12th May 2025
We walked to the ‘Wall’, me carrying the heavy bags, pausing a few times on the way, and boarded the coach to take us to the train terminus. The Rocky Mountaineer was long, most of the carriages were double height. Viewing on top and dining below. The single deck carriages appeared to be where the cooking took place, and the onboard staff stayed. There may also have been some Silver Line Guests in there. There was also an external viewing platform for each carriage. This is a must for clear photographs. While on the trip, I hoped to track my location by GPS app. This did not work, the GPS signal was very week, despite the glass roof. I was wondering if there was something in the glass that stopped the signal. This also stopped the location information being added to the camera pictures.
Both days of the trip were logistically the same. Half of the passengers of the carriage would go below for breakfast, followed by the second half a while later. The same happened for lunch. The second day the groups were reversed. Those who dined first, now dined second. No food was offered for the evening. Lunch came with wine,
At the end of the day, arrival times were uncertain, this depended on hold-ups on the route. You would be taken to your hotel, where you could order and buy an evening meal. We didn’t eat an evening meal, breakfast and lunch were filling enough. Next day we would be collected at 7.am. Again, no breakfast in the hotel, it was on the Rocky Mountaineer
While you were watching the scenery outside unfold, drinks would be served, beer, spirits, wine etc.
The trip was generally quite slow, there were occasional long delays, where we were stationary, allowing trains on their way to Vancouver to come by. The track is a single track, with long passing loops, where you would wait for the freight train to come past. The Mountaineer was a second-class vehicle; priority was given to the 200+ wagon goods trains. The operators of the RM were so worried about causing delays from breakdowns, they always had an extra locomotive connected to the train
In the photographs, you will see a train line on the other side of the river. Yes, there are two lines, and they are not running trains in different directions. They are two distinct lines owned by two companies, being Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific (CP). We were travelling on the Canadian National Railway (CN).
These two lines run from Vancouver to Kamloops, operating on different sides of the river valleys. They follow the River Fraser, and then the Thompson River. There is one spot at Viewpoint Bridges on the Thompson River where both lines cross over the river. Yes, two bridges to allow the lines to swap sides. Very Bizarre. You would also think that if the companies came to an agreement, and ran traffic down one line, and up the other, they could increase the capacity of the lines.
On the first day we followed the River Fraser, which started wide and slow flowing. Later we entered the Rockies where the river narrowed and started to flow faster. Here the scenery was becoming startling. We were also privy to some feats of startling engineering. The river Fraser was a brown colour. At a river junction we then followed the Thompson river, here there was a startling change in colour, gone was the mud colour and now we had a blue river. The scenery was also more robust, with snow tipped mountains, and steep escarpments. On route, we looked out for avalanche shelters, bridges and other trains which were on either the CPR line, or on our line as we waited in a loop.
The goods train wagons were varied, containers, coal, gas oil, aggregate. The most carriages we counted was 212. Often these were hauled by an engine in the front, and one in the middle. Sometimes, there might be one locomotive at the back with two in the front as well.
With the twisty track, I managed to get images of our own train entering tunnels, yes, our train was quite long, longer than a standard British train. On the route we saw Ospreys, and a huge Osprey nest.
We arrived into a siding at Kamloops, which is their base for RM train repairs. Here we were picked up and deposited in our hotels. I went for a walk in a nearby park and found several groups of (Yellow bellied) Marmots. (Although the whole Marmot v Ground Squirrel v Gopher etc debate gets a bit fraught.)
