We’re in the lounge car, normally the last car in the train. It’s 11pm at night and we’re traveling at some considerable speed—backwards! An engineer with a flashlight (torch, to my British empire friends) sitting at the open back door—make that the front door—leading us by another route into Toronto. At times, he even used a whistle. The core of us, fellow passengers since at least Jasper, are cleaning up the remains of the bar stock. The Oban is long gone. All bets on the time of our ultimate arrival in Toronto are long voided.
We were already running hours late, but this final delay was caused by heavy rain (we hear five inches) that flooded train tracks in Toronto.
Ultimately, the run from Winnipeg to Toronto took us nearly forty-eight hours. As I mentioned in the previous post, we mostly slept through the Winnipeg stop.
We may not have seen Winnipeg, but the service crews certainly have. There was a complete crew change in Winnipeg. Apparently, crews are divided between those who handle the Winnipeg—Vancouver legs and those who service the Winnipeg—Toronto stretch. They work long hours while on board but if what one attendant related to us applies to all, they have five days on and ten days off. In the case of our informant, she loves the arrangement. She works five days, takes care of the kids for five days while her husband works a shift, and they are both home for five days. She claims the five days on board are the easiest of the three stretches.
The cars we are riding in are originals from the 1920’s, if I understood the explanation correctly. They were most recently refurbished ten years ago. For ten years of service the cars appear to us as being in excellent shape. But the lack of wifi and other electronics perhaps exposes the datedness of the affair. There is a monitor/TV screen in the cabin, but it only offers a selection of USB-connected movies. We haven’t turned the TV on.
The shower is fine, but the water runs but one minute each time a button is pushed. My showers have been three and four button efforts. Our only complaint is the bathroom door. It latches closed but not open. With the rolling of the train car as we move, it invariably slams shut. I know you’re thinking, why not leave it shut? Gee, why didn’t we think of that. We certainly are better off than one of our neighbors, whose bathroom door latched neither open nor closed. Ultimately, they stuffed a towel in the track to muffle the bangs. On the other hand, their cabin isn’t directly over the car’s wheels as ours is. Something we didn’t think about when we made our reservation.
Since waking up the morning after our departure from Winnipeg, the geography has been consistent. This area of Ontario was scraped clean during the last ice age. Soil depth is minimal. All is now lakes, swamps, ferns, shrubs, and, where the soil has finally achieved the necessary depth, forests. It’s part of the great Canadian Shield. There is a light rain falling at the moment. I don’t believe I’ve seen a man-made structure from our window in the last hour. Forgive me, I forgot we are in the land of Trudeau. Make that human-made structures.
I keep hoping to see a bear but no luck so far. Two fellow passengers have been more successful. They’ve no photos to prove this however. We fly by too fast. The bartender showed us one he took on an earlier trip of a mother bear with two cubs. Maybe we’ll be lucky yet. We certainly haven’t spotted any humans in this wilderness.
At one of our middle-of-nowhere stops, we walked from the last car as far forward as we could, through all the classes of service. Only four cars, including the engine, were ahead of us when we got to the one door available for exiting. Not a minute after stepping down, “all aboard” was announced and we retraced our steps. The train then backed up into another siding. Two other freight trains that had been in front of us also backed into other sidings. It seems the track was “broken” somewhere ahead of us. We are no longer behind schedule, we’re way behind schedule.
There is a contingent of Amish, Mennonites or some similar sect on board. Likely they are Mennonites as most of the men are not sporting beards. They were speaking a language we do not understand—Pennsylvania Dutch? Frankly, they were a touch rude in not holding doors for others and in pushing ahead of us on several occasions. In mass they have come to the lounge at our end of the train to hold a religious service. The songs were sung with a quite well-executed three-part harmony. We and the others of our service class have retreated to our cabins for the time being.
We passed a single-double Bailey bridge spanning a forest creek. My Corps of Engineer friends will know what I am talking about. I haven’t seen one in decades.
What happens when there is no internet, no organized entertainment, an unlimited supply of bar stock, and a contingent of Aussies and Kiwis? Way too much consumed booze and a wonderful evening of stories and camaraderie. For what we had thought would be our last evening and while again parked in a siding, waiting for yet another freight train to pass, we entertained each other late into the evening. We consumed more scotch than we had in years. It was a fabulous time. We missed breakfast the next morning.
Over our last day we rolled through the forests, lakes, swamps and rocky outcroppings of backwoods Ontario. Beyond an occasional forest road and, of course, our railroad tracks, there is little evidence of civilization. Eventually, we began passing an occasional lodge or cabin, then a village or two, then the town of Parry Sound. There, on the platform of the station, was Brent Kelman, who waved at us as we flew by. Our train is so long (albeit not nearly as long as the freight trains) that I did not know our train had stopped to let a passenger off at the station. By the time our car passed Brent, we were moving quite smartly.
We had one more surprise on reaching Toronto’s Union Station. Although our hotel was but a few blocks from the station, it was late and we were so tired that we took an Uber to the hotel. We had emailed earlier that our arrival would be late and received a “no worries” reply. Only, when we arrived, we and one other couple from the train were told that the hotel was fully booked (apparently because of the city’s flooding problems). We were given a voucher for another hotel several blocks away. Led by a hotel employee, we trudged, and I do mean trudged, to the new lodging. I think Frances was asleep about twelve seconds after we got into our room.
It’s now the next morning. In a few hours we’ll repack and return to our originally booked hotel—then finally do our best to discover Toronto. It’s our first visit.