About to board the train, VIA Rail to be exact. My boarding pass says I’ll be leaving the Guelph station at 09:42 and arriving at Union Station in Toronto at 10:50. I challenged myself to write a post entirely on my iPad while travelling and publish before arriving.
The last time I tried to take a train from Guelph was memorable…
I was heading to Windsor, a three hour trip that feels more like six. A boring drive on a good day. I decided to take the civilised way. That’s what they call train travel up here. The train never arrived. Now VIA Rail is all about customer service so they sent a bus instead… an hour later. The driver was new and couldn’t or wouldn’t follow the GPS. Being a little nostalgic though, every now and then, he would pull over to consult a paper map. The other passengers were very upset after our second time getting lost. Again, VIA Rail came through, we each got a bottle of water… free! Came in handy for all those people who were hoarse from yelling. Definitely not civilised. I kept to myself, read my book.
The friendly and nervous VIA rail representative, who happened to be along for the ride, promised we would arrive in London to meet the Windsor train. He was right, we got there just in time to watch it leave the station. No problem, taxis were provided for the last leg. Three passengers per cab. I made some new friends. We were driving by my hotel in Windsor but the driver refused to stop. It was his responsibility to get us to the Windsor station and he took it seriously. Upon arriving at the station, he offered to take me back to my hotel. He knew where it was so why not.
I should have drove my car…
Train arrived early. I was in car 5, seat 10A but there were only four cars. After a little confusion, I ended up in car 2, seat 3A. At least the ‘A’ was right. I selected a rear facing seat, to see where I’ve been. We left the station one minute early.
Just stopped in Georgetown, for all of 30 seconds. If someone got off or on, I didn’t notice. In Brampton at 10:14, picked up a few passengers, stopped for 5 minutes. Down to a crawl near the Pearson International airport. Quick stop in Malton, maybe 2 seconds, doors didn’t open. Approaching High Park in Toronto and the CN Tower is coming into view. Looks like this train is going to arrive on time. Top speed on this trip was approximately 118 kph.
Today, the trip was definitely civilised. Good job VIA Rail!
the dan blog 