Cross Country

I’ve always loved trains. That may be due to all those old films I watched in which trains played such a large part: Casablanca, Some Like It Hot, The Lady Vanishes. There are too many to list here. There were trains in song, too: Take the A-Train, Midnight Train to Georgia, Casey Jones. Trains were everywhere. They were part of our lives. Until they weren’t. The car and the Jet Age had whittled away at their place in our culture, until they became nothing more than a curiosity.

Few people consider the train when travelling. Unless they’re terrified of flying, that is. North America is not Europe in that regard, where they understand that any trip under 400 kms is quicker by train than by air. But they don’t have our vast distances between destinations. And they have dedicated passenger lines, unlike in America where freight owns the tracks and cargo is king.

We decided to do something different. We were going to time travel and experience what it was like to travel before the airplane and the car took over our lives. We’d take the Canadian cross country, stopping in Alberta for a week to spend time in the Rockies. We approached this cautiously, at first. What was it like to spend four days on a train? YouTube answered that question. People post just about everything on YouTube these days. We saw posts of the train coming into and leaving stations, of people boarding, of people walking the narrow passage along the length of the train, of people sleeping in their chairs, and of curtained booths and doored cabins. There were videos of lounge cars and observation decks and the dining car. There were videos of musicians performing aboard the train. Armed with this knowledge, we booked passage.

Thanks to our neighbours, we had vouchers for the Maple Leaf Lounge in Pearson. The space was handsome. Spacious, comfortable, leather chairs instead of the contoured plastic throughout the rest of the airport. There was free food, free magazines, marbled washrooms. Maybe not free; everything was paid for in the voucher cost. I took a copy of just about every magazine available for the trip. Why not? They were there to take, after all. Bev fell asleep in her chair, needing to be roused to catch our flight.
We flew. We landed. We checked in at the Fairmont. We spent the day in Gastown and on Granville Island. It was Labour Day weekend and the streets were teeming with people, the passages clogged by those hundreds of people gathered about buskers and musicians plying their trade. We found a Keg for supper. We ran out of steam while we ate, at about 7 pm, just as we had the year before. Time Zones. They wear on a body.

We had breakfast at a little café on Water Street and took a walk through Chinatown afterwards. There was a street market on Albert Street where homeless people tried to sell odds and ends they’ve rescued from wherever. One of them tried to sell me a ‘57 Royal typewriter. It was beautiful. Pastel, compact with case. With stuck keys. It weighed a ton. Not something I was inclined to buy, let alone carry across country with me. Maybe if I were in Toronto, and it had been serviced, workable, spruced up, maybe then I’d have bought it. But that would have been an impulse buy. A potentially pointless buy. Pretentious. Nostalgic. A curiosity.

We spotted a Garden Museum a block over. It was authentically Chinese, constructed using traditional methods and tools, all the plants imported from China. Even the pebbles were from China. It was a peaceful place. Quiet. Trees reached out overhead, bushes walled in private, shaded nooks. Water babbling. Fountains gurgling. The paths and bridges never struck a straight path; they curved and turned sharply, sure to confuse what demons that might have snuck in with us.

Before boarding the Canadian at 8 pm, we completed our day at the Bellagio, the same restaurant we had breakfast at the year before. We watched the city wind down and rush to leave then, as we had watched it wake and wind up the year before. Then we were off to the train station where we were entertained on the platform by the musician-in-residence. We were to be accompanied by her as she made her way home to Quebec (when I say we, I mean the train; we would be disembarking in Jasper the next day). If you’re lucky, there’ll be one travelling across the country with you, should you ever travel cross country on the Canadian. It’s a sweet deal for them. They get a single cabin and pay less than coach seating and all they have to do is perform three times a day, once in each of the lounge cars.
There was a menagerie of folk on the platform with us. Asians, Americans, British, Canadians. The young carried coach tickets, destined to curl up in their seats for however long they remained onboard. The middle-aged and elderly carried cabin berths in hand. I might have been able to handle coach when I was younger. I could sleep anywhere, then. Not now. I’ve joined the ranks of the middle-aged and I like a little luxury. I like to stretch out. And my back would never have survived the ordeal. I watched those youths with envy, though. I saw army surplus and cargo pants. Denim. I saw backpacks. I saw dreadlocks and Doc Martens and wildly coloured print leggings. I saw nose rings and ear hoops, too. I didn’t envy those.

Regardless our age and tickets, we all carried small bags. Coach was given a little more wiggle room, in that regard; so long as they could shove it into the overhead compartment or under their feet, they were good. But if you had a cabin, you carried a small bag. You’d better, too, if you’ve a mind to take the train. If your carry-on wasn’t exactly 28” x 18” x 9” you’d have to check it and you wouldn’t see it again until you departed the train. I discovered that mine was a couple inches too wide and too thick. Fool. I’d read the specifications and checked the carry-ons I owned. One was perfect, I thought, just a little off the specs. I didn’t think it would make a difference, but it obviously did. Cabins were small, the space limited, and the bags need be exactly as mentioned to fit in the storage bin in the cabin. Thank god we were only staying onboard one night. I rifled through my pack, adding a few essentials to Bev’s before handing my carry-on over.

I realized that I’d have to buy another carry-on while in Alberta. Or do without. That wasn’t going to happen. Four days without clean clothes was not something I wished to experience. I might as well have bought coach, then.

I wasn’t young anymore. I wasn’t a backpacker anymore.