20240908 Sunday, September 8, 2024- Rocky Mountaineer Banff to Kamloops
Our alarms got us up at 5:30am before sunrise to get our suitcases repacked and out the door for pick up. The Viking excursion group gathered in the hotel’s lobby at 6:45am and boarded our coach for the short trip to the Banff train station. Our train was waiting as multiple buses pulled up along the length of the train. We had to wait for the train’s crew to prepare for receiving passengers. We tried to walk up to the front of the train and were disappointed that the Rocky Mountaineer staff would not allow people to take pictures at the front of the lead locomotive.
When we took the Spirit of Washington dinner train, we were allowed to take photos in front of the lead locomotive. We had to settle on taking pictures of the back of the lead locomotive and the front of the second locomotive. We were then bum rushed by the staff back to our car for loading. But when we got back to the 14th car, we still had to wait another 5-10 minutes to board. The whole process seemed unwelcoming and unfriendly, especially considering how expensive the Rocky Mountaineer trips are. They really should have played up the train and encouraged passengers who were interested to be able to take all the pictures and videos of the train that they want. The platform staff were largely abrupt and short tempered herding passengers onto the cars from the buses that dropped off all their passengers.
Fortunately, once on board, our car’s stewards, who were like flight attendants on a plane, were very courteous, welcoming and friendly. There was a bit of a fuss at the entrance to the coach because there were about 8 people who thought the had seats on our car, but had been either double booked or were assigned to the wrong car somehow. We were happy that our Viking handlers had made sure we got aboard without hassles.
We were booked on a Gold Leaf car, which is basically their first class service. This includes both beverage and meal services for the trip. The seats were very much like an airline first class cabin with comfortable leather reclining seats complete with lumbar support and seat heaters. The passengers are situated on the upper domed level of the car while a galley and dining car is situated below. The dining car can accommodate about half the upstairs capacity so meal services are divided into two seatings. Since this is a two day trip, the half of the car that gets first seating on day one will get second seating on the second day or what the attendants referred to revenge seating.
There is a small open sided platform at the end of the car opposite the galley where passengers embark and disembark the car, and can use for open air observation on the bottom level of the car. There are airplane style bathrooms just inside a sliding glass door closing off the car from the open platform, and a tight spiral staircase and small elevator lift between the open platform and the dining room.
The dining room is seat up with multiple booths where passengers are seated in groups of 4. The galley is at the head of the car and has two windows that allow a peek into the galley. This appeared to be manned by two galley staff who were very busy preparing meals. There is a small bar at the front of the domed upper level where the car attendants prepare drinks, which are delivered to your seats. You can’t go up to the bar and order directly. You have to place an order with one of the attendants. This is the rate limiting step for beverage consumption, but we felt well cared for during the entire trip.
The beverage menu includes local Canadian wines, beers, and cocktails, in addition to coffee, tea and soft drinks.
The beverages were serve in stemless glass ware just like on an airplane’s first class cabin.
The temperature outside was in the upper 40’s F in Banff when we boarded. The car was kept at a comfortable temperature throughout the day. As we approached Kamloops, the outside temperature had risen to 90˚F.
Views from the domed car were nice, but the curved glass wasn’t meticulously cleaned. There is enough distortion due to curvature of the glass and exterior grime, as well as interior reflections, that photography was not ideal within the domed car, but the open platform did make it possible to get some decent photos and videos when the platform wasn’t too crowded. The platform can be drafty and very loud as the train’s brakes and various control mechanisms operated.
Breakfast was from a fixed menu. Janet had Eggs Benedict and Ben had a sausage and egg skillet. Both were good, but not as good as the Fairmont Calgary breakfast.
Lunch was similar with Janet opting for Chicken on rice with bernaise sauce and Ben had Steelhead on mixed greens that was indistinguishable from salmon. Again both were decent, but akin to airline food rather than fine dining. But we were kept lubricated with beer, wine and cocktails throughout. We did partake in Calgary’s signature cocktails called Caesars, which were invented in Calgary and consist of Clamato and Vodka.
The train climbs from Banff to the Continental Divide at 5332 feet before beginning its descent in British Columbia. The views of the Canadian Rockies was spectacular in the Rockies, but visibility was frequently limited by trees that grew on both sides of the tracks. There were many lakes and river crossings along the route but it was difficult to get good photographs because of the trees, curves in the tracks, and short warnings of approaches to landmarks and crowding on the open sided platforms at those landmarks.
There were a couple of unique stretches of the trip including two spiral tunnels where the tracks had to tunnel into mountainsides in order to maintain a grade of less than 2.5%. However, most of the route did follow highways, so it would have been fairly easy to replicate the route and sights by car or RV. But the Rocky Mountaineer does allow for first class comfort with meal and beverage service.
The train did have to pull over onto sidings a few times to wait for passing freight traffic. There were a lot of double decker container cars, enclosed car carriers, petroleum cars and coal cars that we passed. We also saw some interesting track maintenance vehicles on sidings as we rolled past.
One thing that was a bit of a disappointment for us is that the route was always below the tree line so we rarely got unobstructed views of the Rockies. There also was not much wildlife visible from the tracks. At one point near the end of the trip, someone did spot a small black bear walking down a ravine as the train crossed. This caused quite an uproar as other people spotted the bear, but because of the fact that the train is moving quickly and passengers can’t see things below the belt line on the opposite side of the train, probably less than 20% of the passengers actually caught a glimpse of that bear. We did see cattle and horses in agricultural areas, but no mountain goats, elk or even any deer.
The train travelled relatively slowly. When we were traveling parallel to the highways, the traffic was always moving much faster than the train. It was hard to get a decent GPS signal despite the domed car design. There must be a metallic UV reflective layer that formed an effective satellite signal shield on the top half of the dome car windows, but on the rare occasion when the GPS could estimate our speed, it was rarely more than 30mph. The attendants said our top speed would be about 55mph, and when the train did hit that speed, it was rocking a swaying enough that it was very difficult to be able to walk without using your hands to brace against the setbacks as you went. The Canadian rail system is nothing compared to France’s 220mph TGV lines.
Although we have cellular roaming on our Xfinity Mobile plan, for most of the day, we had virtually no cellular data connectivity despite having 3 or even 5 bars of signal. The Internet and Canadian cellular networks have a strange relationship that I don’t understand.
The slow speeds and need to yield to freight traffic meant for a very late arrival to Kamloops. Because we were running so late, they served us a "light meal" consisting of cheese stuffed pasta with marinara and brownies at 7pm.
The sun set as we were waiting on a siding along the shores of Shuswap Lake, and it was past 9:45pm when we finally rolled into Kamloops. The train staff did pass out room keys and bus assignment numbers in the car before we disembarked so we could go directly to the hotel and up to our rooms.
We arrived at the 540 Delta Hotel by Marriot at 10PM. It was pitch dark and everything was closed. There were no nearby restaurants, shops or bars. The hotel was attached to a KPMG office building. There was a couple who declined the "light meal" anticipating they could order dinner at the hotel's restaurant, but that closed at 10pm. They ended up splitting a convenience store sandwich that the kitchen had scrounged up from room service.
With the crush of all the train passengers arriving simultaneously, there was a terrible back up at the lobby elevators. Rather than wait a half hour, we hiked up 3 flights of stairs to get to our room. The room is tourist class, perhaps at the same level as a Quality or Best Western, but well below the Fairmont Calgary’s standards. When we dropped our bag on the bed, a huge puff of dust came off the comforter like it had been dusted with talcum powder. We hope we don't end up with any respiratory issues from that. But we’re just going to grab a few hours of sleep and have to get up at 5:30am to get our luggage out the door and prepare to reboard the train. That means we really won’t have an opportunity to do any touring around Kamloops. That is a great disappointment.
At this point, this Rocky Mountaineer experience has been a disappointment. For $1000 per day per person, we expected first class treatment and accommodations. While the first night in Calgary met our expectations, the rest of the experience has been vastly overpriced and underwhelming. The views from the train have largely been obstructed by trees, and with the Trans Canada Highway paralleling the train’s route, better views could have been had from the highway, and with the train traveling so slowly, even if we had driven ourselves and taken plenty of roadside photo stops and dined at restaurants in the cities, we would have arrived hours earlier and been able to see at least some of downtown Kamloops.
The Rocky Mountaineer must be for irrational train nuts who don’t mind spending obscene amounts of money to be able to ride a train on a historic route. For us, value wise, it’s not much different than if we had decided to book a one way first class airline ticket to South Africa, but more expensive and much slower.
If we’re lucky, the views from Kamloops to Vancouver and the overnight stay in Vancouver will have some redeeming value, but if the train pulls into Vancouver at 10pm, then that too will be a waste.
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