Once again Fred Frailey has presented us with an in depth story and analysis of a facet of railroading that only a few of us ‘long in the tooth’ subscribers can relate with. I was reminded of my trips on the:
B & O Capitol Limited - IC’s Panama Limited – Santa Fe Super Chief and San Francisco Chief – and the multi operated California Zephyr. Thanks Trains and Fred!!!
look forward to getting the issue
I travelled from Montreal to Vancouver and back on the Canadian back in the early 80s. I have many fond memories. I took it when it still followed the more scenic CP route. I didn’t have much money back then, but I was young, and travelling via Day-niter ( which was really just coach with more leg room) didn’t present too much of a hardship.
If I were to take the train today I’d definitely go whole hog and get myself a private roomette. I bathe every day, and one facet of travelling via coach that I didn’t like is that other passengers are not similarly burdened with good hygiene habits. A sponge down with a paper towel can only go so far. But that’s just me. I’m sure over the last 30 years things have improved in that aspect.
Judging by the annual loss that the “Canadian” incurs, it would appear that its continued operation is as much a political necessity for VIA as the continued operation of long-distance trains is a political necessity for Amtrak.
Were it only so, Ulrich! Stateside, at least, today you want First Class more than ever. Slobbism is the order of the day; even when the hygiene is OK, so many other things are not, including all the instruments of personal noise with which people are armed anymore.
Even for daytime travel, if I can’t go roomette, I don’t go.
I travelled by train back in the 80’s to and from school over the Christmas holidays and home for the summer break. I don’t remember a lot about school (other than grades, a few friends etc.), but I have vivid memories of those train trips, and that tells you something. I can hardly recall the bus trips I took in those days nor have my hundreds of trips by air made any lasting impressions over the years. There’s something captivating about riding the train.
IMHO VIA needs to market itself to a wider population base. First class accommodations for those who can afford it, but let’s not forget the great masses who live on a limited budget and would take the train if it were more affordable. Maybe they should have three classes, first class with a roomette, second class (day-niter), and third class (coach). And there’s nothing wrong with marketing the train as transportation, and not a cruise. There are hundreds of towns on VIAs route across Canada…maybe market to the folks who live in those towns. There’s more to Canada than Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Dining Car,
Thank you for calling this article to my attention. I don’t share all of your good memories abut train travel but articles like this one are what persuade me that my subscription to Trains Magazine is worth the price.
One thing that impressed me is that back in 1987 Canadian rail operators made a decision to rebuild existing cars rather than buying new ones and by doing that they saved a lot of money with no loss of performance. Amtrak might have done the same when they took over the Crescent from the Southern Railway but they didn’t.
I can only hope that VIA Rail maintains the current schedule although the train is expensive, especially for a country like Canada with a much smaller population than the US has.
Thanks again for your interest and information.
John
But Amtrak did hold on to a lot of Heritage cars and did refurbish many and kept the running (still have some rostered and running I think) for as long as was necessary. Several problems; different railroads’ equipment not compatible with others; different appliances, etc, different layouts, all led to too much variation in marketing and maintaining old stock was expensive. So, new cars meant a semblance of order and standardization for both maintaining and marketing. Plus, locomotives were in worse shape and more varied than the cars…so with new locomotives and new cars they were able to further standardize the operations and marketing. VIA had a smaller fleet and much different marketing needs.
Ulrich,
I agree with you that the Canadian is expensive by US standards and it would be nice if fares, especially basic coach fares could be lower. I wonder how many Canadians use the train to travel from one intermediate stop to another for a relatively short distance. But a problem that Canada has is that it is constantly compared to the US and we are a much wealthier country. Also, US decisions often affect Canada. Because of the interaction with the US in many areas making policy in Canada is often more difficult than it would appear. So as you can see I am straddling the fence on this issue.
Your post prompted me to do a little research. This is what I learned:
The Canadian runs 2775 miles from Toronto to Vancouver. The time table lists 64 stops and Fred reports it stops at places not on the time table. The lowest coach fare I could find is Can. $386 (US $364). A cabin for 1, the smallest room is Can. $1098 (US $1034). The Canadian has open sleepers; an upper berth is Can. $728 (US $364). The average cost per mile for a coach seat is 13¢.
The Empire Builder runs 2205 miles from Chicago to Seattle. The time table lists 41 stops and of course Amtrak does not have flag stops not listed on the time table. The lowest coach fare I found is $174 (all Amtrak fares are US dollars) and a roomette is $638. Amtrak does not offer open sleepers. The average coach fare per mi
Great article on “The Canadian”, Mr. Fred’s hit a home run with this one.
I’m reminded of a PBS two-part documentary on the “Canadian” that was broadcast about 20 years ago, reported by Australian journalist Murray Sayle. The show was called “The Last Train Across Canada.” The imminent demise of the train was predicted, but here we are 20 years later and the “Canadian” still runs.
It was a very entertaining show, thank goodness I taped it and saved it.
After about 10 years of thinking about it, costing it out, and postponing the trip because of cost, we made the decision to do it last year. Almost a year in advance we booked at trip from Vancouver to Toronto departing in in late May. While one can get half price fare offered in frequent sales, I have never seen any discount for a Drawing room, or as Via calls it, a cabin for 3. As neither one of us really wanted to be in an upper, we went for the cabin for three, so we could both have a lower. I also specified that we wanted the room in the Park car, so the dome and lounge space would be right outside our door.
The trip exceeded my expectations! Our room choice turned out to be outstanding. We did meet folks from the US, Canada, New Zeeland, Australia, Scotland, and England. People were from every walk of life, although many were retired (as we are) many were not…
I expected the mountains would be spectacular, as they were, but the great plains were amazing! Most fields had just been tilled and sitting in the Dome, you could look out the right side and see neat rows of tilled soil going out to the horizon,perpendicular to the track. Same view on the left. When the track crossed a road, they also went to the horizon. Sometimes you could look down a road, you eye following it until it was only a dot, but beyond that point of vision, you would see a small mass of trees, and you could just make out a gap in the trees, where the road you could no longer see, went through the trees. How far could we see? To the edge of the world. Wonderful. Folks from the mid west may think “ho hum, grew up with that” but for someone who grew up and has lived in New York State’s mountains and valleys, it was an experience I will never forget.
As to the train itself, it was spotless. All the cars had been renovated within the last year. Everything worked as f
I don’t want to start a political debate, but while the USA has a much higher overall GDP (US $15T for USA vs. US $1.7T for Canada) becasue population level and the size of the economy, etc. is much larger, median nominal income (actual cash wages ) is higher in Canada, and PPP (Purchasing Power Parity, meaning how expensive the stuff you buy with the money is, Canada is lower becasue of climate and distance mainly) is only slightly lower. The reason is that the US is by far the most unequal of the industrialized countries, which also skews the median income stats, they are likely lower for the average American. This means that the sorts of Canadian persons who would ride trains are better off than their counterparts in the USA. There also is the issue of taxes and share of GDP devoted to public services, again lower in the USA than other industrialized countries. So Canada does quite well in comparison 
Finally getting around to the article. It was of the quality expected of Frailey. One thing that hits me is the lack of definition of “passenger train” in our discussions. Especially by us fans. I think we all lump passenger trains in what I know perceive as the “old and perfunctory” passenger train: you ride it to take you from one point to another because you either want to or need to do so. Commuter trains still fit this description as do the “corridor” concept of routes. But step off to the world of long distance travel and you find those who want to or need to dip their toes in the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific will not ride a train be it between Montreal/Toronto and Vancouver or NY or Philadelphia, Boston or Washington DC to LA or San Francisco or Seattle: these people will fly. So what’s a long distance lady to do? Who or what is she? So, while there are needs for long distance trains to link small, unremarked communities and flag stops with each other and the rest of the world, marketing it to that market is suicidal unless 100% supported by government agencies; and even then it would have to be done in a series of short hops between two larger points and during one 12 hour time period maybe. Instead of a long distance train, there would be a series of trains maybe hooking up with each other or not. Leaping the Continent or making giant steps across the country side, US or Canada, is yet another marketing labor imitating the old Cunard Lines motto of " getting there is half the fun’ stretched to the limit that getting there is the fun. Throw away what you know or your perception of a passenger train for this and think Queen Mary or Ilse de’France. Scheduled stops are only the concern of the railroad and its crews; 100% immersion in the fun of traveling first or second class, absorbing the important sights along the way while swallowing great foods and drink. You
Henry, you are forgetting the elderly and handicapped who cannot fly for one reason or another. There are lots of us. I am 81 and have not flown for 17-1/2 years. No intentions on doing so.
You haven’t missed a thing Dave. Air travel sure isn’t what it was years ago; just a means of quickly getting from point A to B, and quite inconveniently at that. We in aviation have a lot of derisive terms for the way airline passengers are treated these days. Passengers are describes as “self loading freight” and airliners as “flying cattle cars”.
No, I’m not forgetting them…they have to be included in the marketing of the service. Definitely an transcontinental cruise train would not necessarily be for them, service wise and cost wise. But the question you pose, Dave, is the cost of that service just for the elderly worth it? Should there be a “local coach” added to a cruise train? Should there be local trains handing off passengers to the next “division”? Research and marketing must be done to define “service” and “needed service” and “usable service”. My old mantra: you don’t run trains to run trains but to provide service.
My wife and I had four pleasant trips on the “Silver Lady;” two going east and two going west.
The first trip, from Vancouver, we spent a night in a lower because she wanted to relive her first overnight in a sleeper (when she was a little girl). We changed, as planned, to a room (and we had the compartment in the same car) in Jasper.
The second trip, from Toronto, we had a bedroom to Jasper, where we rented a car and drove to Lake Louise to spend two nights at the Chateau Lake Louise before returning to continue our trip to Vancouver–in a lower. This time, we decided that it would be a private room all the way thereafter.
The next trip was in a bedroom all the way west.
On our last trip, we had the drawing room (I made the reservations eight months in advance) from Vancouver to Jasper and from Jasper to Toronto. The stopover had us staying in the former railroad hotels in Banff, Calgary, and Edmonton.
Altogether, we enjoyed the service every time–comfortable accommodations (especially in the private rooms), excellent food (we were glad to have different menus for lunch and dinner, and I had one steak that I could almost eat with a fork alone), and pleasant conversation with other travelers, including those from other countries.
And the cost while high was not unreasonable, you could afford it, and felt you got your moneysworth. Bravo.
Good, Deggesty, you enforce my points about reasons people travel today as opposed to yesterday and that a given service will be gladly payed for. You rode because you want to ride, because you wanted to travel, yours was a luxury rather than necessary trip. That is one service definition that must be kept in mind as it is the primary reason for long distance trains at the moment. The old days of one or two train all station stops schedule is not the prime reason for long distance travel anymore…not with automobiles and even small plane services.