Cross Canada 2024 Part 4: American Interlude - Day trip on the Amtrak Cascades

Part 4: American Interlude - Day tripping south on the Amtrak "Cascades"

Skirting along the shores of Puget Sound, on board the Cascades

And now, for something completely different…

We would be staying in Vancouver for about four and a half days, having arrived on Thursday morning (June 27), and set to board #2 for our return trip on the afternoon of Canada Day, the following Monday. Our goal was to fit as much as we could into that time, and I think we did fairly well! Of course one of the first things we considered was other day trips we could make out of Vancouver.

One of the interesting things about intercity travel out of Vancouver is that ground travel to the south, into the US, is actually much better served than travel to the rest of Canada. With major population centres lined up down the coast, there is plenty of reason for travel in that direction; and the other major factor here is that the Washington State Department of Transportation, along with Oregon further to the south, has invested heavily in providing intercity transportation options. This manifests in the state-supported Amtrak Cascades service, a passenger rail route operating from Vancouver BC as far south as Eugene OR, with complimentary Thruway bus services providing even more options on the same route.

Out of Vancouver, the Cascades offers two daily trains, and four daily bus services in each direction. The first train departs Vancouver at 7:15am, running as far south as Portland with bus connection option to go as far as Eugene. The afternoon departre, at 4:45pm, only runs as far as Seattle. In the other direction, the early train from Seattle arrives in Vancouver at 12:30pm, and the later evening train, originating in Portland, gets in at 10pm. Bus departures nicely fill in a lot of the gaps, and also provide connections to and from Amtrak’s Coast Starlight service from Seattle to Los Angeles. The morning departure and evening return make a day trip from Vancouver to Seattle doable, with about 6 hours in the city to explore.

All of these services operate out of Pacific Central station, and offer a stark contrast to VIA’s twice weekly trains out of the same station. Arguably, the Canadian’s western terminus is far more of an Amtrak hub than a VIA one!

The Cascades has been on my wish list of trains to check out for quite some time. I wanted to make a quick trip when I went west back in 2017, but due to scheduling constraints at that time, I just had to fly out the day after arriving in Vancouver. With a bit more time to work with during this visit, I floated the idea again, and got uptake from both of my siblings – maybe less for the train, but certainly for the idea of visiting Seattle! So we got ourselves booked for a day trip to Seattle on the Friday after arriving in Vancouver.

First, a note on equipment: The Amtrak Cascades service has been notably unique because of its use of Spanish built Talgo trains. With most trains, differences between equipment types and manufacturers means different amenities and perhaps spotting features notable mostly to railfans. Talgo equipment, however, is something truly unique. Talgo has made a name building trains using a unique form of pendular suspension, which allows for the trains to passively tilt through curves, making for a smoother ride and allowing the trains to operate at higher speeds than conventional equipment on routes with lots of curves and inadequate superelevation.

The trains are built as fixed sets, and instead of having trucks (or bogies) with wheelsets underneath each end of the car, they have single wheelsets between each car. These wheels don’t share an axle, and the suspension system allows the body of the train to lean in either direction.

End of a Talgo passenger car, showing the unique axle design. These are not easy trains to reconfigure! (Image from Talgo America)

Demonstration of how Talgo's pendular suspension system works. (Image from Talgo Inc. via Trains Magazine)

The cars in Talgo trains are much shorter than conventional equipment – only 43 feet long, compared with a conventional 85 foot North American passenger car. They also sit much lower, which makes boarding very easy.

Though we didn't get to ride it, we did spot a Talgo set in Vancouver when boarding #2. You can see both the ugl...er...unique cab car design, as well as the heavy duty security fence around the secured area. 

The Cascades used to operate entirely with Talgo equipment, until the deadly 2017 derailment near DuPont Washington. That incident occurred on the first revenue run over the newly opened Point Defiance bypass, when the engineer failed to slow for a curve (largely due to inadequate training and familiarity with the new route). That crash destroyed one set of Talgo equipment, and also led to the National Transportation Safety Board deeming the Series VI Talgos to be unsafe due to their unpredictable performance in the crash. All Series VI equipment was later withdrawn from service.

Following that incident, only two sets of Talgo equipment remain in service – the two newer Series 8 trains, which don’t have the same safety concerns as the earlier sets. To make up for the loss of the other Talgo equipment, Amtrak has provided additional conventional equipment, mostly in the form of Horizon cars. Motive power is provided by Siemens Charger locomotives, specially painted for the Cascades service, with either the dedicated Talgo cab cars or converted F40 locomotives as cab cars on the rear, so trains don’t have to be turned. Starting in 2026, new Siemens Venture sets are slated to start entering service. These trains will replace both the Horizons and the Talgos.

Ideally, I would have really liked to ride the Talgo equipment. Unfortunately, it is currently only operating on the trip that arrives in Vancouver in the morning and departs in the afternoon - the exact opposite of what we’d need to make a day trip to Seattle. So I would have to settled for the ride on the Horizons, something that would still be interesting given I had never ridden that equipment before either.

With tickets booked, we made our way to Vancouver’s Pacific Central station around 6:15am. The train (Amtrak 517) was scheduled to depart at 7:15am, and we were advised to arrive about an hour early. On arrival, we were quite surprised to see an enormous line of passengers already there – clearly, it was a popular train!

Pacific Central ahead of Cascades boarding. As you can see on the block, it's just past 6:30am, and there's a pretty substantial crowd for the 7:15am departure! It was a Friday ahead of the Canada Day long weekend, so it seemed to be a busy travel day. 

Given that this is an international train, you need to go through security and customs inspections in both directions. Customs forms were available in the station, so we were able to fill those out while waiting in line. Once boarding began, we were called up to have our tickets checked, handed seat checks by the conductor (there’s no assigned seating, so we were handed paper slips to place above and “claim” our seats – one for 2, and the other for 1 passenger), then ushered to the security line. This moved quite smoothly, with just a few questions about our trip and a quick check of our passports.

Vancouver has a fully secured facility for the train when it is parked in the station, which means they can do customs preclearance in the station. There is also an inspection when the train reaches the border, where agents will collect customs forms, but passengers don’t need to actually detrain at that point. This is contrast to how the Maple Leaf (Toronto-New York) and Adirondack (Montreal-New York) trains operate, and it makes for a very smooth process.

Heading out to the platform, we could see our train would be handled by WSDOT Siemens Charger 1403, with 4 Horizon cars – 3 coaches and a café/business car – and a converted F40 cab car leading on the far end. We were directed to board the first car next to the locomotive. Unfortunately, there were not many seats still available, so we had to settle for backwards facing rows with a limited window view.

Hey, that's not an Amtrak train! VIA diner Annapolis sits with a couple other spare cars on the station tracks. This was the prototype for the diner refurbishment program at RailGD, and it was the one and only dining car to be painted in this teal/yellow scheme akin to some HEP1 and many HEP2 coaches. Other diners have reverted to the blue stripe as they've been refurbished. 

Walking out to our train, we meet WSDOT SC-44 Charger 1403. The blunt nose design on these early Chargers is rather unappealing, especially compared to the VIA and later Amtrak variants.

Can you see the Horizon? Our car for the trip south, Amtrak 54554.

Before we get moving, let’s talk about the Horizons. Amtrak’s Horizon fleet was built in the late 1980s, in response to a desperate need for new equipment on an expedited timeline. Amtrak worked with Bombardier to build intercity railcars off of the existing Comet commuter car design. This allowed for production to ramp up quickly, using an existing and in-production body shell with relatively few modifications needed to make them suitable for intercity service. The main changes were the use of more comfortable seats, the addition of luggage racks (overhead and end of car), additional washrooms, and the use of the same GSI trucks used on the Superliner II railcars. They also created a dinette/café car design, outfitted with either all tables throughout, or tables at one end and coach seats at the other. You can read a whole lot more about the Horizons in model train manufacturer Rapido Trains’ excellent “masterclass” on these cars.

Overall, the Horizons are a pretty okay intercity railcar. The seats and overall amenities are perfectly adequate for short to medium distance travel, and the café (which we’ll check out shortly) provides a good food service option. The cars have also had an interior refresh recently, evident in the seats through the cars we rode in (and plaques in the cars indicating the work done by Amtrak’s Beech Grove shops). The biggest drawback, by far, is the tiny (and I mean tiny) windows. This is a holdover from the Comet railcar shells, partly influenced (as I gather) by vandalism concerns at the time of their construction. It’s a real shame, because this route (as we’ll see shortly) is absolutely stunning. If you’re going for the view, it’s definitely worth riding a trip using Talgos, if you can, or perhaps wait for the arrival of the Siemens Venture trains in the not too distant future.

Aside from the small windows, the overall comfort and ride quality were pretty good. The seats look quite generous in their padding, but I was surprised to find them to be fairly firm. Perfectly fine for a few hours, but nothing incredible. There are seat-back tray tables that fold down and are a little flimsy, but steady enough - though the support bars have a tendency to ram into ones knees. There are open luggage racks above the seats, and larger luggage towers at the end of the car. In Cascades service, the seats are oriented 50/50, with half the seats facing each end of the car. Unlike VIA's setup, the mid-car seats are back to back, so there are no facing 4-person seats. 

Horizon coach interior, looking forward...er...backward on our trip. There are two bathrooms at this end of the car, just before the vestibule.

With the wheelchair space here, we had a decent open view across - and check that out, a VIA Panorama Car! 1721 had made its way back to Vancouver earlier this year, after having work done in Montreal. It has only been used on a single charter trip since, and neither it nor the other 2 cars are expected to return to service any time soon.

Horizon seating, with recently refurbished seats. The seats look very generously padded, but felt about as firm as the seats in VIA's Venture fleet. The seat spacing is okay, comparable to economy class on VIA's LRCs/HEP2s. 

Large luggage towers at the end of the car opposite the bathroom end. The cars have vestibules at both ends, with sliding doors between the vestibule and main car interior. 

Signage indicating the work done at Beech Grove.

End look through a car, later in our trip. Note the bright flourescent lighting that I'll mention later.

The bathrooms are one area that really feel like a commuter car. Very industrial feeling, with a truly baffling water tap design – more on that in the photo captions.

Bathroom with industrial "charm". Everything worked and it was clean enough, but the toilet feels like it's just cut into that aluminum slab...

The single most baffling faucet design I have ever encountered. To get water, you push up on a piece hanging out of the bottom of the tap. The water then sprays out at immense pressure, and inevitably ricochets off your hand (which you have to keep in place pressing up against the flow of water to keep the water on), spraying everywhere and soaking you and everything in reach. Thankfully, the second washroom had been retrofitted with a more conventional faucet!

Horizon safety card.

Horizon safety card, interior.

More Amtrak safety info.

We departed in short order, and made the slow crawl out of Vancouver. Train traffic is slow getting out of the city, especially around the bottleneck of the single-track Fraser River bridge at New Westminster. We’d make that crossing quickly heading south, but wouldn’t be so lucky on our way back later in the evening.

Getting further out of the city, the stretch through White Rock offers the first really lovely scenic views, as the train snakes along the coast.

Nearing White Rock - we were backwards facing, so remember the train is heading the opposite way from my vantage point.

Turning back to look the way we're actually moving - more nice views.

The long pier in White Rock.

Looking out the end of our car, at the back end of the locomotive. 

More lovely views, with some mountains coming into view.

Not long afterwards, we made our stop at the US Border. Because the train makes no stops between Vancouver and the border, there’s no need to disembark passengers for screening. US border agents meet the train, do an exterior inspection (to watch for hangers-on), and then come through the train to do a quick visual inspection and collect customs forms. An announcement was made to remind people they had to be at their seats when this happened. The border agents were quite delayed arriving, something our conductor suggested was unusual, but when they finally came on board it was a pretty smooth process. Unfortunately, it did put us a ways behind schedule. At our first US stop, in Bellingham WA, we would be 38 minutes late.

Once back underway and on the US side, an announcement came that the café car was open. This was one of the features of Amtrak’s various corridor trains that I was excited to try out. While VIA’s corridor operations all feature at-seat food service, Amtrak employs café cars where you can go to order snacks and meals, as well as offering table space to sit and stretch out. Given that we had lousy seats and no group together for the three of us, we figured we’d head down, grab something to eat, and find a spot to hang out.

The Horizon café cars used on this train are set up as a half-café half-business class car. The end nearest the coaches has café table seating, and the end opposite the café counter has 2+1 business class seats. A curtain separates off that end of the car.

Making our way to the café, we found a modest line, and also encountered one of the classic Amtrak issues that I had read about online. The café section of this car had 7 tables. One of these was being used for condiments and cutlery, with the seating on the other side removed for (supposedly) accessible space. Of the remaining 6, each of which have booth seating for 4 people, two had crew members occupying an entire table section solo, with their paperwork and various items spread out. This meant that only 4 tables were actually available for passengers at all! Due to excess passenger load on this train, an additional table would later be needed just to seat passengers boarding at a later stop!

We were able to find a spot to sit for a while, but it was not ideal – which is a shame, because the café area does give a better and more open view, even with the small windows.

Café interior, at the rear of the car. Two tables have no windows at all. Of course, the two crew members who claimed an entire table each had to take windows with nice views. That felt even more insulting when a group boarding at a subsequent station was boarded to sit at one of those tables (yes, the ones without windows) due to a lack of seats.

Another table with a view is in use for condiments, napkins, and cutlery - with lots of plastic and disposable stuff. There are also two garbage bins in the space theoretically meant to accommodate wheelchairs. Amtrak makes no pretense at waste sorting, composting, or recycling either. Everything goes in one big trash bin together... 

Get a grip! Hold on to something, I guess. 

Café section in the middle of the car. Facilities for reheating a variety of items. Overall, seemed to be pretty well run. 

Business class, this way! A very limited area on this equipment, compared to much more substantial offering on Talgo trips. 

Interesting to note the advertising for other trains in the network. The Capitol Limited, which has been temporarily discontinued and merged into the "Floridian", operated with Superliner equipment. 

Talgo sighting! Meeting a northbound train, the distinctive green, tan and brown colour scheme really jumps out. You can see here that the equipment rides lower.

Looking toward the takeout section. Note the evacuation seat, meant to be used to assist passengers with mobility issues in an emergency.

Amtrak’s national network has a standardized café menu, however, a few unique state-supported routes have their own unique menus; the Cascades is one of these services. Appropriately, they serve Starbucks coffee, as well as some other local products. For the morning trip, I grabbed coffee and a breakfast burrito. The burrito was, well, okay. Nothing to write home about (but apparently at least memorable enough to write about here…). Several items were already sold out, as the train is stocked from Seattle, meaning the morning return trip is subject to what stock was remaining after the previous evening’s northbound trip.

Café menu - I was going to pick up some souvenir playing cards as well, but discovered the ones on board were just plain run of the mill cards, with no Amtrak branding at all!

The run down the coast was quite enjoyable. The trip from Vancouver to Seattle is scheduled for about 4 and a half hours, and takes a beautiful, winding route largely along the coast. The views of Puget Sound were absolutely stunning, and we just wished the windows were bigger to facilitate the view! The Venture equipment will definitely be much better on this front.

It was also quite remarkable to see how many ferry docks we passed along the route. With the series of islands along the coast, ferry travel is an important part of the local infrastructure.

Deficiency of the small windows aside, that view really is something...

More coastal views.

Not bad, eh?

Beautiful morning to be along the water.

One of several bridges we crossed along the way.

Old pilings, presumably the remnants of a dock of some sort.

Exit to the ocean.

The views just keep coming.

The route winds a lot as it snakes around the coastline, and I imagine it would be very cool on the Talgos with a longer train stretching out ahead and behind you.

Along one of the many beaches, where we saw lots of people outside enjoying a beautiful day.

We finally arrived in Seattle at 12:14pm, 34 minutes late. The last stretch into the city is quite interesting, as there’s a decently lengthy tunnel before reaching the King St. Station.

Once off the train, we made our way into the impressive station. Seattle sees Amtrak trains heading both north and south, in the form of Cascades services and the Coast Starlight. They also have Sounder commuter trains, but those use a station on the other side of the tracks.

Amtrak and WSDOT power in Seattle.

Disembarking, with an Amtrak P42 to the left and our train on the right.

Seattle is a decently busy spot, with even more frequent train departures heading south.

Inside Seattle's King St station, a rather grand facility. A long line of people are waiting to board our train to continue south to Portland. 

Check-in for Canada-bound passengers - good to know for later in the afternoon!

King St. station, outside. 

For our afternoon in Seattle, we made the walk down to the Pike Place market – home of the very first Starbucks (which we saw, but did not wait in the long line to go in!). The market itself is incredible, an enormous indoor/outdoor market with no shortage of fascinating shops, vendors, and restaurants. We were able to get some excellent food for lunch (blackened salmon sandwiches from the Market Grill – highly recommend!), and wandered down to the waterfront to take in the sights. We spent a lot of the time just walking around, and could easily have filled more time with all of the interesting things we saw downtown. We checked out another coffee place (Anchorhead, on Western Ave), then picked up some snacks for the return trip, and eventually made our way back to King St. Station. We could easily have spent much more time, but felt like the amount of time we did have between trains was a nice amount for an afternoon of walking, exploring, and getting a feel for a little piece of Seattle. We certainly all agreed that it would be a nice place to come back to and visit again!

Pike Place Market - it's an absolutely huge area, spanning several blocks with a multi-story building on the side of the steep hill heading down to the water. So many things to see and check out!

Starbucks. Yes, THE Starbucks. The one that started it all. With a line way down the block, we settled on a photo from outside. 

Seattle waterfront. 

Not the most comforting sign to see. Fortunately, higher ground is not far away, as there's a rapid steep slope up from the waterfront through that part of downtown.

Heading back to King St. station, with Lumen Field in the background.

One of the Thruway buses operating as part of the Cascades service. These offer even more departures beyond the train, and also allow for a seamless connection between Vancouver and the Coast Starlight, which departs Seattle before the morning Cascades train arrives. 

More equipment in Seattle, viewed from our way up to the footbridge over the tracks. The Sounder commuter station is on the other side, so the pedestrian bridge is critical.

Looking back at King St. station. That clock tower is quite impressive. 

Our train north (Amtrak 518) was scheduled to depart Seattle at 6pm. The train would originate from Portland, and should have arrived at 5:37pm. Unfortunately, delays south of us had the train running about half an hour late. Still, we got ourselves checked in at a reasonable time ahead – a smooth process. Passengers crossing the border were given different coloured seat checks and customs forms, while those going to stops within the US received a different colour to make them easier to identify. We got into the line when it was set up to make sure we’d be fairly early boarding, hoping to get reasonable seats.

Train info screens.

The line now set up for boarding our train.

When the train finally arrived and started boarding, we were directed to the front of the second car. Most people were boarding and heading in to the right, where the car was quite full. We realized the car to the left (the first car) was nearly empty, and nothing suggesting we couldn’t board there. So we headed that way, and found excellent seats. The lights were also dimmed in this car, which was nice for the first stretch and as the light outside started to fade. Unfortunately, at some point the conductor turned the full bright lights on, which made things quite unpleasant when it was eventually dark out.

We ended up in very close to the same place on this train back, but facing forward this time, and with slightly better window alignment. 

Horizon interior, with the dimmer lighting mode on. Check out the distinctive livery of a Sounder commuter train on the adjacent track.

We departed Seattle 24 minutes late. We encountered a slight additional delay as we made our way north, slowly slipping to about 45 minutes behind by the time we got to the border.

Back along the coast, heading north.

Moody views.

Water, mountains...very west coast.

Another of the many beaches, with people enjoying the early summer evening.

Even with the small windows, that view is something.

Hard to stop taking photos...

Okay okay, one more...

A familiar view, this time with the lights on inside as the locomotive was leading. This also shows the sliding doors, with press buttons to open (there's also a second button at floor level that you can kick to activate).

There are some impressive views on the inland side of the train, too.

Washington countryside.

Talgo! The same set we passed earlier is now on its way back south on the afternoon run from Vancouver.

On departure, we were informed the café car would be closed for a little while as they settled in with new stock from Seattle. When the announcement came that it was open, we headed back – only to discover a line from that car all the way back through the next coach! This is where I realized a major drawback in Amtrak’s food service offering. When the café is busy, there is no option but to line up and potentially fill up a lot of space with people standing in line. Further, the actual café/lounge seating gets taken up immediately, meaning that the advantages of the café (being able to get food/drink when you want, having a place besides your seat to sit) quickly disappear. Perhaps VIA’s at-seat offering isn’t quite that bad of an option. Some combination of the two might be a welcome middle ground.

We decided to wait a while and make another attempt at the café later. When it had finally cleared up, we made our way again. I decided to try a few of the local options. The clam chowder was out (more was being heated, but it would be a while), so I tried the other soup, a zesty tomato parmesan. Of course I couldn’t pass up on “Tim’s” chips, now could I?

A look at some of the unique items on the menu.

My meal, showing off the interesting fold-up cardboard trays that Amtrak hands out to carry items to your seat. The soup is by Ivars, the sandwich is by a local bakery near Seattle (unfortunately I forgot to note the name!), and Tim's is based in Washington. Hard to call Starbucks "local", but it does feel appropriate when in the region.

With this meal assembled, it was back to our seats to enjoy as we continued to roll along north. Overall, I think the café offerings are pretty decent, and not unreasonably priced. If travelling frequently, I’d be more likely to bring my own food (or pick things up at either end), but for a unique trip and trying it out, I was decently happy.

Early sunset over fields.

Low sun over the water, as we get closer to the border.

Beautiful evening.

Slowly lowering sun. 

More sunset views. The dense low cloud made for a less than spectacular sunset, but it was still impressive. With the view west over the water much of the way, a really dramatic evening would be amazing to witness.

Herons! We saw so, soooooo many herons. It was exciting at first to spot one here and there, and then we saw dozens of them all together on the beach. 

Back in white rock, with the lights coming on across the pier. It was already 9:30pm but this point, but we'd unfortunately have a long time left before getting off the train...

On the northbound trip, there is no stop at the border. Instead, the train is simply locked, and when the train gets to Vancouver and is in the sealed area, customs agents inspect the exterior and then allow passengers off one car at a time. Customs inspections then happen inside the station.

Remember the Fraser River bridge I mentioned earlier? Well, on the way back, we realized what a headache that can cause. Running about 45 minutes late and outside of our schedule slot, we got stuck waiting for some combination of river (the bridge has a swing section) and rail traffic. So we sat, just before the bridge, for close to an hour. With the full bright fluorescent lighting on in the train, this was far from pleasant!

Finally, we were cleared for the final run into Vancouver. We would arrive at the station past 11:30pm, with another long wait to get off as they worked through car by car, with ours being the last one. It would be 11:55pm when we finally got off the train, nearly 2 hours after our scheduled arrival. The customs agent I was screened by commiserated with our plight, saying they’d been watching our train on the tracker and saw us sitting for ages and ages at the bridge. He seemed to feel bad, and I was through quickly. My siblings, by contrast, got a bit more of a grilling – but we were all through before long and made our way home, good and tired.

Finally off the train! An enjoyable trip, but the long wait so close to home was less than fun.

My overall thoughts on the Cascades? It’s a lovely route (at least to Seattle), and overall a well run service. It will definitely benefit from the new equipment on order, and I would also still love to get a chance to ride the Talgos while they’re around; but all in all, a good experience. I was also very impressed with our conductor on the northbound trip, who had a great sense of humour and a fun attitude that helped make the delays a bit easier to deal with.

The next day, we took a quieter day around Vancouver, wandering around Stanley Park and exploring in the city. Then on Sunday, we set out for another adventure, to go visit friends over in Victoria. I won’t write a lot about this, because it gets away from the train travel. We did, however, work in a variety of interesting travel modes to get there. On the way out, we took the Skytrain (Canada Line) to Bridgeport Station, where we transferred to the 620 Tsawwassen Ferry Express bus. This bus, currently running with Alexander Dennis double-deckers, runs a frequent service to the ferry terminal. This is an excellent service for walk on passengers, which are a major part of the ridership on the various BC Ferries routes. It’s a long bus ride, but it was smooth and comfortable. We got there in plenty of time for our ferry, which we’d pre-booked, and boarded and departed on time. We rode over to Vancouver Island on the Spirit of New Westminster, one of the older vessels on the route. The sailing was smooth (though I nearly lost my hat!), and very busy, with a lot of people heading to the island on the holiday weekend.

Skytrain meet on the Canada line.

Spirit of New Westminster, our ride to Vancouver Island.

Beautiful day on the water, though the breeze got a little chilly at times!

We had a lovely day in Victoria visiting, and had an excellent tour around the city. We didn’t try any public transit on that side, as a friend picked us up and dropped us off again later at the terminal; but there did appear to be a pretty good bus option from the terminal in Swartz Bay, which is a ways out of Victoria itself!

BC Provincial legislature, in Victoria.

Peacock, strutting. Beacon Hill Park in Victoria.

The ride back was on the Coastal Celebration, one of the newest and largest vessels in the BC Ferries fleet. This vessel is quite impressive and well laid out, with lots of interior and exterior space for enjoying the views and making a comfortable sailing. The trip back was absolutely stunning, as the sun set over the water. We even saw a whale breach in the distance – magical!

Beautiful sky.

One of the most fascinating things about this ferry route is weaving in among the series of small islands, and seeing the various smaller vessels serving different routes. At times, we noted a couple of other smaller ferries following or ahead of us, and here we're passing a Victoria-bound vessel as another smaller boat follows in our wake.

Sunset from the ferry. Just stunning. It's hard to overstate how beautiful of an evening this was.

Once at the other side, we had a fairly short wait before boarding our return bus to the Skytrain, getting us home quite late at night. Another very long day, but a lot of fun, and continued to fit a lot into our visit.

With that, I’ll leave it there until we launch into the return VIA trip!

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Extra Section

There was some good news recently for the future of VIA’s long distance trains. With a funding commitment from the federal government in Budget 2024, VIA has launched the formal procurement process for long distance locomotives (to replace the F40s), and a full new long distance fleet, with more than 300 passenger cars to be ordered in a variety of configurations. The fleet size would also represent an expansion from the current operable long distance fleet, and should be enough to restore additional train frequencies across the country, presuming there is operating funding to do so. Perhaps most exciting with this news was the release of several renderings of VIA’s proposed designs, including a modern dome car, a panoramic lounge car, and a pretty incredible looking dining car concept.

An exterior rendering of the proposed new fleet, showing a modern take on the classic dome car (a modern Skyline, of sorts), as well as a sleeper (left) and dining car (right) with panoramic windows. It seems huge windows are an ask for all car types in the fleet. (Image courtesy of VIA Rail Canada)

Interior rendering of a Panorama Lounge car. This is one of two lounge car types VIA is asking for - one is the dome, as seen in the render, and the other is this lounge-café, with panoramic windows inspired by the ex-BC Rail Panorama cars. (Image courtesy of VIA Rail Canada)

Dining, with a view! This rendering shows a dining car concept with massive windows, including panoramic wrap-around windows (with roller blinds) into the ceiling. A single design of traditional dining car is proposed, which would allow for the return of full cooked-on-board dining service on the Ocean. (Image courtesy of VIA Rail Canada)

This is all concept art at the moment, but it reflects the results of what has now been a several years long process behind the scenes between VIA and prospective car builders (apparently 4 manufacturers are interested and engaged), and gives us an idea of what VIA envisions and what they understand the car builders can accomplish. If everything proceeds on schedule, there could be a contract in place by the start of 2026, with all new cars delivered and in service within 8-10 years. It will be a while to get there, but there may actually be exciting times ahead!

As we head into the holiday season, I’ll wish a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and send well wishes for an excellent start to the new year! I’ll be back in January with the next editions of the cross-country report series, and maybe a brief side report on some Christmas Ocean travels. As always, thanks for coming along for the ride!

Christmas on the Ocean. I need to see about picking up some new lights, as that little string seems to have called it quits!