Seaboard92
Engineer
Day 6: Up the sound and onto America's best train ride.
Again we woke up early and said our goodbyes to Charlie before heading down to King Street Station to board our train. I had thought about visiting a place I went last year before this very same departure but chose not to so we could just get out of town. Again I was looking around myself the whole time to make sure I didn't have a relapse by coming into contact with Kathleen.
So we board the Mount Bachelor which is the new Talgo and I believe recently restored to service again for our morning trip to Vancouver. The train gets underway and we go to the cafe car so we can both have a window on the Sound Side. Last time I rode this I let her have the window the entire way, even though she slept. So it was really nice to be on the window seat.
I managed to damage my camera charger in the outlet somehow but thankfully we were planning on meeting a mechanical minded friend the same day. And he fixed it later in the day. So we enjoyed our relaxing ride admiring the beautiful Pacific Northwest, the sound, and the distant Olympics mountain range. When we crossed the border I made sure to quote my ex for what she said last time we entered Canada. And sure enough the bald eagles were still on the beach.
All too soon we were detraining in Vancouver for Customs which was harsher than I remembered. It took us five minutes once the customs started to answer questions about what we were doing in Canada and how we knew each other, why we're making this trip, and all sorts of things.
After that we went over to the VIA rail desk and checked our luggage and stored our carry on bags in the station before leaving for Gastown. Last year when I was in Vancouver I found this lovely sidewalk cafe next to the Steam Clock and the weather was fantastic so I figured why not go back again and make pleasant memories.
So we went and sat in the exact same table as I did the year before and I had the exact same meal. It was fantastic as always and I made great memories. After having lunch the baggagemen at the station told us about a steam locomotive so we decided we would go check that out.
So we went two stops on the Canada Line before getting off at the roundhouse and looking at a beautifully restored 4-4-0. Afterwards still with some time we decided we would walk back to Waterfront station where we were meeting our friend Alex from Novosibirsk who lives in Vancouver now.
So we enjoyed a walk down one of the main drags looking at the interesting mid century architecture at street level and modern high rise buildings all but on top. We reached the station and met Alex before boarding the West Coast Express train for a view of the Harbor. We enjoyed our short thirty minute ride two stops where we detrained to get the Translink trains back to the city.
Alex fixed my charger in all of a minute and we had a long three hour discussion about what's wrong with the American political system as well as global issues. He's super smart and nice. He took us for a hike where we could watch the Cascade leave town from the vantage of a bridge.
After we watched the Cascade leave we went back to Pacific Central and had dinner at the A&W located inside the station. I love the chilled glasses such a unique effect. So afterwards we bid our goodbyes to Alex and went into the sleeper lounge to prepare for boarding the Canadian.
Out on the patio a musician was playing his guitar and singing whole people milled around in anticipation of what was to come next. With it being the summer consist the train was split across two tracks and coach passengers having the longest walk were allowed to board first. Meanwhile the sleeper passengers eagerly awaited their time to entrain.
Shortly thereafter we were invited to board the train and we were in the 2nd cut including the park car on line number 214 on the Hunter Manor. We had the section next to the shower complex so we had slightly more privacy in my opinion.
After the train was made up the two of us went to the Skyline activity car B for our welcome aboard reception. The dome was almost full and we snagged the last row in the dome and I managed some cool sunset photos of the skyline. We picked our way slowly around the various railyards the Canadian traverses. The route the original Canadian took to water front station is a far better entrance to the city.
Most of the passengers started retiring to their rooms before we even exited the Great Northern now BNSF route to join the Canadian National. Malcolm and I stayed in the dome and talked about the various duel routings on select routes like the Canadian, Silver Star, Cardinal, California Zephyr, Capitol Limited, etc...
After that we talked about love and what it actually is. Which is a very hard topic to describe in all honesty as its relative to each and every person. After that he went to bed and I wrote down the consist for him at Mission Harbor seeing he's the VIA Rail editor of a Canadian railroad magazine. Our train was 14 sleepers, two diners, three skylines, three coaches, a baggage car, a panorama car, and a park car. For a total length of 2,200 ft minus locomotives.
Again we woke up early and said our goodbyes to Charlie before heading down to King Street Station to board our train. I had thought about visiting a place I went last year before this very same departure but chose not to so we could just get out of town. Again I was looking around myself the whole time to make sure I didn't have a relapse by coming into contact with Kathleen.
So we board the Mount Bachelor which is the new Talgo and I believe recently restored to service again for our morning trip to Vancouver. The train gets underway and we go to the cafe car so we can both have a window on the Sound Side. Last time I rode this I let her have the window the entire way, even though she slept. So it was really nice to be on the window seat.
I managed to damage my camera charger in the outlet somehow but thankfully we were planning on meeting a mechanical minded friend the same day. And he fixed it later in the day. So we enjoyed our relaxing ride admiring the beautiful Pacific Northwest, the sound, and the distant Olympics mountain range. When we crossed the border I made sure to quote my ex for what she said last time we entered Canada. And sure enough the bald eagles were still on the beach.
All too soon we were detraining in Vancouver for Customs which was harsher than I remembered. It took us five minutes once the customs started to answer questions about what we were doing in Canada and how we knew each other, why we're making this trip, and all sorts of things.
After that we went over to the VIA rail desk and checked our luggage and stored our carry on bags in the station before leaving for Gastown. Last year when I was in Vancouver I found this lovely sidewalk cafe next to the Steam Clock and the weather was fantastic so I figured why not go back again and make pleasant memories.
So we went and sat in the exact same table as I did the year before and I had the exact same meal. It was fantastic as always and I made great memories. After having lunch the baggagemen at the station told us about a steam locomotive so we decided we would go check that out.
So we went two stops on the Canada Line before getting off at the roundhouse and looking at a beautifully restored 4-4-0. Afterwards still with some time we decided we would walk back to Waterfront station where we were meeting our friend Alex from Novosibirsk who lives in Vancouver now.
So we enjoyed a walk down one of the main drags looking at the interesting mid century architecture at street level and modern high rise buildings all but on top. We reached the station and met Alex before boarding the West Coast Express train for a view of the Harbor. We enjoyed our short thirty minute ride two stops where we detrained to get the Translink trains back to the city.
Alex fixed my charger in all of a minute and we had a long three hour discussion about what's wrong with the American political system as well as global issues. He's super smart and nice. He took us for a hike where we could watch the Cascade leave town from the vantage of a bridge.
After we watched the Cascade leave we went back to Pacific Central and had dinner at the A&W located inside the station. I love the chilled glasses such a unique effect. So afterwards we bid our goodbyes to Alex and went into the sleeper lounge to prepare for boarding the Canadian.
Out on the patio a musician was playing his guitar and singing whole people milled around in anticipation of what was to come next. With it being the summer consist the train was split across two tracks and coach passengers having the longest walk were allowed to board first. Meanwhile the sleeper passengers eagerly awaited their time to entrain.
Shortly thereafter we were invited to board the train and we were in the 2nd cut including the park car on line number 214 on the Hunter Manor. We had the section next to the shower complex so we had slightly more privacy in my opinion.
After the train was made up the two of us went to the Skyline activity car B for our welcome aboard reception. The dome was almost full and we snagged the last row in the dome and I managed some cool sunset photos of the skyline. We picked our way slowly around the various railyards the Canadian traverses. The route the original Canadian took to water front station is a far better entrance to the city.
Most of the passengers started retiring to their rooms before we even exited the Great Northern now BNSF route to join the Canadian National. Malcolm and I stayed in the dome and talked about the various duel routings on select routes like the Canadian, Silver Star, Cardinal, California Zephyr, Capitol Limited, etc...
After that we talked about love and what it actually is. Which is a very hard topic to describe in all honesty as its relative to each and every person. After that he went to bed and I wrote down the consist for him at Mission Harbor seeing he's the VIA Rail editor of a Canadian railroad magazine. Our train was 14 sleepers, two diners, three skylines, three coaches, a baggage car, a panorama car, and a park car. For a total length of 2,200 ft minus locomotives.
