2025: Across Canada by Rail

1. From Vancouver to the Rocky Mountains by train

After seeing India by train earlier in 2025, our second BIG holiday of the year was also by train but this time it was in Canada. We had visited Vancouver in 2001, and also Toronto and Niagara in 2022, so now it seemed like a good idea to join these 2 places with a mammoth 3500 mile journey across Canada. We had had a wonderful trip with Great Rail Journeys across the Deep South of the USA in 2024, so we contacted them again and booked ourselves places on their 'Wonders of Canada' tour. The train that we would be travelling on for the first part of the trip, the 'Rocky Mountaineer', certainly looked pretty impressive!

The Rocky Mountaineer train

After a comfortable 9-hour flight from Heathrow to Vancouver with Air Canada, we were taken to an excellent hotel where we spent a few hours catching up on our sleep and adjusting to the new time-zone before setting out to buy a few items from a local supermarket. We spotted an Irish pub on the way, and couldn't resist calling in for a couple of drinks to get the holiday off to a good start.

The next day started with a short coach tour of Vancouver, starting with Stanley Park which we had visited in 2001. Amongst other things this park is famous for its display of totem poles in honour of the indigenous peoples; we were rather disappointed to see that the display has somewhat deteriorated over the years; some of the poles that we saw previously have now disappeared or been damaged, and the smart grounds that we saw before have become distinctly unkempt.

Stanley Park totem poles in 2001	The same totem poles in 2025

After visiting Stanley Park we briefly saw the main sights of Vancouver before stepping off the coach on Granville Island where we visited their amazing fresh food market (we didn't buy anything there) and then, after spotting a brewery nearby we sat at a table outside it and enjoyed a couple of excellent beers for our lunch.

Vancouver was not allowed to copy Copenhagen's 'Little Mermaid' so they made a statue of a swimmer in the same pose.	This 'Mousetrap Game' style model in front of the concrete factory on Granville Island, Vancouver, perfectly illustrates its processes	Cannabis is legal in Canada, so there are a great many shops selling it on the busy streets of Vancouver	This cheeky seagull posed on our hotel balcony and made sure that we didn't oversleep in the mornings.

That evening we wandered the streets near our hotel and found a marvellous seafood restaurant where we had a fabulous meal of smoked salmon flatbreads, mussels in a cream sauce, and lobster omelette. It was absolutely delicious, and we were very happy as we wearily returned to our hotel for another early night - knowing that we would have an early start (6am) the next morning to catch our train the 'Rocky Mountaineer'

The impressive waiting-hall of the Rocky Mountaineer station was empty when we arrived...	... but while we sat and enjoyed a coffee it soon filled up with people ...	... as well as classical pianist - and a bagpipe player to pipe us aboard (see Video)	The friendly staff welcomed us on board the train.

The Rocky Mountaineer is an amazing train. There are 2 levels of service, Silver Leaf and Gold Leaf, and we are so glad that we paid the extra fee to upgrade to the Gold Leaf class as this gives you a comfortable seat in an upper-level observation carriage (so that you can see over the trackside shrubbery) as well as an outdoor observation area, plus superb meals in the dining room at the lower level of your carriage with free drinks throughout the journey. The breakfasts were superb and the lunches were even better (and huge!); in the afternoon we sampled a Canadian local cocktail drink, the Caesar, which is similar to a Bloody Mary (although generally somewhat spicier) but with 'Clamato' juice instead of tomato juice; Clamato juice is a mixture of tomato and clam broth, which gives the drink its unique flavour.

The Rocky Mountaineer has single and double deck coaches	Our comfortable upper-deck observation-coach seats on the Rocky Mountaineer		There are also open-air observation areas

Leaving Vancouver, the route followed the banks of the Frazer River through pretty countryside, with the Rocky Mountains looming ever closer. The tone of the trip was set within just a few minutes, as we waited half an hour for the swing-bridge across the river to close followed immediately by another 15 minutes as a freight train claimed its right to cross the bridge ahead of us; just like in the Deep South last year, priority on these tracks is given to the freight trains, which can be very slow-moving and up to 2 miles long, so the passenger service spends a lot of time waiting for them to pass.

It is traditional for all the station staff to wave goodbye to every departing train	The scenery as we leave Vancouver and follow the river ...	... is dominated by the approaching mountains ...	... and we get a distant view of Mount Washington in the USA  (not taken by me)
The track follows the riverbank up into the mountains	... crossing and re-crossing the fierce waters of the river in the canyon ...	... at the same time crossing the other track ...	... which can be seen passing through numerous tunnels in the canyon wall

This railway was constructed 140 years ago as the final link in the route across the whole of Canada, finally opening up the access to British Columbia. It was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway company (CPR), who chose to follow the route of the River Fraser as being the gentlest natural slope into the Rocky Mountains. Accompanying the river through its canyons, the track crosses from bank to bank and back again, seeking to avoid the most difficult and steepest lengths of the canyon walls. Many Chinese workers were employed as cheap labour here, and a great many of these paid with their lives in accidents.

Thirty years later, seeing the success of this railway, the Canadian Northern Railway company (CNR) decided to build a second, competing railway along the same route, but his was not an easy task for they had always to be on the opposite bank to the CPR. This meant that they were always working on the more difficult side of the canyon, but despite this they were able to complete their work successfully and the two railways operated in competition for many years.

As the level of traffic increased, the delays on each of these single-track railways started to become unacceptable until, in an incredible act of co-operation between the two competing rail companies, they agreed that they would share the tracks and the traffic; one track would take all the eastbound traffic while the other would take all the westbound traffic, and they would share the profits. The results of this co-operation were spectacularly successful, rescuing both railways from the brink of bankruptcy.- although the CNR (Canadian Northern Railway) was then nationalised to become the CNR (Canadian National Railway).

Looking ahead from the observation platform	A freight train passes on the opposite track.	The small city of Kamloops (can you see the chimney?	The scenery soon became even more spectacular

When we arrived in Kamloops, the railway company took us by coach to the hotel where we would spend the night (the Rocky Mountaineer is not a sleeper train). After the magnificent  meals that we had eaten on the train we were still too full to eat any dinner, so we simply had another early night so as to be ready for the morning's early departure.

Kamloops is best known now as a centre for arts and sports (especially golf) as well as hiking, skiing, etc. We were amused to be told that back when the city had a busy wood-pulp works as its primary source of income, the residents objected to the smells that come from the factory chimney, so the chimney was moved further up the valley with a long pipeline connecting the factory to it; from its new site, the prevailing winds blew the smoke away from Kamloops and towards the neighbouring towns!

After Kamloops we climbed ever further into the Rocky Mountains, crossing rivers and waterfalls as we passed beautiful lakes and pine forests, before entering the Spiral Tunnels.			A map of the Spiral Tunnels.

We had to make an early start from Kamloops, because we knew that there were many freight trains travelling that day so there would be many delays on our journey. We were able to relax for the day, simply enjoying the scenery - as well as heading to the dining car when we were called for breakfast and lunch. We saw Osprey's nests perched on top of the telegraph poles, and we saw Canada Geese swimming on the beautiful lakes with their chicks, while the mountain-tops continued  to get closer and closer.

That afternoon we came to one of the engineering marvels of this railway: the Spiral Tunnels. When the railway reached the steepest part of the mountains, the builders created a steeply sloping section of track across the rock-face, but this was highly unsuccessful. Trains heading uphill often found that they had insufficient power to climb the hill, and those heading downhill often found that their brakes weren't strong enough, and there were a great many accidents and derailments. After 25 years, seeking a different solution, the engineers found inspiration from the railways of Switzerland. Tunnelling straight into the mountain, the track spirals to the left by 270 degrees before emerging 50ft higher up; it then zigzags across the valley on a gentle incline and tunnels straight into the next mountain before spiralling to the right by 270 degrees and emerging again 50 ft higher. As you can see in the map above, the train is now pointing in its original direction, albeit on the opposite side of the valley, and having gained the necessary extra height can continue its journey to the small town of Banff, our destination on the Rocky Mountaineer. We arrived there several hours behind schedule, but we didn't mind at all, especially as they served us an extra meal on the train to compensate.

Lakes, Pine trees, and the Rocky Mountains ...

And so we proceeded by coach across the mountains to Jasper ...

All pictures on this site are © Allan Jones unless otherwise stated.