May 22, Day 13, Banff to Kamloops

Today, we awoke early to catch a train to Kamloops, where we will spend the night. We boarded the bus to the train station at 7:00 a.m. and picked up passengers from several hotels on our way to the train station.  Despite delays at each of the hotels in picking up other passengers, our driver managed to get everyone to the train by 7:50 a.m. and the train left on time at 8:00 a.m.

The trip is just a long drive through the Canadian countryside.  We started off in the Rocky Mountains above 5,400 feet above sea level and eventually descended to the valleys on the other side of the Columbia Mountains in British Columbia around 1,500 feet above sea level.

On the way, we found out a lot about the history of the construction of this railroad in 1870-1885.  It is a fascinating story, and it reflects the power of a vision to connect all of Canada from one ocean to the other.  The project stated at each side of the ocean and the final stake was driven November 7, 1885, in Craigellachie, British Columbia.  The project was given a 10-year time frame for construction, but despite the issues associated with building through and over mountains, it was finished in far ahead of the deadline. (The 10-yr deadline was given by British Columbia leaders to then Prime Minister John McDonald, Canada’s first PM, as a condition for joining the Dominion of Canada.) Just like the stories of the construction of the rail lines in America, a lot of people were used to complete the project and several folks died.

We drove through two spiral tunnels and one long straight tunnel that was 5 miles long.  We followed along seven rivers through our journey to Kamloops.  The entire trip took us 10 hours!  We were served breakfast and lunch on board.  At breakfast, we met Brad and Sue from New Hampshire. Brad is a retired forester and Sue is a retired math teacher.

Dinner was supposed to be on our own in Kamloops. However, the train was over three hours late arriving at our destination, so the on-board crew scrambled to get a light dinner together for us. We will be staying in the Wingate Hotel tonight and continuing to Vancouver tomorrow, on the same train, in our same assigned seats.

 Since most of our day involved seeing the countryside, we will share with you many photos, showing the various views we had – a lot of mountains, a lot of rivers, some meadows, and occasional human settlements.

Our train ride begin at Banff (yellow star) and ended at Kamloops (orange star.)