OH THE PEOPLE YOU MEET

Rail buffs and others often plan for years to travel across Canada on Via Rail’s Canadian, which I took from Vancouver to Toronto. Those traveling onward to Halifax or Quebec must change trains at Toronto’s Union Station. Because of increasing freight traffic, the Canadian is often not on time, and passengers must spend the night in Toronto before making their connections.

Here are some of the folks I met onboard the Canadian during my trip in October.

Traveling companions Bob and Sam from San Francisco have taken the Trans-Siberian Railroad for 15 days across Russian and The Ghan in Australia. They showed me how to calculate the speed of our train by observing the elapsed time between mile markers.

A retired military couple from Alaska have traveled throughout Europe by rail, where, they said, trains are always on time. Torontonians Bob and MaryAnn were ending a roundtrip journey on the Canadian, reboarding the train after stopping for several days in Vancouver. They told me the menu was entirely different on the Toronto-to-Vancouver leg of the trip, which included a Sunday brunch.

Tony and Maria from Naples, Florida, have traveled by train throughout the United States and Canada. He especially enjoys the 1950s nostalgia of the “Canadian,” which has been modernized but retains its original cars.