On board the Rocky Mountaineer

Finally the next morning we were driven to the Banff station for our two-day trip from Banff to Vancouver on the ‘Rocky Mountaineer’. Our main luggage was taken by the coach to our hotel in Kamloops, where we were to spend the night.

This trip has to be booked far ahead, so we were all very excited to finally begin this long-awaited experience.  And we were not disappointed! From the moment our train came to a halt, red carpets were put out - literally - and we were greeted very warmly by our the cabin staff. As I was booked into ‘Gold Leaf’ class, mine was the first carriage with domed seating and I was lucky enough to be in the second row from the front on the window. (Seats 65 and 67 are the window seats in the front row.) 

We climbed up the narrow spiral starts and there we were - what luxury! In front of us was a small service area. And service began the moment we sat down. We were all greeted with champagne or orange juice, and welcomed very enthusiastically by our team of four - two with us upstairs and two downstairs serving our meals. Various aspects of the train were explained, including how to work our whizz-bang seats, which even had heating pads! You could dial three different heat settings depending on how warm you wanted to be. That was really good.

Each carriage has its own dining room, but only half of us (that is, 34 of us) could eat down there at one time, so we were divided into two halves. Whilst the first sitting happened, the rest of us were not left ‘hanging’. We were given warm scones and tea and coffee as we waited our turn. The same thing before lunch. We were given wine and biscuits and cheeses and other nibbles as we waited. Meanwhile, all the meals downstairs were silver service, and delicious. All-in-all, food and drink kept coming all day! (And the next day the dining sittings were reversed.) 

But the best part of that train ride was our upstairs hosts not only looked after our stomachs and our comfort, but also told us stories explaining what we were seeing, giving a little history, and so forth. They were brilliant! 

The following photos show the scene at the Banff station at sunrise, then a little of what it was like inside my carriage. The last one was taken at sunset that day. The only problem was the curved glass sometimes distorted our photos, and of course there was the perpetual issue of reflections in the glass. In my next post I will show you a little of what we saw outside those windows, albeit with those reflections and distortions.