On The Road

Wednesday morning bright and early (4:45) I was at the Sudbury Junction train station ready to head west. The train was 3 hours late!! It was stuck behind a freight train that was having some problems. Then because the freight train engineers had worked the number of hours they were allowed to work, a new crew had to be sent down, which took more time.

Once the freight train was underway it turned out that the Via staff also needed to be switched! One would think that they could have done the switching at the same time. The absurdity of it all was that the new train crews were only 10 minutes away.

An uneventful train trip. I was in a busy car with lots of people only on for short periods of time. When I went to sleep there were lots of empty seats but by the morning most were filled. Every time we stopped, people got on or off. Which made sleeping a bit more difficult. However I always had both seats to myself so I have no complaints.The cars generally were rather empty and therefore there was only one dining car. I would have thought that it was close to the prime season for travelling, but I guess not. Or else it is becoming just a too expensive way of traveling.

High points: there was a young mom with a 15 month old boy just across from me - he was pretty good most of the time - but not surprisingly he was occasionally cranky. Conductor came by a couple of times and played his harmonica for the kid ( and everyone else) He was pretty good and made the young boy happy. Nice touch!!!

The menu said that  there was vegetarian chili for supper. I went when they called second serving - but when I got there there was no room - The waiter was a bit haughty when he told me. Given the way I look - I wondered if he didn't want me in his dining room. I was just being silly I am sure. Still the chili would have been nice.

We got to Winnipeg 30 minutes early - which begs the question. If we could leave 3 hours late and still get there early -why did I have to be at the train station before day light?