Canadian Transcontinental Trip March 1984

[BlackDiamond]

Recently I came across notes of 2 trips my wife and I took in the early 1980's. The first trip in 1980 Philadelphia - Montreal - Sydney NS I covered in a trip report below. This report is one we took in March 1984 Philadelphia - Montreal - Vancouver then round trip flight to Pasco WA then return the same way. Between the two we covered continental Canada coast to coast. Too bad the "Newfie Bullet" wasn't still running, we could have added Newfoundland too

In March 1984 with my wife expecting our first child, we figured it was time for one last fling. My wife had traveled on the Canadian as a child and wanted to repeat the experience. It was also an opportunity to visit her parents now living in Richland WA.

We left Philadelphia on Amtrak 60 the Montrealer due to depart at 7:24 PM. It actually arrived late at 7:45 PM. Train consist at PHL was as follows:

2 x AEM7
Baggage
Sleeper 10/6? (our car #6020)
Slumbercoach
Amcafe (dinette / lounge)
coaches 4719, 4647, 4733, 4612, 4702 - all Heritage Fleet
Amcafe 20223
3 x Amfleet coaches

The Amcafe and 3 amfleet coaches were dropped at New York.

Attendant on our sleeper was very pleasant. We each had a glass of Blue Nun and a raspberry danish snack as New Jersey flashed by.
We were delayed another 40 minutes at Mount Vernon, possibly an issue with a drawbridge?

At Springfield I observed SPV 2000 and RDC cars at the station. We backed out of the station and headed up the Conn River line.

I did not record our arrival time in Montreal. I do recall the immigration and customs at the border was a brief for those in sleeper, as opposed to what coach travelers dealt with, as we found out on our 1980 trip.

We had some time in Montreal before our 4:30 PM departure on the Canadian so we went on a horse drawn carriage ride snuggled under a blanket. We also went shopping. I bought a warm Canadian Tuque for the upcoming trip across the frozen plains. A chance to use my high school French.

The Canadian at Montreal was somewhat abbreviated. The full train would be added at Toronto.

Dome lounge/observation/sleeper (3 bedroom, 1 drawing rm) Waterton Park
Sleeper 6 bedroom, 4 section, 4 roomette Christie Manor - This was our car. We had a bedroom.
Dome Diner (Skyline Coffee Shop?) #501
Coach /snack bar (ex CN) #3221
coach 110, 103 - dropped at Toronto
baggage (+dorm?) #616

Departure from Montreal on time at 1630. Nice view from the dome as we sped along to Toronto.

At Toronto, extensive switching of the train. The train was cut between our sleeper and the dome diner and 4 additional cars cut in.
Quite a variety of equipment in the station - Amfleet (probably the Maple Leaf), LRCs, RDCs and Go Transit cars.

After departure from Toronto our consist was as follows:

Dome lounge/observation/sleeper (3 bedroom, 1 drawing rm) Waterton Park
Sleeper 6 bedroom, 4 section, 4 roomette Christie Manor (our car)
Diner 1338
Sleeper Emperor 8 roomette/4 Bedroom/4 section
Sleeper Entwhistle 8 roomette/4 Bedroom/4 section
Dayniter coach 5703
Dome diner/lounge - used as a dinette
Coach / snack bar 3221
Baggage 616
GMD FP7 B unit 6607
MLW FPA4 A unit 6783

Went sleep and woke up near Sudbury. Breakfast in diner, much nicer than the coffee shop car out of Montreal.
Out of Sudbury, an interchange yard with a line hauling ore cars with electric trolley locos. Probably the INCO nickel operation.

Lots of meets with freights. A couple of times we set off hotbox detectors and had to stop for inspections. We still stayed on schedule probably due to lots of padding. 30 minute stops at division points for crew changes. A person became ill on the train and had to be taken off at Chapleau which was the nearest place with a medical facility in this fairly unpopulated part of Ontario. A couple of places people got off for hunting and fishing. Sometime after Chapleau we went into a siding for the eastbound Canadian #2. We spent a lot of time in the dome with opportunities to talk to interesting fellow passengers including a mime from France. I got to talking to one of the crew and he gave me his old train orders which I still have somewhere.

Just before Winnipeg, we switch over to the CN. Winnipeg was cold! About -20 C. I remember the battery on my camera went dead as I was taking pictures. The station was very clean and well maintained with a model railroad and Prairie Dog Central coaches in a yard south of the station. At Winnipeg we got new locomotives:

6510 class GPA 17a (GMD FP7 A)
6615 class GPB 17c (GMD FP7 B)
6612 class GPB 17c (GMD FP7 B)

At Portage La Prairie we switch back to the CP. Meet #2 again at Brandon. Around Carberry we spot antelopes.

At Calgary it was a long stop so we got off and walked around a bit. Saw some of the light rail trains. An additional sleeper “Draper Manor” was added between our sleeper and the observation car.

Time keeping was good. We arrived Banff 6 minutes late, Lake Louise 11 min late, 15 min early at Field which was a crew change. The Spiral Tunnels were impressive. We went through them in the dome.

Arrived Vancouver in the morning of Wednesday March 7. We transferred to the airport where we caught UA 1181 to Sea-Tac and changed to Cascade Airlines 325 for the short hop to Pasco where my wife's parents met us at the airport.

Part 2 will be the return trip coming soon.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Part 2 - the return trip

We spent a pleasant week visiting with my in-laws (it was our first visit there since they had moved from the Boston area) and flew out of Pasco on Tuesday March 13 on Cascades flight 444. At Sea-Tac we changed to UA 1246 for Vancouver, arriving at 1335. We had some time to kill as #2 didn't leave until 2145 and needed to get dinner. We settled on a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver's Chinatown.

Our departure from Vancouver was not until 2225 (40 min late) due to an issue with a steam generator. The Canadian was still steam heated at this point and we definitely needed that steam heat for the Canadian winter. Consist was as follows:

GMD FP7A 6566
GMD FP7B 6652
GMD FP7B 6611
Baggage 606
Coach/snack 3200
Skyline Dome/Lounge 514
Dayniter 5747
Sleeper Elliston 8 roomette/4 bedroom/4 section
Sleeper Eastview 8 roomette/4 bedroom/4 section
Diner 1367
Sleeper Allan Manor 4 roomette/6 bedroom/4 section (we had bedroom F)
Sleeper Wolfe Manor 4 roomette/6 bedroom/4 section (removed at Calgary)
Dome Observation/Lounge/Sleeper (3 bedroom/drawing rm) Glacier Park

I didn't keep as much in the way of notes for the trip back. I recall they had a deal where you could stop off in Winnipeg and get a hotel room for a few hours and get a shower. I didn't get the consist for the Montrealer back to Philadelphia. One negative experience was at Toronto where we got off to walk around a little and when we went to get back on our car they wouldn't allow this but made us wait in line with the boarding passengers, not even a place to sit for my pregnant wife. My impression was VIA in general seems to be very bureaucratic and not much for making allowances for situations.

All in all though it was a great experience. The food was very good on the Canadian both ways.

 

[jiml]

Great report! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I smiled at your "bureaucratic" comment. That's VIA in one word in many cases.

 

[Palmland]

Thanks for the interesting reports. I wonder why VIA selected the CN rather than CP for much of the route especially the most scenic portion.

Interesting that your in laws moved to Richland. I was there from about 6mos. to age 2 when my father worked on a government project. Nice little town we visited a few years ago and our house from family photos was little changed.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Interesting that your in laws moved to Richland. I was there from about 6mos. to age 2 when my father worked on a government project. Nice little town we visited a few years ago and our house from family photos was little changed.

My father in law was a manager on the Washington Public Power Supply Project which was an ambitious project that was to build 5 nuclear power plants in the Hanford area. I believe only one got built and the rest canceled after 3 Mile Island pretty much killed nuclear power in this country. He ended up retiring there.

 

[BlackDiamond]

A couple of pictures from our tip. I have recently been finally scanning slides I took back then.

2nd day out our first long stop at Sudbury ON. It was cold as indicated by the steam rising from the coaches. My wife is standing by our sleeper Christie Manor. This stop was an interesting one for me as a child my family had lived a few years in Elliot Lake about 100 miles West of here and Sudbury was the nearest big town which had department stores.


View from the dome of the Waterton Park as we travel through the rugged area of Western Ontario


West of Calgary the mountains start to appear.


At the stop at Field BC. The engines are being watered. The boilers for the steam heating use a lot of water.

 

[BlackDiamond]

A couple more pictures from the return trip

:

Our train awaits us at Vancouver



Not sure what river this is.

 

[Bob Dylan]

A couple more pictures from the return trip

View attachment 27527:

Our train awaits us at Vancouver

View attachment 27528

Not sure what river this is.

Looks like the Fraser.

 

[GAT]

Looks like the Fraser.

I think you're right. Eastbound train, somewhere west of Hope before entering the canyon. The weather is singing "Lower Mainland."

 

[Willbridge]

Thanks for the interesting reports. I wonder why VIA selected the CN rather than CP for much of the route especially the most scenic portion. ....

VIA felt more comfortable on CN during the period when the single route was chosen. Note how much of the VIA CP system disappeared. Also, we put up a tremendous fight to retain the CN transcon service, which was not the case on the smug CP route.

Here's a 1984 meeting at Jasper to deal with the 1981 cuts. The person testifying in these photos specialized in Japanese tour groups. This period (1981-84) of my work for the City of Edmonton was the first time since my ODOT days that I got paid for working on rail passenger advocacy. The only bad experience was that I loaned the mayor my son's wooden train whistle to open a meeting in Edmonton and the politician tried to keep it.