The most famous Canadian train (or probably just the only known one) that travels 4466 km from Vancouver to Toronto in 82 hours, just like the transiberian : Moscow to Irkutsk, 5153km in 87 hours, although I was honestly expecting this one to be faster. As I get it from Jasper it should only be 63 hours.
It should be.... because as you know, canadian trains are always late ... this in particular seems to build up a maximum of 22 hours of delay ... yes 22 ... it's one day! A concept that I've been struggling to understand ... a full day delay means that you either miss a night you already booked at your destination, or spending a night at the station waiting for a train you were supposed to catch in the evening and that appears the next morning. It really seems too much to me... but that's the way it is.We board with "only" 1 hour delay and I find out I'm not the only crazy person who's gonna spend 3 nights in a row on a seat! Good! By the following morning we already are a crazy little group formed by: a 19-year-old German girl who started the trip in Vancouver, me, 2 canadians and a scottis guy. The German girl is visiting her family in Vancouver and Montreal and took the train because with the youth discount it costs much less than flying, one of the Canadian must be in Toronto by Tuesday at 3pm for a job interview (raise your hand if you would travel 3000km for an interview), but he's afraid to fly, the other Canadian and the Scottish guy took the train because flying was too expensive , so I'm the only one who actually wantet to take the train! I'm also the only one who already took a train in Canada, so I'm the only one who knows about the delay....surprise everyone!!!! :-)
Since I told them, they couldn't think about anything else! ... every time the train stopped we tryed to figure out at what time would we really arrive at destination. A tragedy! At some point a lady who was used to take this train every month told us that we would NEVER arrive before 11pm... considering that we should arrive at 9:30am it would mean 13 and a half hours delay. The guy that has the interview decides to look for a flight from Winnipeg to Toronto to arrive in time(he will then book it), the Scottish just yells at Canada and keeps saying how happy he is to go back home, me and the German girl are just sorry to miss a full day in Toronto, but we decide that getting there in time to spend the night in bed is an acceptable compromise, the other Canadian has a real problem to solve as his uncle who was going to pick him up at the station is an old man and doesn't drive at night and by the time we would be in Toronto there will be no more buses going to his place (about 2 hours drive from the city) so he will probably have to spend the night in Toronto, that appears to be almost full booked!
Half way through the journey we are stable at 10-hour delay but we still have to make sure at every stop that it does not exceed. On one hand it is fun, on the other one must look grotesque ... ahahahahhaah. I can't remember exactely when, one of the controllers, announces that the arrival is scheduled for Tuesday at 7.30pm, but you never know ... ahahahhahaha.
Tuesday morning, when no one should actually be on that train anymore, the manager makes a sensational announcement: he says that we are late (NO WAY....REALLY ????), he informs us that we will not be charged any extra even if we're staying longer on the train (WHATTTTTTT?) and he also reminds us that on the tickets it is specified no to plan anything as train may be late (yes it does, but no one can imagine it could mean so many hours delay!) but if we have any connections they will anyway try to help us (OH THANK YOU!!!!). At least we get a free sandwich and drink as we weren't supposed to have lunch on the train.
We finally arrive in Toronto at 6.30 pm and we are so happy, it seems to us to be 1 hour ahead, while instead we are 9 hours late ... ahahahhahahaha !!!! Isn't it funny how perception of things can change? I honestly just want to have a shower and sleep in a space that allows me to stretch my legs!
We have crossed mountains, forests, neverending prairies, lakes, Indian reserves, we saw sunrises, sunsets, so much snow, we went out at 2 o'clock at night to take a walk on the icy roads, we missed all the few dining spots along the way because we were always late, some of us challenged the wind and frost to smoking a cigarette, we spent so many hours just looking at landscape in the panorama carriage, we slept in the positions...a train journey always offers great adventures!
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