First of all, we loved traveling by train. Sure it wasn't as fast as flying... but there was more leg room and it was better than driving. The first train ride was scheduled to leave Winnipeg at 10:30pm on August 8th. We weren't expecting it to be perfectly on time... but we definitely weren't expecting it to be 10 hours late! We didn't leave until close to 9am. Bradley was talking to some officials while I was trying to get some shut eye, and they told him that since May only four trains going from Vancouver to Toronto have been on time. (none of them quite as late as ours was) The rails are owned by CN railways and the passenger trains are owned by ViaRail, so the CN trains (freight trains) always get priority. Funny enough all 4 trains that were on time also had a CN official on... Now I'm not saying that correlation equals causation... but that is quite the coincidence.
We had brought our own snacks (bread, peanut butter, porridge packets etc) so we didn't buy food on the train because that could get expensive. We also brought a blanket with us (and boy was I glad we did). We only slept over night on two different trains (one train ride was two nights) but I also wish I had my neck pillow and a sleep mask.
The train from Winnipeg to Sudbury had an observation deck. That was a pretty popular place to sit, at least for us. Now our tickets just gave us access to the basic of the basic. No Hogwart's Express for us. Imagine airplane seating but more legroom and a seat that reclines more and that's what we got. No meals included (but there was a dining cart to buy some) and no showers. They also had sleeper berths or private rooms for 2 or 4, but that gets pretty expensive.
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