The last week of September my husband and I took a train trip across eastern Canada. We stayed overnight in three of the largest cities we visited, two of which we stayed two nights and took city tours and learned a lot about Canada. However, today I want to share some of our experiences as we traveled on the train. We stayed six nights in a hotel and four nights on the train as we traveled from Kansas City to Halifax, Canada and back to Kansas City.
Traveling by train is a totally different experience than traveling by air or personal car. As we arrived at Union Station in Kansas City we noticed before too long how patient and friendly those waiting for their train were. Whether it was asking for directions, helping you with your luggage, holding the door for you. Everyone was quite pleasant as we awaited our early morning departure. We were going from Kansas City to Chicago, so we knew we had a long ride the first day. From Chicago we traveled to Buffalo, NY and on to Niagara Falls where we went through customs. That stop was over an hour and we had to take all of our luggage off the train with us and take it inside the customs building.
Once through customs we were on our way again. To this point we had been traveling on Amtrak but when we got to Toronto we were then traveling by Canadian Via Rail.
We traveled business class or sleeper most of the trip except for the beginning and end of the trip. Business class allows you to dine in the dining car with three nice meals a day as does having a sleeper car (bedroom). Just so you know, the bedroom and bedroom plus each had two bunk beds and the person sleeping on top had to use a ladder to reach their resting place. The bedroom units are very small to say the least.
Once in Canada, when we were in an eating establishment such as a pub or the food court at a large market and even in the dining room of our first hotel, we were given very smooth, lightweight wooden eating utensils, in a paper bag. We were given a firm slightly thick paper drinking straw but no plastic of any kind. It took me awhile to realize that even the ballpoint pen was a very sturdy paper when we checked into our hotel. No metal or plastic. As I observed shoppers I saw not one plastic shopping bag. Lots of bags but they were all paper. As a person who likes cold drinks with ice, I had to get accustomed to cool water straight from the pitcher.
I have been asked how the Canadian people accepted those of us from the U.S. They were always friendly and very accommodating. No mention of the issues between governments which was very nice. In fact, it was almost impossible to distinguish Canadians from Americans or tourists from so many, many other countries. Truly a cultural experience of friendliness, kindness and helpfulness everywhere we went.
Last week I shared some of our experiences on our recent train trip through eastern Canada. We had previously been in parts of western Canada and everyone knows about the Rocky Mountains that inhabit much of Western Canada. When traveling through eastern Canada it was much like traveling through Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana as there were large and small farms scattered about. We saw acres of soybeans and corn, hay and a few other crops we couldn’t identify as the train was going rather fast. It’s normal traveling speed was anywhere from 50 - 80 mph and on some stretches it was 90 plus mph, reaching 100 mph at one point on Canadian rail between Toronto and Montreal.
I jokingly said, as we left Union Station in Kansas City that we were off on an adventure. As it turned out those words proved to be true the first afternoon as we traveled toward Chicago. I learned that the Amish often travel by rail and there were several Amish on our train. Jim and I decided to check out the snack bar and there were three very nice, well groomed Amish older teenagers in line behind me. (Jim had left to check out something) and I began a quiet chat with them. Then a tall man, probably in his mid-20s got in line behind the boys and began talking loud and using lots of bad language. As I started to say something to him, one of the boys gave me “that look” that meant I needed to say nothing and we all hoped he would eventually leave which he did. However, when we stopped at Galesburg, IL train officials removed him and another man from the train and they were left in Galesburg, IL. We were told they were kicked off because they didn’t have a ticket but I think it was more than that.
Also, while stopped at Galesburg, a police car pulled up near the train and a couple of police officers with a couple of prisoners got on the train in the first car. Our son was watching our stop through an app he has on his phone as a real train buff, and he saw it all taking place and asked if we were safe. Yes, we said we were in the last car so a long way from the new riders. He knew what was happening before we did.
At this point we were traveling on Amtrak and I can tell you all of the train personnel were friendly, helpful and put up with no shall we say “monkey business”. It is a safe way to travel, lots of friendly people and security check is so much, much less complicated than the airports.
So our first day did turn out to be somewhat of an adventure.
