ROCKY ROADS
Luxe train operator expanding to United States, while hoping to lure Canadians back onto rails
It has for three decades been showing off Canada's mountain wonders to tourists from all over the world.
And now the B.c.-based railway operator Rocky Mountaineer is bringing its brand of luxe train travel to the United States.
The Rockies to the Red Rocks route will be a two-day journey between the Colorado capital of Denver and the Utah city of Moab, gateway to the red rock formations of Arches National Park. Guests will stay overnight in Glenwood Springs, Colo.
It's not the company's sole foray south of the border — it operated the Coastal Passage route linking Seattle to Vancouver from 2014 till 2019 — but it is the most significant venture outside its traditional market since it was founded in 1990 by the Armstrong family.
“Rockies to the Red Rocks is not the first time Rocky Mountaineer will be operating in the U.S., but it is the first stand-alone route in America and the first time outside the Pacific Northwest,” spokeswoman Tessa Day confirmed to Postmedia.
The new service — beginning in August of 2021 — will bring to four the journeys it offers, the others running between Vancouver, Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper.
Channelling its homegrown success — the Rocky Mountaineer welcomed its two-millionth passenger in 2017 — the firm spent several years researching potential excursions before landing on the historic Colorado-utah line.
“The work to find a new route has been underway for several years as we needed to find a special location with many of the same features we have in Western Canada — incredible scenery, iconic destinations, and the option for an all daytime, multi-day journey that is best experienced by train,” president and chief executive Steve Sammut explained.
Saying the Red Rocks route “will have all of this and more,” Sammut also sought to reassure COVID-19rattled holidaymakers.
“The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on the travel industry, and there is continued uncertainty of when tourism will recover,” he said. “However, we believe American travellers, and those from around the world, will be eager to explore this region by rail with us and we look forward to welcoming them in 2021 and beyond.”
As with its Canadian services, the U.S. journey will travel only during daylight hours, allowing travellers to savour the Colorado River, canyons and rugged rock walls swirling past spacious glass-domed carriages while being served gourmet regional meals and rolling commentary about the southwestern states.
“This region, with its magnificent scenery, national parks and vast opportunities to explore, will delight millions,” company founder Peter Armstrong said in a statement.
Fresh off being named top luxury train at the World Travel Awards, the company has also unveiled special discounts on vacation packages for Canadian residents itching to explore their own backyards amid lingering overseas travel restrictions.
“As Canadians are dreaming of their next travel experience, we hope they will join us for a memorable train journey that explores some of the most spectacular scenery our country has to offer,” Sammut said.
The Mountaineer's signature service through the Canadian Rockies is not just one of the world's most magnificent rail experiences, it is also a rolling history lesson — without the tiresome end-of-term exam.
As the train trundles west of Revelstoke, B.C., keen-eyed passengers will take note of Craigellachie, the small settlement where in 1885 Canadian Pacific Railway president Donald Smith drove home the symbolic “last spike” binding together the disparate dominion in a ribbon of steel.
The name of the community, now a national historic site at the west entrance to Eagle Pass, was inspired by a Scottish battle cry — “stand fast” — that Smith and fellow Scotsman George Stephen felt appropriate to the long battle to push through the transcontinental railroad, which was beset by financial scandals.
Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, was instrumental in getting the CPR built, though newspaper readers today may be forgiven for knowing him chiefly as a favourite target of statue topplers, vandals and campus-renaming petitions.
Sitting in the comfort of the Rocky Mountaineer's bi-level Goldleaf coaches, it's perhaps hard to appreciate how monumental an engineering and nation-building feat the railway was, but it didn't take tourists long to discover its charms.
Not that you would know it from CPR general manager Cornelius Van Horne's less-than-portentous Last Spike speech: “All I can say is that the work has been done well in every way.”
Visitors to Ottawa can see a silver ceremonial spike donated by his heirs at the Canadian Museum of History — one of four “last spikes” made for the occasion.
Canadian author Pierre Berton would go on to characterize the railway's completion as the realization of the “national dream” to forge a country against towering odds.
It's fair to say most of us today are dreaming about matters a little more prosaic — like getting out of the house again.
With its comforting clack-clack rhythms and feeling of suspended animation, the joys of rail travel are well-poised to attract a new generation of adherents as commercial jets sit idle on tarmacs and nervous vacationers re-evaluate the merits of spending hours at crowded airports.