Rocky Mountaineer - 15 - 16th Sep

Deer in Banff

We were up early the next day to head for the railway station to board the Rocky Mountaineer. Driving there, we spotted a deer cheerfully munching on shrubs in a front yard – having searched on roads outside town for wildlife for three days.

The train is a well-organized affair. While it was late, boarding was efficient and we found ourselves in a car that was abut half-full. The trip takes you through the mountains, across the divide in BC and then through other mountains and alongside flowing rivers. There are tall pine forests and lots to see. An engineering highlight are the spiral tunnels, to looping tunnels under mountains  allow the track to descend with a reasonable grade.

At Banff station

A real Mountie (retired)

We are on the Canadian Pacific line here – the original line of the first transcontinental railway. We pass by where the final spike wad riven to complete the line. The line is very busy and we have lots of stops to allow very long freight trains to pass by. These freight trains can be over 3 km long.

The first day is long – we didn’t arrive at Kamloops, our overnight stop, until about 9pm. Overnight, the trains from Banff (ours) and from Jasper are combined, to double ote train to about 17 carriages.

The second day is shorter and there are fewer delays for passing freight trains. We are on the Canadian National line here, heading west. There is a Canadian Pacific line paralleling ours – often on the other side of a raging river – and all westbound traffic takes the CN line, with eastbound the CP line.

The Rocky Mountaineer

We run through the canyons of the Thompson and then the Fraser rivers, with the track hugging the wall of the canyon. In places, concrete or wood rooves protect the line from the danger of rock avalanches.

Nearer to Vancouver, we travel through temperate rainforest as the weather becomes bleaker, with a grey mist shrouding the steep hills that remain our companions, as the valleys widen.

We pull into the dedicated Rocky Mountaineer station at about 4:15pm, about 75 minutes early.