VIA Rail Canada - Taking the train across Canada

Dear Family and Friends,

Chuck, Matt and I spent 4 nights and 3 days riding the Canadian passenger train, VIA Rail, from Vancouver, BC to Toronto.

We had a fun adventure and Matt and I took a lot of pictures.

In this post I will share with you about the train itself. 

We had sleeping compartments on the train.  Matt had one to himself and Chuck and I had a double room.

Matt set the timer on his camera and took a picture of himself in his room.

Matt's seat let out into a single bed.  He had a toilet and sink in his room.

Here is a picture of mine and Chuck's room.  These chairs folded down and disappeared at night when the beds were made.

We had a toilet and a sink in our room too.

At night our little room was transformed into this.

Chuck took the top bunk.  Notice the safety harness to keep him from falling out of the bed.

It was not exactly the Ritz Carlton, but we all three slept well.  The rocking of the train lulled us to sleep.

Our train car looked like this.  A long hallway with rooms to the right.

See the door that is at the end of the hall?

Behind this door was the shower for our car.

 

Now that you have seen all these comforts I am sure you understand why we did not spend a lot of time in our rooms.  However, the other areas of the train offered a lot of nice public spaces.

Notice the dome on the top of the car pictured below.  There were about five of these cars scattered along the length of this train.

The dome is a nice observation area to sit and enjoy the scenery.

These cars also included public areas where you could play games, watch movies or just visit.

There was always coffee, tea, juices, fresh fruit and snacks whenever you wanted them.

We really didn't need the snacks because we had three nice meals each day in the dinning car.

Here is the menu for one of the evening meals.

Matt photographed his breakfast one morning.

Here is Matt in the dining car enjoying himself.

He photographed us across from him.

I'm not sure who was the biggest ham on this trip....Chuck or Matt.

There was one other special observation car on our train through the Canadian Rockies.  We spent most of the day in the Rockies in this car.  Matt and I took tons of pictures which I will share with you next time.  When we got to Edmonton the car was taken off the train so it could be added to the train going the opposite direction through the Rockies.

This is how this car looked from the inside.

It was from this car that I was able to take two pictures of our train. The front half and the back half.  We were on a large curve and I was able to see the train from one end to the other.

 

Our train was quite long....over twenty cars.

We had a nice relaxing trip across Canada.  Now that you have seen our transportation, tomorrow I will share the scenery.

Love,

Nancy