After another night in Jasper we were up at silly o’clock to catch our transfer to the train station, courtesy of the Rocky Mountaineer company. The hotel also provided complimentary coffee to go, which was most appreciated by the pre-noon challenged amongst us.
Arriving at the station our luggage was whisked away to Vancouver, and we enjoyed a (cold) wait for our train to turn up. In the meantime we entertained ourselves watching the freight trains - one of which we counted at 181 individual carriages (plus two power units) at an estimated 2.8km, or 1.7 miles.
The Rocky Mountaineer
Our Rocky Mountaineer train turned up, and is a beast. Drawn by a 3000 horsepower GP40-2 0-4-4-0 locomotive. The Gold Leaf carriages are double decked with flags and red carpet laid out on the platform. Even our Red Leaf service included carpeted platform. The carriage interiors are spacious and a comfortable temperature with large windows, and our train has both a “choo-choo” whistle and a ” bnyaaaaaaaaaaart” horn. In this, I am happy.
Leaving Jasper we have the ‘ground crew’ waving us off, holding a variety of flags. We are now on our 9 hour, 457km (274 miles) train journey to Kamloops. Our in-coach assistant is cheerful, we have our own vestibule and snacks are provided regularly so it looks like it could be fun!
Breakfast comprised of coffee (which is the solution to 6am starts), fresh fruit bowl, a ham, turkey, cheese and lettuce croissant, a yoghurt and a bagel. It was declared both extremely filling and far better than in-flight breakfasts.
Our first major point of interest, Mt. Robson, is a big, snowy mountain which is used by people training to climb Everest. Apparently you can only see the peak an average of 10 times a year, so we are pretty lucky. The mountain has its own weather system, as can be seen in the cloud capping it.
Next on the big sights list is Pyramid Falls, only ever visible from the railroad due to the protected nature of the land around it.
After some more assorted trees, rivers, mountains, an eagle, tunnels, bridges and so on we witnessed the curiously fast Little Hell’s Gate, the narrowest point on the North Thompson River. There is a story about some foolish gold rush pioneers who went over it in a raft, but I won’t bore you with it. Google for “the overlanders” if you want to read more.
Lunch comprised of either a chicken or beef dish. Excellently timed, as I’m hungry again. The beef was delicious, as was the accompanying green salad, potato salad, chocolate cake and little minty thing. According to Matthew the chicken was “cold and moist”, but very nice and went well with the vinigarette. The chicken came with a penne pasta salad and a rice salad, and also chocolate cake and a little minty thing.
In British Columbia we drove past the site of the worst forest fire of 2003, caused by some guy throwing out his cigarette. Ironically he was a volunteer firefighter, so he loses points for that.
We pulled into Kamloops around 16.30. As an aside, “Kamloops” is derived from “T’Kemlups”, which means “Meeting of the Waters” in the language of the local native tribes, which is imaginative as Kamloops is where two rivers meet.
Dead Coach
En route to our hotel for the night, our coach went bang and started spurting dust into the passenger compartment. I reckon the air conditioner suffered a widget failure, but either way we had to swap coaches.
In Kamloops there is very little, but we did find a nice Indian reataurant in which I partook of a chicken jalfrezi. The hotel was average with middling-to-comfortable beds but sadly had WiFi which didn’t play with my iPhone so the uploading of this blog will be delayed until we get to Vancouver.
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Jasper Station
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The Rocky Mountaineer
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The Carriage
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Dead Coach
