Canadian Train - day 5

 At 2 am on the final day,  I woke with a jolt to find the train had stopped. It wasn't until 5 am that the train started moving again. Apparently, a rail had broken on the siding we were sitting at and the rail had to be repaired. In the meantime, several freight trains past us. The result was that we were now running about 8 hours late and we had no chance of arriving at the scheduled time of 2:30 pm.

The Via staff Let us know that they would be proving a dinner because of our expected very late arrival. They also arranged hotel vouchers for passengers who wanted to make connections to other trains such as to Montreal.

I suspect these first few photos are from late afternoon on the fourth day. More lakes, more trees.

A deserted factory.

There are enough lakes in Canada for everybody to have a cabin by a lake in the woods.

Here we start with the day five photos.

It was snowing, with depths of two inches in parts.

I must admit that one of the best parts of moving to Hervey Bay in Australia is no snow, no slipping on icy roads, no shoveling and no electricity outages from downed power lines.

Still, it was nice to see some from the warmth of my cabin.

Today we would see plenty of red leaves.

This area has lakes galore.

The sun on the leaves was spectacular. My camera does not do justice to the colours and the train moves quickly enough to make focusing difficult.

In many ways, the fifth day was the most spectacular of all the five days.

The train arrived 9 hours late at 11:30 pm. We took a Uber to our hotel but like Seattle station, at nighttime, it is difficult to pick out your assigned vehicle because of the darkness and the mass of other cars and taxis gathered outside the station entrance. Still, it worked well once we got in the car.

I would have to say the second lot of staff on the train were not as organized or happy as the first group. I suspect they were over-tired from the late start in Winnepeg. Still, they managed to produce a dinner prior to our arrival which was one of the best meals of the trip.

This is a train trip worth taking. Just allow two nights after your arrival before making a connection. We did find that we missed walking and I missed the constant rocking of the train last night in the motel. We were very tired by the time we reached the motel and we are still tired. 

It's a better train ride than any of the Amtrak trains we have taken and the scenery is fabulous. I suspect it might be better taking the East to West journey. 

To get an idea of how the trains run and which are on time or late, look at Track Trace. It shows Canadian passenger trains as well as US trains. I just looked up the current version of our Vancouver to Toronto train and it is running on-time. It's all luck.