happiest VIA Rail employee to consider early retirement.

We’re directed into another siding a little further south. A northbound freight train trundles past: about forty empty lumber cars and tankers are pulled by two very shabby looking locomotives with the name of the Hudson Bay Railway stencilled onto their flanks. I can’t imagine painting them would make them go any faster, and besides not many people see them up here, so appearance is hardly important.

Train 692: Thicket Portage

Train 692: Thompson