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I have ridden trains in the UK, France (TGV), Germany and China (regular and high speed).
I am looking forward to the train ride in Japan this year.
VIA is pretty outdated, slow and bumpy, definitely the worst among the ones I have taken.
However, the population distribution of Canada probably makes it the worst country to build train rails. I however, hope we could have higher speed train (expecting 300kmph HST wouldn't be possible) to cities like Montreal, Chicago and New York, for example 200kmph, which will reduce the trip to Montreal to 2.5 hours, and NY/CHI to 4-4.5 hours.
Doing some rail exploring in Canada is high up on my "bucket list" as well.
Another road that hasn't been mentioned so far is the Algoma Central (and Hudson Bay), which runs northward from Sault Ste. Marie into the interior; also the Ontario Northland from North Bay through Cochrane all the way to Moosonee (Moose Factory). In the case of the Algoma Central, it partnered with the Wisconsin Central (another "regional" spinoff) to assist in the privatization of the former state run systems in one of the Baltic states.
And let me introduce a gentleman who has some stories to tell:
As I've mentioned in other posts, the Canadian Pacific main line runs through some very isolated country between Sudbury and Thunder Bay; it crosses the Algoma Central at a place called Franz, about 35 miles east of the crew-change point of Chapleau (another place I just gotta see!!), and until about thirty years ago, the at-grade crossing was guarded by a fully-staffed 24/7 signal complex (tower) -- probably one of the most isolated such "sentry posts" anywhere in the world,
At any rate, Mr. Hungry Wolf and his son arranged a visit and published the account in Trains magazine over twenty years ago -- well before the development of the Internet. Oh, to have had the wherewithall to have gone there back when I was a student -- before the world got complicated.
Sorry to say, 2nd trick op, to the best of my knowledge, the ONR has ended passenger rail service.
I rode the Bonavista Branch Line, in Newfoundland. It has an interesting switch-back. The caboose was converted into half passenger seating and half railworkers shop. Passenger service discontinued about the same time as the narrow-gauge Newfie Bullet, in the early 1970s.
Sadly, I never rode the Newfie bullet, the poplular train that averaged 20 mph across Newfoundland. It wouild stop on demand, and hunters used it to get to the barrens, and would flag it down for their return home. During berry season, the train would make half-hour stops in the middle of nowhere for the passengers to pick berries.
There was an old woman in Gaff Topsails who once phoned the railroad and told them it was too windy, the train would be blown of the tracks. They just laughed at her, and when the train got to Gaff Topsails, the wind blew it off the tracks. From that date on, the train would be cancelled if the woman called and said it was too windy.
Mostly the model rail fan however i'm sure full size passions for trains exist .Where there's smoke theres fire eh!.Usually model rail forums have a section on full size trains. https://www.google.ca/#q=forum+sur+l...re&safe=active
I wonder if the crew on this train has "bilinguability"?
Having ridden the Ocean from Montreal to Halifax, I can assure you that the train crew is fully bilingual. Announcements over the PA are made in French and English as well.
I wonder if the crew on this train has "bilinguability"?
They have to be. I couldn't even get a job sweeping out the damned Windsor-Toronto cars at the station here in Windsor, of all places, without being bilingual.
Pissed me off.
lol
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