Around The World Without Flying: The train journey from Toronto to Jasper

In my long previous posts about the train journey from Toronto to Jasper, which is in the Rockies, I should have said that one thing I noticed about all the Canadian staff on the train, and indeed about the Canadian staff and other Canadians I have encountered everywhere, is that they are so very courteous, friendly and obliging. I am sure that the passenger who assaulted me when I boarded the train was not Canadian.

I also met some very pleasant fellow passengers when we ate our meals together in the dining car. Some were Aussies, and some were American and other nationalities. That is where train travel is much more social than other forms of transport. When you sit at a table for four for about an hour or so, and whoever you sit with is random every time, of course you start chatting. When I say random, there were different ‘sittings’ for the meal as not everyone could fit into the dining car at the same time. When there is a choice, I always go to the earliest sitting each day on trains and ships because I simply cannot sleep on a full stomach. Quite a lot of other people are in the same situation. So I sat with many of my table companions over the three days of the trip two or three times, which was good. You don't feel like strangers then.

The following set of photos shows how the landscape varied from the first half of our journey, which took us to Edmonton, where I had the WiFi opportunity, to our second. The first half was in quite remote country, with never-ending forests and lakes. In the few small settlements we passed, the main industry was logging. During the second half we mainly saw vast fields of grains and occasional signs of industry, mostly timber mills.

But as we entered the Jasper National Park near the end of our journey, there was a dramatic change of scenery, with very tall, very rocky, brownish-grey mountains and escarpments, with very tall pine trees and other tree species at their feet and perched in the most precarious places. It was then I first realised why they are called the Rocky Mountains. This was to be the start of a journey through one of the most beautiful, awesome landscapes I have ever seen . . .

I would add that over the whole journey we often went very slowly or stopped altogether whilst we we allowed freight trains to whiz past. These were really, really long - sometimes up to 2 or so kilometres long. I noticed that while some pulled trucks carrying a double stack of shipping containers, (that is, one container on top of another), they usually carried a combination of nasty chemicals, such as butadiene that is used to make artificial rubber and various plastics (albeit labelled as stabilised), fuels and timber. The timber was mostly in the form of sheets, not logs, as can be seen in one of my photos. A deadly, explosive combination if one of the countless trucks were to catch on fire!

On the first day.

Seen on one of the freight trains - packaged sheets of timber.

Inside my cabin. On the right is the tiny basin. Next to it is the toilet door and on the left is the door to the cabin, both of which were far narrower than they appear. It was not as sparkling clean as it appears either.