The more I fly, the more I love train trips.
It’s not just the rail world’s lack of airport security, cattle-car ambience and gut-wrenching turbulence, but also its sense of pomp and circumstance, its Old World civility. Stations are often grand old edifices where smartly uniformed porters will lug your overweight luggage and station staff might even lend a hand as you step up into your car. Read the full story
‘Near capacity’ opening weekend for Sea to Sky train
Whistler Mountaineer chugs into town under new name
Under the banner of a new name, the Whistler Mountaineer steamed its way to a near capacity opening weekend as it launched its summer season on May 14.
That “near capacity” weekend could be a sign of good things to come this summer for the re-branded “Rocky Mountaineer Whistler Sea to Sky Climb.” Read the full story
Rocky Mountaineer, owner and operator of the world-acclaimed Rocky Mountaineer train is pleased to announce its sponsorship of Kamloops, BC Speed Skater, Tori Spence through a continued partnership with BC’s Growing Champions. With a strong commitment to sustainable development and supporting the communities through which the train operates, it was a natural choice for Rocky Mountaineer to foster the ambitions of an athlete from Kamloops, one of the overnight stops along the two-day rail journey. The sponsorship will help Tori pursue her goal to qualify for the national team and represent Canada in the 2014 and 2018 Winter Games. Read the full story
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Some are calling the Rocky Mountaineer Alberta Train to Whistler during the Olympics a ‘marketing opportunity of a lifetime.’
Sandy Best with the The Lake Louise Ski Area says the our provincial government turned down an offer to run a train like this because of the costs. “At the end of the day, all of the world’s media and decision makers for travel are getting on an Albertan train to ride to a B.C. venue. And after they have enjoyed Whistler don’t get me wrong, its a killer mountain – awesome – can’t take away what they are doing, but the first thing they see in the morning and the last thing they see at night is Alberta.”
He also has been promoting tourism every step of the way. “The president of Mexicana Airlines is onboard. I would have to cut my right leg off, sell my children, do something insane, just to get 15 minutes with him. Here he is on the train, he is enjoying the scenery, Alberta food, Alberta hospitality; I get a chance to get to know him.”
Despite this, Best says the government of Alberta was criticized for spending the money to run this $7 million luxury train. For more information, take a look here.
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Railway Map Guide:British Columbia & Canadian Rockies
A steam train passes over the Ribblehead viaduct on the Settle to Carlisle line
The Settle to Carlisle line has been named the second best train trip in the world by an American news network.
Travelling the 73 miles of the line, through some of Yorkshire’s most spectacular countryside, is more thrilling than being a train passenger between Paris and Istanbul on the Orient Express, ABC News claims. Read the full story
Look out to the left, the captain said, and you can see killer whales. Now that’s not the kind of invitation you expect when you’re on a car ferry, especially if you are more used to the hop between Dover and Calais, when there is normally nothing to see… except other ferries.
But this was Canada and I was on a 90-minute crossing from Swartz Bay near Victoria on Vancouver Island to Tsawwassen, about 15 miles south of the city of Vancouver on the Canadian mainland.
For me, the sight of whales is one of those things that always thrill me to my boots (like the sudden and occasional views of Concorde we used to get). But, clearly, they are no big deal to Canadians, since few of my fellow passengers bothered to stir themselves from their breakfasts to catch a glimpse of the passing pod.
People are just used to things being on an epic scale here, and not just the wildlife. Vancouver Island, for example, may look like a dot on the map – inviting comparisons with the Isle of Wight – yet it is nearly 300 miles long and some 50 miles broad at its widest point.
Standing out on deck, gazing east, I strained for my first sight of the Rockies. On the horizon is what looks like a sweep of steepling peaks but as you approach, these turn out to be modest foothills. Beyond lurk the real mountains. So, even on these first tentative steps towards the country’s heart, you begin to grasp that this is a place created on a vast scale. It’s the world’s second biggest country, roughly 36 times the size of Britain, but is home to 33million people – half the UK’s population.
I had arrived in Canada via the ‘back door’ after taking another ferry, the high-speed service from Seattle to Victoria. One minute I was in fast-paced America – Seattle is home to Starbucks, Boeing and Microsoft – the next, I was in Victoria, taking the five-minute walk from the sedate ferry terminal to the even more sedate Empress Hotel.
It’s a journey of just a couple of hours up from the US, but Canada is light years apart from the States in most respects. Victoria, the state capital of British Columbia, feels more like Torquay. Actually, given the ever-present Scottish heritage that surrounds you in Canada, you are reminded more of, say, Rothesay on the Isle of Bute.
In America, you never feel able to drop your guard but in Canada I felt instantly as if I had never left home.
At the excellent Empress Hotel, for example, they serve a regular lunchtime curry buffet as fine as anything you can find on a British high street. And at any time of day you can always be sure of a real cup of tea.
The Empress Hotel, by the way, provides a worthy introduction to the chain of magnificent ‘railway hotels’ – now under the Fairmont banner – that stretches right across Canada. Like the country itself, these hotels are built on a grand scale in a style described as ‘chateau-esque’.
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By Frank Barrett, Mail Online, >>> continue reading
