More thoughts on daylight trains

Ed Note—The December 20 blog entry by Bob Glover about segmenting overnight trains has generated several responses to the NARP office.  We’ll share some of them with you, starting with comments from NARP Member David Peter Alan…

I was in New Brunswick, NJ last month to hear David Laney propose consecutive-day trains with overnight stops in between.  Bob Glover’s analysis of the scenario is right on target; to me this sounds a bit like railroading in the 1830s, before locomotives had headlights.
There are two such operations in western Canada, and I rode one of them.  One is the Rocky Mountaineer, an excursion train that goes from Vancouver to Jasper (which has service on VIA Rail at a much lower price) and Calgary (which has no VIA Rail service).  Everyone stays overnight in Kamloops, the train makes no local stops, and the least expensive one-way ticket costs thousands of dollars.

The train I did ride was VIA Rail’s “Skeena.”  It runs from Jasper, Alberta to Prince Rupert, B.C. with an overnight stop at Prince George, B.C.  It runs three days a week, with a fourth frequency added in the summer.  I rode it in May, 1999, just before “high season” started.  The train consisted of one coach and a “Park” car (a dome-observation car built for CP Rail).  There were snacks available for sale, but no meals.  I grabbed a take-out lunch from a restaurant in Smithers while the train was being refueled.  There were only about 20 people on board for most of the trip; only a few people rode between intermediate stops.

The round trip requires me to stay in hotels for three nights.  In addition, the Skeena is scheduled to arrive in Jasper too late to connect with the transcontinental “Canadian” to Toronto, and a similar misconnect is also scheduled the other direction. 
The mountains were beautiful, and the trip was quite an adventure.  Unfortunately, it was the sort of trip that only the most dedicated railfan could enjoy.  As rail transportation to actually move people from one place to another, it was absolutely useless.  If this is David Laney’s vision for long-distance rail, he should experience VIA Rail’s Skeena before he says anything more on the subject.

—David Peter Alan