1950s Business-Class Prison: 4 Nights on Via Rail's Cross-Country Train, 'The Canadian'

The Canadian is a train that goes between Toronto and Vancouver. It takes 4 days, covering almost 4500kms. The train is mostly made of the same train cars that were crossing the country back in the 1950s. It’s slow, it’s social, it’s picturesque, and it smells like 💩 a lot of the time.

This was ... an experience.

What's it ... like?

There's plenty of information out there on how it all works, so I won't do ten minutes on the history of railroads in Canada or whatever a YouTube video trying to pad out the timing would do. So I'm gonna stick to answering the question I've gotten the most about it: what's it like?

First though, a few relevant bits:

You can stay in a cabin (has a door, what I did) or a berth (a bunk with a curtain.)

There's a dining car and it works just like a restaurant with reservations and menus and waiters, but the food is included in the price.

There are a few public spaces with tables for playing games and they host a few activities like trivia and wine tastings.

And there are glass domes that stick out above the top of the train, which is how I got pictures like the ones in this post, all of which were taken on my trip. (The domes make the scenery a lot more of an attraction than your usual train, where you can only stare out the side windows.)

Is it ... fun?

It's a lot of things. And fun at times. But it's not exactly a non-stop Nelly video.

It was nostalgic. Can you be nostalgic for a time before you were alive? The trains being as old as they are, combined with the general vibe of taking a train across the country as if planes don't exist, and stuff like the dude who yelled 'all aboard!' right before we left, meant the 1950s vibes were strong. It smelled of an old person's house and felt the same.

It was peaceful. There was plenty of time to stare out of the window at passing mountains, plains, and forests, and just ... think. Each day I took some time to put on my noise cancelling headphones and put on a dramatic playlist and pretend I was in a movie or something.

It was social. Everyone was friendly and you sit with strangers 3 times a day in the dining car, so you become fast friends. You hear stories from every walk of life. A math professor, a Dutch truck driver, a Mormon family, a funeral director, an oil pipeline construction worker, and on and on. By day 3, I wasn’t interested in talking about myself — I just kept asking people about their stories. I became addicted. In our daily lives, we get into these bubbles with our friends and family and online algos serving us whatever, and we only hear from the same small set of world views. The train chats were a great bubble burster. There was every kind of person on board.

It was a digital reset. There's no wifi on the train, and the cell service comes and goes. I generally put my phone in airplane mode between stations and turned it on just to check-in and send a photo here and there. No news is good news.

It was an easy escape. It was a vacation with almost no logistics. Get to the train, everything else is decided. One place to eat, one lounge, one dome to watch the scenery. No exhausting yourself with decisions about where to eat, or what to do, or feeling guilty for not filling every moment with activity. Read a book, watch a train go by, eat a really tender piece of meat with a lovely sauce.

What was a day like?

Wake up, fold my bed back into the wall, change and organize my stuff a little, walk through 8 train cars to get to the dining car and chat with strangers over breakfast.

Then back to the cabin for my morning ablutions. Stare out the window for a while, possibly taking some photos and/or listening to an audiobook.

Then go hang out in the dome or lounge and talk to some strangers.

Then back to the dining car for lunch with a new set of strangers.

Then get off the train to walk around a bit if there's a stop, otherwise back to the cabin for a nap and maybe write or work on something on my laptop.

Head back to the dome before sunset for more photo taking and scenery absorbing and also talking to strangers.

Then back to the dining car again for dinner with yet another set of strangers.

Then chill in the lounge chatting with strangers until bed time.

Then to end the day, back to the cabin to grab my shower kit and go take a shower and try not to fall over in the wet vibrating box. (It only vibrates if the train is barreling ahead, but it was every time I showered.)

Then finally I’d walk back to the cabin while being serenaded by the sound of my now-wet shower sandals squeaking with every step, then I’d clean up a little, pull down my bed, and try to sleep without being shaken off the bed.

Freight!

Such a strange word, freight. It's got an eight in there, which already looks weird on its own, but tack a 'fr' on there? Can we just spell it frate? No? Okay.

Anyway, the rails in Canada are (foolishly) owned by the freight companies. And they get priority for their own trains. So any passenger train has to stop in sidings a lot to let freight trains go by. And boy does it stop. 4500kms in 4 days: you average less than 50km/h. The train can do 100-130km/h or more on clear track, so you're spending half the time stopped or going slow.

And that can be frustrating. The train is at its best when it's moving. My preference for a trip like this would be full-speed, with long stops at the stations in between. Instead, we were often stopped on the tracks waiting for a freight train to pass, and having to make up time so blowing through the stations. Or getting into a town at 3am, instead of in the evening. You probably don't want to get out and explore Winnipeg at 3am in the winter.

And when you do get going at full speed, and the track is a bit rough, the whole place shakes and screams like a banshee. I don't think anyone slept the first night. Don't pee standing up, hold on when you shower, and bring noise cancelling headphones if you don't wanna use the provided ear plugs.

Yes, the toilet is right where you sleep. Yes, is it difficult to shower on a train. Yes, that's all part of the fun.

And that's what I mean when I say the train is at its best in motion. It shakes and vibrates in unpredictable ways. The fun part is hooking your foot around the bed so you don't fall off, or watching the servers trying not to spill a tray of soup orders, or stepping from one car to another while you're going around a bend – you can't help but smile. (Also my biggest regret is not bringing Jenga!)

About that smell...

Look, the cabins are tiny. And each cabin has a toilet. And the toilets don't have standing water. And the cabin doors are there for privacy, not smell blocking. So when the German guy in the cabin next to you drops a massive sausage load onto the dry surface of his toilet ... you're gonna smell it. And you're gonna smell similar things when you walk past other cabins on your way to a different car (I had to walk through 5 or 6 cars full of cabins to get to my cabin.)

When these trains are eventually replaced, I imagine the setup will be different. I think they just had a different tolerance for stuff like this in general in the 1950s. It was a smellier time.

Your toilet is also right in front of your cabin window, so you gotta time your drops. I started one when the only thing outside my window was an empty field. But we very soon rolled into town and the train stopped right in front of a car dealership with my 💩ing face in clear view. Sorry to anyone who happened to be looking out the window of that Chrysler / Jeep / Dodge dealer somewhere in Manitoba.

Should you do it?

I don't know, I'm not you.

This has been on my bucket list since I started travelling a lot in the '00s. So I'm glad to finally have ticked it off. And it was an experience that has left an impact in ways I can't yet explain because it's only been a few days.

On the first night, I couldn't sleep so I stared out the window. In the darkness I could just make out the steep drop as we ascended along the cliffside into the mountains. I looked up at the few visible stars and could just make out the constellation Cassiopeia. The train was shaking violently and the wheels screeched on the turns. This wasn't a normal night.

This was something.

I don't like to travel much anymore because it's all the same patterns and rhythms and it doesn't get to me the way it used to.

This one got to me.

And yet, to paraphrase another passenger on the last day, "Being on vacation is great but I can't wait to get home." I think by that last day we were all itching to get off. You wouldn't want more than 4 days of it.

A lot of folks compared it to a cruise. But it's not really like that. You don't have the expanse of the ocean. You don't have multiple dining options. You don't have the space of those giant cruise ships. It's a lot more cramped. It's a lot more social. And at the end of the day, it's a train. Quite a few of the passengers are just using it for transport. So that adds a grounding that a cruise ship doesn't have.

I was actually surprised just how few people went the whole distance. Plenty did half of the journey, or just one night, or between cities in the middle because they were moving for a new job. And that meant new people getting on and off all the time.

Always someone new to meet.

Would I do it again?

Probably not, not soon at least. When they get new trains running on that line, if and when that happens, I could see giving them a try. Or if I had to travel to Vancouver again and was going with someone, maybe it could be fun to go one-way on the train.

For now, I'm just gonna file it away in my mind castle. Try to edit all the damn photos I took. And try to find other weird and strange travel experiences that'll make me go 'ooh!'

As I said, I don't like to travel. It's been years since I actually, genuinely looked forward to a trip the way I did with this one. So it's got me wondering what other unique, weird, chill travel experiences are out there.

Lastly, some tips & things I'd do differently

• Bring Jenga. It'll be worth the luggage space.
• On the first day, introduce yourself to everyone. This'll help make the train more friendly. I walked the train as soon as we left Vancouver and said hello to anyone with their cabin door open. Those quick connections paid off over the following days.
• Have some better conversation topics than where are you going / where are you from / what do you do. Those convos will get old, fast. Try asking people if they think aliens are real or what their favourite meat is or something. Have some verbal games ready to revive a lulling dinner convo.
• Get off every time the train stops. Even if it's only a 10 minute stop, get off and walk the platform. I didn't go outside on two of the four days 'cause the stops were short and awkwardly placed, and I felt it.
• Don't eat the canapés if you're lactose-intolerant. 🤦‍♂️

That's it. Let me know if you like this format, or don't, or want to read more about a dude who doesn't like to travel forcing himself to, or don't.