Cross Canada 2024 Part 6: The final chapter, across the prairies and back to Toronto

Part 6: The final chapter - Across the prairies and back to Toronto

Prairie Skyline views

Welcome back for the final instalment in this 2024 cross-Canada trip report series. I had gone into tremendous detail about each part of the westbound trip, so on this eastbound return I’ve thought it made enough sense to combine some more elements together. In this case, it does mean that our final installment will be a bit on the long side, but it doesn’t feel quite right to me to split it up at this point. So in this section, we will follow through day 3 of the return, as we wake up on the prairies and cross Saskatchewan through into Winnipeg, day 4 across rugged Northern Ontario, our arrival into Toronto on day 5, and our homeward journeys on day 6. There's even a little bonus content at the very end about the recent celebration of the Ocean's 120th anniversary, so do read on!

Day 3

Prairie morning! The view I was greeted to when I pulled up the shade in my berth.

We would awaken on July 3, 2024, to absolutely beautiful sunny skies over Saskatchewan – about the most stereotypically prairie landscape imaginable.

We arrived in Saskatoon at 6:55am, about an hour late. We were back to the breakfast-lunch-dinner setup for days 3 and 4, and breakfast would run until 8:30am, with a “second call” around 8am (even though it’s first come first served).

Breakfast menu - the trend of rather cheap looking photocopied menus continued through this whole trip, though the quality of the food was not affected!

Cranberry orange pancakes, with the vegan patty side (which seemed quite similar to the veggie burger from day 1 lunch on the westbound trip, but broken up). All very good!

Through the morning, one of our westbound freight meets – about 15 minutes before arriving at Watrous – included an interesting surprise in the form of a deadheading West Coast Express locomotive, making its way back to Vancouver after refurbishment work somewhere east. Neat!

That yellow, blue and white thing behind the CN locomotive is a West Coast Express F59PHI.

The scenery outside through the morning consisted of endless prairie in all directions, and also included some bison spotting.

Activity board for the day.

Prairie meets.

Bison!

Once again, we had continued to stick with the early lunch/dinner pairing, so the first call for lunch would come at 11:30am. With our particular timing, this thankfully allowed us to wrap up our lunch in time for the stop at Melville, which is another of the fresh air stops where we could step off for a little while. We arrived at 12:33pm, now running about 15 minutes early, and would depart at 1:01pm, about 4 minutes late. The stop wasn’t terribly exciting, and we were given warnings about wandering off the “platform” (even though it was pretty hard to distinguish from the gravel lot), but it was nice to get out to stretch.

Lunch menu. Again, some familiar options, and like the westbound trip, we were informed that the "shrimp and scallops" would instead be "shrimp and shrimp".

Pulled turkey wrap with potato salad. This was the same dish, nominally, that I had on day 3 going west, but this time it was prepared with the sauce and sour cream inside the wrap, which I had suspected should have been the case that previous time. 

Apple crisp and ice cream, a dessert I can never pass up.

Off the train at Melville.

Our Skyline from the outside.

We would spend a good chunk of that afternoon playing Bingo in the Skyline café. As usual, Jeanette ran a very fun game, and we kept playing round after round until everyone who was playing managed to fill a card and take home a prize (with some VIA memorabilia on offer). I ended up with a rather nice VIA water bottle, which I’ve continued to use since. At some point in the afternoon, we crossed the border from Saskatchewan into Manitoba. Jeanette, who hails from Winnipeg, is very proud of her province – and she talked enthusiastically about it as we made our way. As we arrived at the border, she asked us all to help her out as she made an announcement on the PA system, welcoming passengers to the beautiful province of “MANITOBA!”, which we all shouted on cue.

Giant tailings piles from potash mines.

Even the flat landscapes can be beautiful with this array of colours - not hard to see how Saskatchewan chose the colours for their flag.

Some undulation begins in the prairie landscape.

The big scenic highlight of the afternoon was making our way into the Qu’Apelle Valley, where the prairie landscape becomes much more undulated and dramatic, and crossing the iconic Uno Trestle. This impressive 1,500 ft trestle crosses a large valley around a small tributary of the Assiniboine River, and is the longest of its kind in the province. It’s quite something to cross, and it’s particularly neat to look back after crossing as the train takes a curve, giving you a pretty decent view of the structure.

Curves in what I believe was the Assiniboine River.

View from atop the Uno trestle, as we're suddenly very high up!

Looking back around the curve, the Uno Trestle is visible behind the train.

More interesting (and not flat) landscapes.

As the afternoon passed, we would head off to our first dinner call at 5pm, to enjoy yet another excellent meal.

Dinner menu.

Appetizer salad.

Sole filet - which I very much enjoyed.

Prime rib, which I hear was excellent.

The carrot cake cheesecake! What a dessert. We saw this heading west but had already picked another option that night, and regretted it. This was fantastic - basically a cheesecake with chunks of carrot cake throughout, and caramel on top. Decadent, but delightful.

After supper, we returned to the dome and kept a close lookout for one of the approaching points on the line – Justice, Manitoba. This might seem like an unremarkable place to most, and you could easily miss the small collection of farm houses near a single grade crossing, but it has significance to our family. This is the small town where our grandmother – who was always Oma to us – was born way back in 1926, the first Canadian born child in a family of German Mennonite immigrants from Russia. The family would soon move to Leamington, Ontario, where she was raised. We had passed through here in the night in the other direction, so on this return trip my brother and I made a point of taking note and remembering Oma as we passed through.

Dome prairie views, with lots of space as people were in for the second supper call.

Justice, MB

Justice, MB

One more of Justice. There's only a handful of buildings by the tracks, and you'd hardly realize it was there if you weren't looking for it; but it was a special place to see and to briefly be.

The rest of the evening would bring some dramatic skies as we made our final dash into Winnipeg. We never encountered storms, but it sure looked like one off on the horizon. 

Prairie storms, far behind us.

Inspection time! Passing through one of these autonomous train inspection portals, which are quite dramatic later at night with their super bright lights.

Prairie skies.

A near perfect evening.

We managed to make up quite a bit of time, and arrived in Winnipeg at 9:54pm, 6 minutes early. We were again given the option to either stay on board or leave the train, with reboarding at 11pm. This time we decided to get off and explore. There wasn’t really anything open by that time of night, but it was still nice to get out and see inside the station, as well as wander around by the adjacent parks as the sun set.

Winnipeg sign board, with all the critically important information!

Downtown Winnipeg

Somewhat like when I was here in 2017, parts of the paths along the river by the Forks are underwater.

Hmm, where was this again? If only there were a sign of some sort.

Canadian Museum of Human Rights - a very cool looking building.

Back in Winnipeg Union Station

Winnipeg Union Station. A very impressive structure, and a shame it only sees a handful of trains a week. 

The Winnipeg Railway Museum, which I visited during my stop in 2017, is temporarily closed (not that I expected it would be open at that time of night). I hope they do manage to reopen at some point.

We would be back on the train around 11, and got settled back in to await departure. We went to the dome for the first while to watch as we rolled out of town, departing at 11:38pm (8 minutes late). I was a bit disappointed to realize that the dome windows had not been cleaned (they were washed in Jasper, but not here), so the abundance of bug splatter would remain and continue to build up for the rest of the trip.

After a while of settling down, we headed off to bed. Our berths had been made up by Carissa before she departed the train, and she did an excellent job as usual. We would have a new attendant and whole new crew by this point, but we wouldn’t meet them until the morning.

Bugs! Blah.

The backward view is a bit better. Looking back from our Skyline just outside of the Winnipeg trainshed.

This was actually from before we arrived in Winnipeg, but I'll close the day by showing my berth made up for the night.

Forward view in my lower berth, showing how the daytime headrest flips up to make a little storage shelf.

Day 4

Sioux Lookout

The fourth day of our return trip started off under cloudy skies, and an early fresh air stop at Sioux Lookout. We arrived here at 7:45, and after a quick stretch outside we were back underway at 8:10 – running about 2 hours behind schedule at this point. There was some sort of minor HEP issue being dealt with at this point, with one of the engineers walking the train and doing inspections of cables between a few cars. It turned out to be nothing major, and didn’t affect our progress.

Sioux Lookout. It's interesting how the length of this train can make the same station stop feel like an entirely different place on the two trips - we're an awfully long way down from where we stepped off going westbound!

We went for breakfast around 8am. This would be our last full breakfast/lunch/dinner day, as the final day would just be covered by brunch. The final time change of our trip came during breakfast, as we jumped to Eastern Time at around 8:48 (now 9:48) am. Because of the time change, we were informed that the lunch and dinner sittings would be shifted by half an hour, so the early options would now be at noon and 6pm. Not a bad thing at all, as we were never going hungry between meals!

We met our new dining car crew during breakfast, and while they were perfectly okay (nothing to complain about), we definitely missed our previous crew, as they had been really fun and above and beyond in their service.

Last full breakfast menu of the trip.

Decided I should finally try the vegan scramble. Not quite as exciting as some other options, but it is definitely a nice option if you're looking for a healthy start to the day. It seemed to be mostly leftover vegetables from last night's supper, stir fried up with some tofu.

A look at the day's omelette - ham and cheese, I think, with the standard hash.

Visiting our Skyline car after breakfast, we were introduced to our new attendant – Marcelline – who was perfectly lovely, though Jeanette was a very hard act to follow.

Agenda for the day.

Through the morning we made a few very remote passenger stops, at Savant Lake, Flindt Landing, and Allanwater Bridge. There were a number of passengers and a lot of luggage being handled, including a number of coolers. This was a nice reminder of one of the often forgotten roles that the Canadian serves, which is to provide service to some very remote areas of the country, particularly through Northern Ontario.

We would also have our last meet with a counterpart train, as we passed #1 at 11:42am, shortly before Collins (where we would stop for passengers at 11:52am). We were really lucky to get to see every single meet with our counterpart Canadians in both directions, and I will admit that I envied those passengers on this #1, who were just a day out of Toronto on their trip west!

Train #1, from train #2!

Skyline from Skyline!

Another Skyline!

#1 disappears away behind #2. They would reach Winnipeg by that night.

We would make our way to lunch at noon, where we were seated with Catherine, a real character who currently hails from Canberra Australia, originally from Singapore, and Leanne, a biologist from Vancouver. I mention them here because Catherine insisted on getting a photo of us all together, and I thought I’d add this into the mix in case either of them happen upon this report! As I’ve mentioned before, getting to meet and share meals with so many interesting people from all over the country and the world is one of the absolute highlights of this train, and something I really enjoyed in both directions of this trip.

Last lunch menu.

Falafel pita, quite nice. There was either a soup or salad that I forgot to include.

Chocolate brownie, with ice cream. The desserts continue to be pretty decadent, and never disappoint.

Lunch photo! 

The afternoon was very relaxed, as we wound our way back through the rocky and densely forested landscapes of Northern Ontario. I wandered back to the second Skyline for a little while, and listened to a talk about different trees of the Ontario wilderness. This second Skyline was in slightly better shape than the other, though I noticed that the dome lights were still on, and I suspect they had been on for the whole trip.

At some point through the afternoon, my brother spotted a moose! I missed that, but I did manage to spot several beavers through the rest of the day, particularly in the early evening when they seemed to be more active in the many lakes we passed.

Skyline B activity board - note the different style, and also some different activities.

Skyline display in 8507, highlighting the early VIA era.

Vintage menu from the early VIA era.

Old system map in 8507, in the lounge area to the left of the dome stairs.

Northern Ontario views.

An old CN caboose - I can't remember exactly where this was.

While walking back through our dining car, I snapped this photo of the diner all set for dinner, before passengers arrived.

Approaching Longlac.

Curving around at Longlac ON, a rather scenic spot on the route.

We reached Longlac at 4:12, about 2 hours late. Supper time rolled around at 6, and we made our way to the diner to enjoy our last dinner of the trip.

One last dinner menu for the trip, again, rather poorly printed. This does not seem to be the norm, and I suspect something that got messed up last minute for this trip.

Another salad to start. This one didn't look overly interesting, but was quite tasty.

I decided to try something different, and had the garden vegetable lasagna. It was quite nice!

Pork tenderloin, which I'm told was quite good.

Last dessert of the trip was a dulce de leche cake, which seemed like it had the potential to be really sweet, but was actually quite nice, milder than I expected.

After supper, we went back to the Park Car for a little while to enjoy some late evening and sunset views. As it got properly dark, we retreated back to our Skyline, and spent a few more hours enjoying the darkened views outside and trying to take in the night sky (and I spotted a meteor!), accompanied by a few young travellers who were enjoying the night views and swapping stories. Eventually, we’d find ourselves the last ones in the darkened dome, and we would turn in for our last night onboard. We had been back to running early by our most recent stops (Foleyette at 10:16pm, about 15min early, and Gogama at 11:39pm, more than 20 minutes early), and had been warned that an early arrival was likely for Toronto. So off to our moving beds for one last time on this trip.

Tail-end views from the Park.

The Park car dome, with some seats marked off for Prestige. There were more open seats this time as there weren't as many Prestige bookings after Jasper/Edmonton.

Northern Ontario lakes.

Leaving the sunset behind, as we continue to push our way east. Some people put a lot of value on this tail view from the Park, and while I do think it's cool, I actually prefer the view back from the Skyline most of the time, with the train snaking away in both directions.

Lake sunsets. So peaceful.

Sunset and vivid sky behind us.

Look up...look waaaaaaay up! As it got dark, we'd be able to see a decent amount of stars in the darkened Skyline dome.

Day 5

Skyline breakfast snacks.

Final activity board - not much left on the agenda! We never did try train yoga... 

After an excellent final sleep on the train, we awoke to sunny skies for this last leg. The final day would feature a continental breakfast offering in the Skyline and for early risers in the diner, with brunch running in the dining car starting around 9:30 and planned to run until around 1.5h before arrival in Toronto. The first call actually came at 9, and we waited until around 10:30 to actually go, enjoying some snacks in the Skyline to start the morning.

Brunch menu - this one looked really rough, but had some nice sounding options.

Berry waffles - one last sweet breakfast for me to wrap up the trip.

My brother opted for the transcontinental, with poached eggs.

I never heard a last call, but the dining car was stripped down by around 11:15, and the coffee and snacks in the Skyline were also being packed up and cleared away by the same time. By this time we knew that we were likely going to be quite early in Toronto, and even with two more freight meets (after Washago and then before Richmond Hill GO), we would continue a steady and brisk pace toward our final arrival.

Sunny skies for our final dash through cottage country north of Toronto.

In case of emergency, use Thor's hammer to break sky. 

Washago, last stop before Toronto.

On the last stretch toward Toronto, I had been keeping in touch with a friend in Toronto who happened to be able to catch our train from trackside. Very cool! Here we are passing by the North York IKEA, crossing Esther Shiner Blvd. and about to dip under the 401 at Oriole.

Hey look, it's our train! (Photo by Matt Soknacki)

We're somewhere in that dome back there, if you look suuuuper close. And have some special CSI-level enhancement tech...  (Photo by Matt Soknacki)

Entering Toronto, the train takes a different route than when departing. It’s a much more straightforward routing, requiring no backing moves. The train comes in on the Bala Subdivision and remains on this route right down to the connection with the Kingston Sub., passing through the Don Valley and entering Union Station from the east. This is the same route as the GO Richmond Hill line from Bloomington down to Union, and it’s a very scenic entry to Toronto.

Making our way down the Don Valley, passing under the East Don Trestle.

Around the bend coming off the Bala to rejoin the Kingston Sub on the Union approach.

Toronto! If you really squint through the bug splatter.

After so many days through the wilderness and wide open scenery, it's kind of crazy to see this densely urban skyline through our Skyline windows.

Our train would officially arrive at Union Station, the end of our 5 day journey, at 12:23pm on July 5, 2024. With a scheduled arrival of 2:29pm, we were a full 2 hours and 6 minutes early arriving. Neither of us were in a hurry to get off the train, and we would not have complained at all if we were on schedule or even a little late. All the same, though, it was nice to be arriving smoothly and knowing that passengers with same-day onward connections would have an easy time. It also left us with some extra free time in Toronto on a hot, sunny, summer day.

Arrival! Back on the Union station platforms again, but this time bidding farewell to this train.

We bid adieu to our home for the better part of the last week, and made our way back down into Union Station. We were able to store our bags at the baggage counter for a couple of hours (provided free for us as arriving passengers off the Canadian), which meant we could do a little wandering around without that encumbrance.

We would get another chance to see our train, as we found it departing to head to the Toronto Maintenance Centre shortly after we made our way around to the Skywalk next to the CN Tower. After seeing it off we did a bit more wandering around downtown, checking out the outdoor display at the railway museum, and visiting the St. Lawrence market. We also found a little bit of Halifax transit history down on the waterfront!

Hey look, it's that train again! Our consist, now emptied out, heads off to TMC for servicing. The Union trainshed is a busy place, so they spend as little time there as possible. 

A look at our wrapped trailing unit.

Economy Skyline, 8503

Our Skyline A, 8517, where most of the photos on this trip were taken.

Our diner, Imperial, where all the meals you saw this trip were served.

Wolfe Manor - our home for the last five days.

Bringing up the markerless tail-end, Prince Albert Park.

Wandering downtown, look what we found! Halifax in Toronto? The former Halifax Transit ferry Dartmouth III is now in Toronto, having been purchased post-retirement by a group planning to use it for service to the Toronto islands. I rode this particular boat plenty of times on the Halifax-Dartmouth service.

Day 6

Union Station from the outside, with some special outdoor seating for a festival going on at the time.

Neither of us had booked onward travel on the day of arrival, so we made our way back to stay with family in the west end. The next morning, we got ourselves all sorted to head home. We made our way back to Union Station again, where my brother boarded a train for Ottawa and I got in one last bit of train travel aboard the UP Express to get out to Pearson (YYZ). Porter does actually have a few non-stop flights to Halifax from Billy Bishop airport (downtown), but they offer several more options from Pearson, and with the UP Express providing an easy rail connection, it’s a pretty smooth option.      

On arrival at the airport I had to use the Terminal Link “train” – it’s technically a people mover, and a bit more like a roller coaster in how it’s built, but I suppose it’s sort of on tracks – to get to the appropriate terminal where I’d be boarding my Porter flight back to Halifax. I had the chance to view a few planes coming and going while waiting, and the highlight of that was getting to see an Emirates A380 taxi and take off. I’ve seen A380s in person at Pearson before, but never got to watch one take off. They are really something incredible. It’s hard to fathom how something that enormous can lift into the air so gently and gracefully, and I can only imagine how impressive it must sound from the ground nearby.

UP Express seating. Very comfy for the roughly 25 minute ride. 

On the airport Terminal Link "train". That "track" looks much more like a roller coaster than a train... A departing UP Express train can be seen just ahead.

Zipping around on the airport Terminal Link. I got myself confused and missed the stop for my terminal, so inadvertently took a longer ride.

That's a big plane... Emirates A380 taxiing for takeoff at YYZ.

That's a much smaller plane, but it's going where I need to...Porter E195-E2 for my Halifax flight.

My flight was on a much smaller plane, but still a nice one. As I noted back at the start of this trip, Porter’s Embraer E195-E2 is a very nice plane, quite comfortable for a narrow-body regional jet, and a smooth flight experience. Porter flies these out of Pearson, while the downtown island airport is restricted to Dash 8s. It was a lovely day and the flight back from Toronto to Halifax was uneventful, with the usual quality service from the Porter staff. On the ground in Halifax, I decided to opt for a cab home - far more expensive than the bus, but at the end of this long trip, I was happy to just make the final stretch quickly and directly.

Hardly as nice as the views from the train, but still pretty cool...and a really nice day for flying.

So there we have it, we’ve finally reached the end of this cross-Canada saga. I hope you’ve enjoyed following along! I’ve certainly enjoyed the chance to revisit and document this trip, and as we pass a year later, I’m itching to do something like this again. As it marks its 70^th year of operation, The Canadian remains hands-down the best train experience that VIA Rail has to offer. It’s something that I feel like all Canadians would do well to experience at some point, as a way to see the country, meet interesting people, and take in elements of the history of Canada. The excellent food sure doesn’t hurt either!

Celebrating 70 years, and still the best train around. Promotional image from VIA Rail Canada, photo by Bill Edgar.

I still have other trains on the VIA network that I want to get out and ride, but the draw to return to the Canadian is strong. I’m sure I’ll be back …

Extra Section - The Ocean at 120 (er...121)

Ocean 120 - Promotional image from VIA Rail Canada, photo by David McCormack

The Canadian marked its 70th anniversary this year, and the Ocean also marked a major milestone - 2024 marked 120 years since the original launch of the Ocean Limited. VIA didn't mark the occasion last year, but they made up for it this year with a special 120th anniversary event in Halifax on July 15th, 2025. The event featured an "open train", with tours of the Ocean's equipment, as well as the unveiling of the renovations to the Halifax station. I was pleased to be able to participate in the event with the VIA Historical Association, with a display celebrating the history of the train. 

Celebrating 120 years of the Ocean in Halifax

The event welcomed over 900 members of the public, and had many on board employees participating. VIA President and CEO Mario Peloquin was in attendance, along with a number of other notable folks from VIA management, and I was impressed to see him stay around for almost the entire day, happily chatting with staff and members of the public throughout the event. 

Mario Peloquin addresses the media and invited guests, alongside Jamie Orchard, VIA Rail Director of Corporate Communications

Mario Peloquin, Jonathan Goldbloom (Chairperson of the Board at VIA Rail), and other invited guests pose for a photo outside of the newly renovated VIA station facade, which features rehabilitated masonry, new signage, and a new block for the first time in many decades.

One of the displays in the station

More VIA displays in the station.

A series of display boards promote the new long distance fleet. Per comments from Mario Peloquin at the event, VIA expects to have a contract signed by early 2026, and the first deliveries starting as soon as 2030. 

Nearing the end of the day, after a very successful event, the Ocean is basked in beautiful evening light. 

Posing with our VHA display - Christopher Greenlaw (left) was able to make the trip down from Ontario to participate. Rapido Trains provided most of the models, with a few from my own collection and a couple borrowed from a local friend. 

Many of the on board staff clearly enjoyed having such a celebratory event for their train, and it was also exciting to hear more about the equipment replacement plans that will hopefully bring a brighter future for the Ocean (and all of VIA's long distance services). While it might not live up to the heights of the Canadian, it still holds a very special place in my heart. 

Here's to the next 120 years!