Canadian Railroads > Wed. "Canadian" ex-Toronto - first in over two years

It was worth a GO train trip to downtown Toronto on a gloomy, rainy day to see the first Wednesday departure of the Canadian in over two years.

It was the first time I had seen the rebuilt dining car Annapolis in service. (I had seen it in Vancouver earlier this month and in December of last year it was attached to the rear of the Ocean at Matapedia, en route to Montreal from Rail GD in New Richmond.) There had been rumours that the dining room chairs at the centre eight tables would be replaced with bench-seating. From my vantage point this was not the case, at least with this one of the four diners that have been - or are being - rebuilt. I was relieved that  the four beautiful etched glass panels have been retained adjacent to the original banquettes - two at each end. From what little I could see the interior of the dining area didn't look any different. The kitchen was to get a complete rebuild and I have no way of knowing if that was done.

An unusual sight was three Prestige Chateau sleepers. A friend at VIA told me there was a tour group who had booked most of the Prestige rooms. There were, however, three available for anyone who wished to part with $10,672 ($12.059.36 with tax.)

The combination of gloomy weather and a cheap camera is not conducive to good photos, but I will attach a few anyway as this was an unusual consist.

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The order of sleeping car line numbers was reversed from the train I was on two weeks ago.  On that train of 17th April the sleepers were, from front to back, 113, 112, 111, 110.

On today's train the Manor sleepers were 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115. The Prestige Chateau sleepers were 132, 131, 130.  As usual, the Park car was 139.

I forget how many Chateau cars were converted to Prestige class sleeper cars. There was enough, however, to run two Prestige class sleepers on each train when operating three times per week. Unlike Amtrak, VIA didn't have a reserve of spare cars. If the Prestige class sleeper or Prestige Park Car got bad-ordered last minute, a non-Prestige class car substituted and apologies/credits flowed. But  with twice a week service over the Canadian route, I don't think there's enough Prestige sleepers to make each consist go from carrying two Prestige sleepers to THREE Prestige sleepers, yet there are some "extra" Prestige class sleeper cars available - as seen due to these types of trips. VIA also knows how to add cars mid-route - much more efficiently than Amtrak - so they could add/subtract Prestige class sleeper cars at Winnipeg for the travel between Winnipeg and Vancouver. Likely, they'll just be held in reserve, but they are nice cars!

There are eight Prestige Chateau sleepers. The current twice-a-week service (there is no "short turn" Vancouver-Edmonton trains #3 & 4 this year) requires three consists. So there are two spares and one spare Prestige Park car.