Coast-to-Coast Canadian Christmas ~ VIA Rail's Ocean #14 ~ Solo Sleeper from Montreal to Halifax
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- It was so rewarding, one year almost to the day of deciding to do so, to hop on VIA's Ocean, the oldest "named" train route in North America. I'd never been to the Maritimes before, or even that far east in Quebec, so there was an even bigger sense of adventure hopping on it than my trips on VIA's Canadian had involved.
I met another train UA-camr en route, a first for me, and if you are interested in train reports a la @SimplyRailway you can find young Noah at @NokiTravels. Any of you who have seen my previous train videos on the Canadian or the Corridor route [@NeptunianLibrarian] know that I don't do reportage that way. My videos are more taking you along with me and sharing the things that I find interesting, particularly historically, about the route I'm travelling.
This is now the sixth installment in my Coast-to-Coast Canadian Christmas series. Riding the train, I finally figured out what it was that united Canada from coast-to-coast at Christmas, and it was a lovely little non-denominational thing: Christmas lights. Throughout this adventure, I've seen them, and particularly as I rolled through the dark, snowy winter night on the Ocean, I realized they made me feel at home even literally thousands of kilometres from anyone I knew. It was a lovely revelation.
Anyway, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride! :-)
Thanks! I'm doing the 'Canadian' from Edmonton to Toronto return this Christmas. I board on Christmas eve and get home on New Year's eve.
This trip has been on my bucket list forever, thank you for letting us tag along!
good stuff maynard!!!
The Ocean train is by far one of my favorites that I had the pleasure to experience, crew was great and the Sainte Foy location was a little bonus for the sleeping class passengers, because of the length of the Ocean train, Sleeping Class gets a slightly longer fresh air break because the train will move a bit so that the Economy can come out and we can get back on after. one of the crew told me about that little tid bit of information. Had a cabin for 2 on the train but last time I was on it they still had the dome cars and a park car but the park car and I believe dome car removed
Thanks for this, SS! A Dome and Park car would have been great! Lucky you! Alas, neither were there on my trip, or I certainly would have filmed that for everyone. With the bookend baggage cars, I guess the Park car, with it's view of the tracks out back, can't happen, but a Dome car or two would be nice! 🤩
@@NeptunianLibrarian it was because of the Transport Canada requiring the baggage car bookends that they removed the park car, not really sure why they got rid of the dome car.
But I am glad you enjoyed the trip, the last time I took that train, was when my friend and I moved to Winnipeg and we took the train there, the newish blue cars you were on, were being fixed or something so they used the older stainless steel cars, we got bumped up to a cabin for three instead of two but shortly after departing Halifax we started to notice an issue in the washrooms. Via staff thought it might have meant the tank was full in the car so they arranged for a septic truck to meet the train in Moncton, but alas it turned out to be an electrical issue and none of the toilets in the entire car worked, they could have moved us to a different cabin in another car but it would not be a cabin for 3 and since those are at the end of each car and the restrooms for the next car was just a few feet from us, we declined because we both wanted the lower berth beds so we would not need a ladder, we got compensated for the issue and the 24 hour delay of The Canadian but made it to Winnipeg ok
Nice video
Re: the food, in prior years, at least on the Canadian, coach passengers were always invited to take meals in the dining car. Of course they had to pay out of pocket as the price was not included with the ticket. Via Rail stopped doing that some years ago, to my chagrin. They have never given me a straight answer why. I can only think it is because somebody at HQ (probably with an mba) thought it was improper to mix the first class passengers with the (literally) unwashed from coach.
Oh, how interesting! I watch train videos of other countries and wonder why VIA doesn't have a comparable little cafe car with decent, healthy options instead of junk food and cellophane-wrapped, overprocessed yuck. To know that you once could ride in economy but get a proper meal in the dining room makes me wonder if increasing ridership is actually the goal or not. Sigh. Thank you so much for this information, JB!🤩
I love your videos, with the exception of the flashing red lights in the reflection. Any way to block those in the future?
Thanks, MO! A little while ago, another viewer reminded me that the lights are just a setting. That's the problem with old gear, I guess. It had been too long since I explored all the options! 😂 I will for sure nix the lights with my next night footage. 🌃
Nice. P.S. you can turn off the red light in the menu
Sweet! Huge thanks for that tip!🤩
Were we on the same train?
Thank you for posting this!
I was happy to see the bridge over the Restigouche River at Matapedia.
Here is a video from November 1970 along that route, from Campbellton NB to Sayabec QC and return. It shows crossing that bridge.
ua-cam.com/video/0vH6R8qq3vY/v-deo.html
That is such fun footage, AG! What a fantastic view. Definitely the best seat on the train! Thanks!🤩