Our last overseas trip, and The Ocean
Or First World problems before the wheels fell completely off!
Part 1.
March 2020 was an interesting time, to say the least. Janelle and I had been looking forward to revisiting Canada, and travelling on another of ViaRail’s long distance trips, The Ocean, from Montreal to Halifax and return. I’ll write about our trip on The Canadian another time.
We’d booked months earlier, in the days where we had our next trip booked before we embarked on our current adventure, so had our flights, accommodation, and rail travel booked in.
The basic itinerary was fly into Quebec via LA and Montreal, for a few days. Then train to Ottawa for a couple of nights, down to Toronto for several more days, back up to Montreal, and then catch The Ocean to Halifax. Due to leave constraints, and it was still winter, we were on the return service of the same train two nights later, and booked to fly out of Montreal home via LA International.
And this is where 2020 stepped in…
In an ongoing environmental battle to prevent a 670km long Costal Gas Pipeline project passing through their lands, the Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nations peoples had started erecting blockades to prevent the pipeline construction. They had been protesting since 2010 against the foreign funded consortium, but things were getting heated.
After the Mounties moved in and dismantled the barriers, and arrested numbers of people, other protests started, with the Toronto to Montreal rail line, and others blockaded on February 6.
This resulted in most passenger and freight rail traffic being suspended for a period of weeks on the main east coast corridor, until the various police forces eventually moved in to clear the barricades on February 24.
Watching this from home, and seeing all our trains being cancelled, we were a little unsure of how things were going to play out. There were no rail replacement busses on offer, Via Rail were basically saying sorry, make your own arrangements to their thousands of paying customers who were travelling for very different reasons than a couple of Australian tourists on a sightseeing trip!
Happily for us, (and no doubt all the Canadian people trying to get from one place to another), one by one, the emails started coming in saying that the trains we had booked on would be running. By the time we left home, there was only three not yet confirmed, so things were looking up.
We left home just as Covid was starting to become a thing - there was 1000 cases confirmed worldwide, it’s just another Flu “they” said…
Arriving at LA International airport (LAX) is daunting. The place is vastly huge, and handles large numbers of flights, seemingly inversely proportional to the care given by the staff at Arrivals.
Our plane, and two others arrived just prior to Arrivals opening, which meant the escalators were running, but barricades at the bottom were closed. As you can imagine, it got chaotic very quickly, with people literally starting to pile up on each other until someone was able to hit the emergency stop button.
Once they opened up, things were little better. Someone came through asking for people with connecting flights, and handed out little cards to prioritise our traffic through the terminal, and directed us to stand in the same queue as everyone else…
We missed our connecting flight to Montreal, but fortunately, the fantastic Canadian Airlines staff booked us on the next available, two flights later to Montreal (and as we found out, the flight to Quebec as priority passengers).
We now had hours at LAX, and time to explore, so we had a bit of a wander between the different terminals, and found somewhat of a shortcut which didn’t involve going outside the buildings.
We eventually made it to Quebec, and checked in to the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, getting to our room at 3am!
I’ve forgotten to mention the blizzards. Huge snow dumps had blanketed Canada in the days before we arrived, so everything was a couple of feet deep in snow when we woke up.
The stunning Château Frontenac, even with scaffolding is a sight to behold. The winter toboggan run was very popular!
Our room in this fantastic former Canadian Pacific Railway hotel was tucked up in the peaks and rooftops of this Hogwart’s castle, In the Unesco listed old city, the hotel itself seems to tower over everything, particularly when viewed from down by the riverside in the Quartier Petit Champlain.
The semi frozen St Lawrence river is still very much tidal here, some 580km from the mouth of the river, and quite icy at that time of year. It was confusing initially after arriving in the dark, seeing flow in what I assumed was towards the ocean, and then later in the day swing back the other way. I’m hopeless at directions in the northern hemisphere for some reason, despite being fairly good at home.
Old Quebec City was (and still is) in a commanding position over the river, and was fought over several times between the French and English between 1629, and 1763!
A couple of nights here, then it was on to Ottawa, travelling on a ViaRail service to the Country’s capital.
One of the more architecturally interesting stations we’ve ever caught a train from was Quebec Gare du Palais. It was built by Canadian Pacific Railway, in a similar style to the Chateau.
We again stayed in a Railway Hotel, the stunning Château Laurier, built by the Grand Trunk Railway, later Canadian National, across the road from the railway station, which has long closed.
While there’s no longer an adjacent railway, it was easy to see where the line once passed between the hotel and the locks of the Rideau canal as it descends to the Ottawa river.
Looking down the Rideau Canal locks, with the Canadian houses of Parliament on the left, and Château Laurier on the right. The railway once passed through the area where the arched windows are, heading down to the Alexandra bridge spanning the Ottawa River, and border with Quebec. In winter, a stretch of the canal almost 8 km long is used for ice skating
The Canadian Parliament buildings, viewed from Victoria Island. The semi frozen Ottawa River was flowing fairly quickly, likely the reason why it wasn’t solid on top.
We had a full day exploring Ottawa, and visited a couple of craft breweries, Mill St. and Beyond The Pale, as well as wandering past the stunning old parliament buildings.
Ottawa is home to two light rail systems, which have had some teething troubles, land subsidence during construction, and a couple of nasty derailments. Hopefully they overcome the issues sooner rather than later!
Next leg was Toronto.
We had been to Toronto in 2018. However, due to our flight being delayed by 24 hours ( The Dreamliner had been struck by lightning), we hadn’t had much of a look around before we boarded The Canadian.
Once again, we booked into a railway hotel, this time The Royal York, opposite Toronto Union Station. The hotel was undergoing major renovations on our first visit, with the main foyer a construction site. Seeing it returned to its glory was great to admire.
The then recently refurbished Clockwork Bar in the main foyer of The Royal York Hotel.
Built by Canadian Pacific in 1929, it is linked to Union Station with an underground passageway, as well as the PATH system of under street passages, which stretches for almost 30km under the city!
GO Transit (Government of Ontario Transit) Lakeside line train pulling into Toronto Union Station. These MP40 locos make up the bulk of the GO horsepower, usually at one end of the train, with a driving cab fitted car at the other end.
Janelle was attending a conference for a couple of days, so I arranged to meet up with photographer and rail enthusiast, Ryan Gaynor for a day of chasing trains around his hometown of Hamilton. I caught a GO Bi level train pushed by a MP40 locomotive. We had a great day of photographing on some of the industrial lines, my first visit to Tim Hortons for coffee, as well as chasing a couple of trains further into the countryside before Ryan dropped me back off in Toronto.
A Canadian Pacific train load of steel wagons outside an old brickworks in Hamilton, Ontario. We chased this train up the hill towards Niagara, catching it again at Vinelands.
The following day was sleeting and a little miserable, but I ticked off a visit and tour of the Steam Whistle Brewery, located in the old John St. locomotive roundhouse. Interestingly, the building had been entirely dismantled, the site dug up for construction of an underground carpark, and then the building, and turntable reassembled as key features of Roundhouse Park historic railway precinct above it!
Light sleety snow was enough to encourage me into Steam Whistle Brewing, in the old John St. Roundhouse, on the edge of Toronto’s city centre. Aside from making a nice Pilsner, they also give tours of the brewery, and their section of the roundhouse.
Fortunately, the day after was a bit brighter, so I set out to get some more rail photos. I went to the old Toronto station, and waited trackside for an hour or two for no result. In the afternoon, I caught the Metro, and walked to another spot I’d seen plenty of railway photos tagged in on Instagram, Blood Brothers brewing.
A mix of horsepower on the front of this mixed freight, including a Union Pacific loco in third position. There’s still plenty of vintage searchlight signals to be seen in Canada, including these GRS units. I used to overhaul them in our relay workshop 20 years ago!
Here I had a bit more luck with a couple of trains, and also got to visit the brewery too!
I’ll continue our railway journey to Halifax and return in the next post, thanks for reading.