13th May 2025

Picked up at 7ish, and taken to the Rocky Mountaineer.

Today’s trip was much the same as yesterday’s, except we were now eating first.  Today we were travelling all the way to Banff, stopping off at Lake Louise, where some new passengers got on or old ones got off. Lake Louise is a prime tourist site, as we were to find out later.

In each carriage we had staff who would serve us our drinks, and a host who gave a commentary about the history of the line, and what to see outside of the windows. Today we were going to go through the underground, spiral tunnels. As a passenger this was not particularity impressive, but from outside you can see something of it. We were asked to guess which way we thought we were turning. Tricky. We visited this several weeks later.

We saw the memorial to the ‘Last Spike’, where the last track spike was fixed to the last sleeper. We later visited here on our road trip (lots of Swallowtail butterflies there).

The commentary we received was sometime interrupted by an excited shout from the host about something spotted on the track side. He was in radio contact with the carriages in front and I assume even the driver.  If they spotted something, they would radio the information to all the hosts. The host would then shout, look left or right at two o’clock (or whatever).  We were also told to do that if we spotted something.  Often this would be a false alarm, and there was nothing.  Through this technique we did spot the only bear we saw on holiday, and a Bald Eagle parked in a tree, where we were stopped for a while.  It never showed itself completely, and when I was sufficiently bored to put down the camera, it naturally flew off.

Another aspect of the Rocky Mountaineer was the waving. People on the track side would wave, and we would wave back. On route there was a house, where the occupants always waved at the train. How did they know the train was coming? The company sent someone out to find out. It apparently was their dog which could recognize the different sound this train made, so would bark.  The residents would rush outside to wave. They were there for us! The company apparently did give them a free holiday on the Rocky Mountaineer.

In our carriage, there was a Canadian couple. A a few years ago, the lady’s mum was on a Rocky Mountaineer trip when a friend of hers had managed to time it correctly, so, from her hometown trackside, she could wave at the mum. This time she would again be trackside, where she was again going to wave but this time, as the daughter went past. The whole of our carriage was told the tale. The driver & the Train Manager were consulted, watches were synchronized. We all waved. Apparently, they both got video of each other waving.

The trip ended, and we were deposited in hotel in Banff, the Elk + Avenue Hotel., which we would meet again.

The Spiral Tunnel