The Canadian: A Week On Board
I guess it is time to say goodbye
“Now, gentlemen.” Stu, a small goatee-stricken man with haggard eyes, announced to the dining car. “You will have to eat up all your vegetables before I reveal what is for dessert…” Stu would repeat the same joke each night. The same hearty guffaws erupting in response each time.
A crowd pleaser for a generation or two before mine. Howard loved it. Sat opposite me, he’d eat up his broccoli and proudly announce he was ready for the cheesecake. Revelling in the rehearsed dinner party theatrics of it all.
It was a show. The linen-clad tables. The perfectly upright, uptight, passengers. The heavily moustached waiter enthusiastically directing me to my table, swaying from side to side as we danced to the rhythm of the carriage.
I sat down, expecting the performance to continue but was met with silence. Two unfamiliar faces looked up awkwardly, neither initiating conversation. They clearly hadn’t been part of the rehearsal.
I quickly realised what we were: The singles table. The home of the loner. My companions shuffled their cutlery around. They were quite the opposites. Dave, beside me, sat in his hoodie and cap. A standard attire for a standard man. The kind who could talk to you about horsepower but little more.
Howard wore a comically oversized dinner jacket. A jacket in which you could see the open space within it, pat it down if you wanted. He was well-to-do and carried himself as such. He pined after the days of the train’s origin. A man more fitting to the 1950’s than any era since.
It is what I adored about this trip. The mismatching of companions, the forced conversations you wouldn’t have otherwise, the unlikely friendships that were born from it. How you’d stumble through wobbly corridors greeting strangers you’d met the night before as if old friends.
The magic of The Canadian. A four-day train ride from Vancouver to Toronto. First run in 1955, the franchise has been owned by VIA Rail, a government-controlled railway entity, since 1978 and is the only transcontinental Canadian service still running.
It is not your typical train service. As a Sleeper Plus passenger, (bought with 40% off on one of VIA’s Discount Tuesdays…) I had access to a fully-fledged bar; two dome cars; a dining car; the lounge in ‘Prestige’ class (for the extra fancy people); a board games space; and my own sleeping berth / seat.
Every meal was provided. Three courses at lunch and dinner. An endless supply of tea, coffee and Oreo’s. It was luxury. Avanti West Coast eat your heart out, this was travelling done in style.
Technology may have advanced but The Canadian has not. It currently takes longer than it did in the 1950s to cross the country by train. On board, you will often find yourself staring at an unmoving landscape whilst an endless stream of cargo passes on by. A fact due, in large part, to the prioritisation of freight trains as Canadian National Rail (CN) own the tracks VIA operates on.
It is slow-paced but built that way. The magic probably wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t. The waiters wouldn’t be so skilled. So easily able to carry food and drink without a drop spilled. The wavering movements of the train a constant challenge to this. It was an impressive task, one that would undoubtedly be impossible at the pace of European or Asian trains.
A perfect pace for me. To say goodbye to Canada, the country I had called home for the past two years. I’d watch the vast expanse of this environmentally diverse country roll by. Waking up each morning to a new sight, a new version of this constantly evolving landscape.
From the mountainous glory of the Rockies at a sunlit dawn to the hauntingly bare prairies, where snow covered farms would sweep past hour upon hour. I sat fascinated, more connected to this country than I’d ever felt before.
It wasn’t a foreign land drifting on by as if I were just a tourist but a land I felt I understood. It was a country in which I’d made a life, something I never quite thought I would. And now I was leaving that all behind.
Had I made the right choice? Why would I leave a life I had made, found so comfortable? Why up sticks from an environment that felt less anxiety-driven, less rushed?
In truth, these thoughts did come. Did make me question. The slow churning nature of the trip allowed for their full exploration. To digest the last two years, appreciate them and the vast beauty of the country I had lived in but also see the need to move on. To find the next step.
Besides, I was far from alone. Friendships were not hard to find. Companions to whirr away the hours with. Cody, a chatty Panda bear of a man, sat next to me at dinner one evening. And then every evening after.
We spoke about the intricacies of life in Vancouver, our reasons for boarding the train. Himself following in the footsteps of his recently passed father. A man who had crossed the expanse of Canada on tour many years before. Cody was going all the way to Newfoundland in his memory, a fitting tribute to a man who clearly meant a lot.
There was a proudness that awoke in his voice whenever his Dad was mentioned. I would listen to him tell the same story to fellow dinner goers each night. It would never get old. I found it comforting, his clear adoration.
Cody was one of few fellow passengers my age. Unsurprisingly, most young people don’t have the time, or money, to sit on a train for four days. I was stuck with the over 65s. A fact that suited me. Gave me the opportunity to listen to the life stories of others, find friendships within that.
Like mine and Suzanne’s. Suzanne was my neighbour, my cabin partner, for the trip. Worlds apart in age and life but bonded by our shared space. There was something comforting about her presence. A calm that I was drawn to. She was a cop but far from the stereotype you may have. She spoke of her love of art, how maybe in another life she would have made a career of it.
We cruised through topics of love, heartbreak, watching her kids grow up. Sometimes I’d leave, head to the dome car or dining cart, she’d always be there when I got back. Watching the world pass outside the window. A peace in her poise.
A peace I would disrupt. One morning, I fell out of bed. She watched and laughed. The crew’s last call for breakfast rudely waking me from my slumber moments before. Suzanne encouraged me on, said I could make it.
Clearly in the mood for entertaining, I picked myself up and crashed through the train’s moving corridors. Slamming from wall to wall, my bleary-eyed mind forcing me on.
Hair askew and practically panting, I landed at the breakfast table. A wide-eyed smiling man sat staring back at me. Brad, a sports media specialist from Winnipeg, who looked like a sports media specialist from Winnipeg.
Brad wasn’t the only newcomer. The entire crew had changed. My thoughts quickly questioned the reality of what I was seeing.
I listened to Brad witter on about a job I couldn’t understand. My eyes suspiciously moved between each new face. There was no Stu, no Martin, no over energetic moustache man. No. I remembered. They had swapped over at Winnipeg. I wasn’t going mad, just concerningly forgetful.
I apologised to Brad for my dishevelled state and asked him about sports. The most effortless form of male communication. He took the bait and, from then on, conversation flowed.
Brad, like Cody, was a rare sight. Another member of the under 45s. We were expanding by the day. Maybe I was seeking it out? Younger company. Despite my love of spending time with the likes of Suzanne, it was comforting to find friendships with those in a somewhat similar age bracket.
By the final night, we had picked up a couple more. A group of us gathered in the train’s fanciful bar carriage. The under 45s and proud. Our ears pricked as the bartender recounted horror stories from life on board. Quarantined trains to SWAT team raids. Apparently, it wasn’t always so peaceful here.
It made sense. The ability to jump on and off board at stations with no noticeable platform or human habitation, just a thickly wooded forest, made it easy to disappear or arrive without a trace. It was a romanticised way of life but one prime to be taken advantage of by unsavoury characters.
A fact quickly forgotten by the time I was wandering back to my bed that night. My thoughts encapsulated by a sadness to leave. To say goodbye to those I met, to the landscapes I’d seen and, most of all, to the slowness of life I had become accustomed to.
“Life is so fast paced, it is nice to have a forced break from it all.” Suzanne said in passing one day.
She was right. In a life so overwhelmed by what’s coming next, keeping up with those around us, satisfying our overstimulated senses, there was something refreshing about being forced to stop. To take a pause. To gaze out a window and do nothing.
The Canadian was a haunting back to when life was slower, when things moved slower. When we weren’t all interconnected, trying to rush across the world, reach the furthest place in the shortest time. Would it be so bad if things just took a little bit longer?
Environmentally, mentally and even physically, it felt a better way to move through the world. I know it is a pipedream, the idea of reshaping travel in the opposite interests of our growth-obsessed society.
I know my ability to do it in such style was one most couldn’t. Stuffing myself with three-course meals on decadent tables. Sipping away at free glasses of prosecco. If I had been sat in Standard class with no bed or food, I’m sure I would have spent the trip tired, uncomfortable, and frustrated by the lack of pace.
But I hadn’t. I’d lived in my rose-tinted glasses for four days and fallen for what I saw. A simpler, slower life. That of the over 65. I never realised it suited me so much…