The long, slow, strange journey of an antique passenger coach to Smiths Falls

The pandemic was cruel to so many people and many organizations, needless to say. I don't mean to minimize the impact it had on those who were sick or lost loved ones. But from a business standpoint, it was especially cruel to organizations like the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smiths Falls. This museum is a tenacious operation that is the product of the success of its volunteer efforts. I love this place. The people who work here or lend their time are second to none. They are dedicated and passionate. This place does not exist as it is now without its volunteers.

That was why it was cruel that the pandemic put a huge dent in the museum's plans to showcase its new piece of rolling stock in 2020, a turn-of-the-century dining car once belonging to the Intercolonial Railway and later the Canadian National.

The car is so long, it's almost impossible to get a good shot of it from up close. To get a proper shot of it in profile, I had to take a less-than-ideal shot from across the parking lot. And yes, that is my family's RAV4 blocking some of the shot. I should have thought ahead when parking!

This old dining car could be one of the oldest pieces in a railway museum in Canada. It was built in 1899 by the Wagner Palace Car Company of Buffalo. If that company name doesn't ring a bell, perhaps its purchaser is more familiar: Pullman Standard. Pullman bought Wagner just a year after this dining car was built.

The car was used on the Intercolonial Railway between Halifax and Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, where the ICR connected to the old Grand Trunk Railway. Even though the car now bears the Canadian National script, it clearly did not belong to the railway when it was first used, as CN didn't exist until June 6, 1919, when it was founded and was given control over several failing railways (GTR, Canadian Northern for example).

The car itself was beautifully cared for by the Bytown Railway Society for years before it was transferred to the Smiths Falls museum before the pandemic. The car, according to the museum website, has five tables on either side of the aisle in the dining area. 

Interestingly, the builder plate for the car can be seen in the dining area on the floor. Beneath that brass plate, there is a kingpin, which is part of the wheel (truck) assembly. It's interesting that the builder's plate is found on the floor above the kingpin. I can't say I have seen that before.

Many of these details I picked up from researching the car. The last time I was at the museum, this old dining car's interior was off limits, due to pandemic restrictions.

As you would expect, the car also had a kitchen and storage area for staff. Cooking was done with the aid of charcoal. To load the food and supplies, the car had a hatch where crews could slide the food and supplies directly into the kitchen and preparation area. 

Originally, the car was lit by hanging kerosene lanterns, as you might expect from a car built at the turn of the century. There was also an emergency cord strung up on the ceiling, for emergency stopping purposes.

There are a few bits to this car's recent story that you might not know. First, the car was brought to the museum with the goal of using it as a cafe of sorts to generate extra revenue for the operation. Sadly, that was not able to happen due to the lousy timing of the pandemic and the strict health measures that prevented the dining car's use for food service.

Second, as you might imagine, the process of getting this car to Smiths Falls was also a chore. You might think it would be easy enough to ship the car on a special move down the old CN Smiths Falls Subdivision, but this was not possible.

Why? Well, the Bytown Railway Society no longer has access to the rail system, as its rails at the Canada Science and Technology Museum are no longer connected to local tracks. This has been a topic of conversation among railfans in Ottawa for years. Ask the BRS officially and they will tell you that this is not in their plans, nor is it a priority for the museum, I would imagine.

I say this without any malice. But I know many people are frustrated that a group like the BRS has no way to host excursions as it once did. I have spoken quietly to a few members of the society in the past and they told me that they wished there was a way this connection could be re-established.

Also factor in the times we live in, where the liability and the changing priorities of railways make it much more difficult to facilitate third-party excursions. I can't imagine this would be an easy proposition, given how busy local rail lines are with Via Rail trains. It's true that CN doesn't own much trackage in Ottawa anymore, but I can't imagine the company would be thrilled with a third party making use of what little of the Beachburg Sub is left. And when you factor in the 10 mp/h speed restriction on the Nylene Canada-owned Renfrew Spur, you can see the potential legal and operating issues that would get in the way of excursion runs.

All that to say, the old dining car had to be brought to Smiths Falls in two pieces on special trucks that are sometimes used to move houses. It's a sad commentary on what has happened to the rail system in Ottawa that a rail car cannot be moved by rail to Smiths Falls, even though a rail connection is very much in place.

This brings me to a final, somewhat sombre, point. The Bytown Railway Society can only do so much with the limited trackage it has in place at the museum. Still, the group has done some great events and continues to be a beacon of preservation. It still has some great pieces that are safely stored in the new museum collections building. It's a much better setup for the group than what it had previously. But the reality is, without any way of being able to do excursions or generate revenue through events, its options are limited. That is my opinion, anyway. BRS still publishes Branchline Magazine and the annual Canadian Trackside Guide. It also hosts history presentations.

If you follow BRS on Facebook, you will have noticed that it was putting out feelers on this wrecker (above). I was lucky enough to see this car out on the tracks last year. It's a wonderful old relic of the days when railways had full-fledged work trains. I'd hate to see this piece of history go, but it appears as though there's only so much room for what the society has.

You might also recall that the society's old CN passenger car is now residing in a New England rail museum, where is is paired with coaches just like it. I remember following the BRS's Facebook updates on the restoration of this coach. Again, I was lucky to catch it out on the tracks behind the museum last year. I'm glad I got this image, because it was the only time I was able to see this car in person. I'm sure it will be put to good use in New England, but it's still sad that it had to go at all.

The next time I go to the Smiths Falls museum, I'm hoping to get a better look at the inside of the old dining car.

It makes me wonder if we can't do more for rail preservation and history in Ottawa. We do a great job honouring history in this city in so many other ways. Why not honour our rail transportation legacy, like we do our aviation history? Also, given the collection of cars the science and tech museum has in storage, possibly there's an opportunity here to look at a transportation museum connected to the aviation museum?

We've spent money on worse ideas!

An alternate history of rails in the Ottawa Valley

There is no shortage of lamentations online about the state of railways in the Ottawa Valley and loss of much-loved rail lines. The other day, I found myself in Bells Corners with a few minutes to spare, so I sat trackside, hoping to catch CN 589 on its way back from Arnprior. The train never showed, but I began to think of some documents I read years ago from the Canadian Transportation Agency about the Renfrew Spur, a long stretch of track, between the former Nepean Junction and Arnprior, that would be long gone by now if CN had its way. Strangely enough, you can thank the Canadian Pacific Railway (okay, CPKC if you want to get technical) for the survival of the former Renfrew Subdivision.

Long story short, in 1987, CN applied to discontinue service on what was then known as the Renfrew Subdivision because the railway claimed it lost more than $328,000 per year on the line. The reasons were pretty obvious. Its one main customer was Nylene Canada (formerly BASF), which required weekly service, mostly one to three tank cars of caprolactum from Texas. CN, in its filings to the CTA, said there weren't enough customers on the line to justify continued service. In 1987, there were less than 100 car movements on the line. Hardly worth the price of maintaining the tracks for a large railway.

Read the specific details of this line's status from my earlier post.

At the time, the Teamsters Union claimed that Sullivan's Lumber in Carp (later Rona) and a flour mill both wanted rail service, but nothing seemed to come of the union's claims.

Instead, there were discussions with both CN and CP over how Nylene Canada would continue to get rail service in a way that didn't cost a railway money. When you consider that the Renfrew trackage now runs roughly 50 kilometres from what was once Nepean Junction (where the Beachburg Sub once veered northwest toward Fitzroy Harbour and beyond) out to the Nylene plant, you understand that this is a lot of infrastructure to maintain for one eastern and western movement a week. 

At some point in these proceedings, it was decided that Nylene must have rail service, as the cost of shipping caprolactum by truck wasn't worth it for the company, which remains a major employer in Arnprior to this day. So the issue was how would the plant get served and which railway would provide the service in a way that was workable for everyone involved?

In 1987, Arnprior had both the Renfrew Subdivision and CP's Chalk River Subdivision running through the town. At the time, neither line could be described as a critical stretch of track, but CP did still use its Chalk River Sub for through freight, even if there was little to no trackside business. Also, Via Rail used the Chalk River Sub, as well as the CP Carleton Place Sub, for the Canadian, which once ran through Ottawa all the way to Montreal.

We all know how the story ends. We don't know what happened during this time between the government and the two railways, but we know the discussions over rail service to the Arnprior plant ended with the decision that CN would continue to serve the plant, instead of CP. But here's the question that I find intriguing. What if it was decided that CP would serve Nylene Canada?

If the Canadian Transportation Agency's discussions about rail service to Nylene Canada resulted in CP being the railway to provide the service, would there have been an Arnpior Turn originating in Smiths Falls? It might have happened.
 

Here are the possible scenarios that could have resulted from this decision, including my take on how likely they would be in a parallel universe.

1. CP would have retained part of the Chalk River Subdivision. (LIKELY) I think this could have been a likely scenario. Would the track have been owned by CP or would the land have been sold to local governments and the rails sold to Nylene? Possibly over time. But what makes this scenario less likely is the fact that, at the time the decision was made in 1987, the Chalk River Subdivision still hosted daily through freights as well as the Canadian. That's a far different situation than what CN was facing with the Renfrew Subdivision, which essentially hosted nothing but a weekly freight out to Arnprior and back. Possibly the Chalk River track would have remained a CP concern. 

2. CP would have retained the entire Chalk River Subdivision. (FAIRLY UNLIKELY) The other fascinating question would be if this weekly service, as mandated by the CTA, have caused CP to rethink its plans to abandon the Chalk River Sub in 2010-11? I ask this because possibly the weekly Arnprior service would have ensured that the subdivision between Smiths Falls and Arnprior remained in place. If that was the case, possibly Via Rail could have come in to maintain the remainder of the track to ensure the Canadian had its connection to Ottawa and beyond. And if that scenario seems possible, would it be a stretch for CP to keep running through freights on this line as a guest on a Via line? Or would the Ottawa Valley Railway still be involved on the sub? There are a lot of factors to consider here, but I think it might have happened.

The issue working against this possibility is that Via Rail did not have multiple trains using this line. Think about Via Rail's ownership of the old CN Smiths Falls Sub and the old CP Brockville Sub. These two lines see many movements a day, which makes sense for Via Rail to own and maintain them. The Chalk River Sub is not in the same league as these other lines. I think the entire track would likely not have made it.

3. CP would have retained the Carleton Place Subdivision. (UNLIKELY) This is where the alternate history gets a little murkier. Remember that Via Rail used the Carleton Place Sub and the Chalk River Sub as its route for the Canadian up until 1990. If CP had been forced to provide service to Arnprior, which would have necessitated a major stretch of the Chalk River Sub to be saved, would it mean that the Carleton Place Sub would have been saved? I don't think it would have saved this piece of track, which is but a memory now.

The reason I think this line was doomed no matter what was because it was essentially in the same situation as CN's Renfrew Subdivision, with no freight activity. In its final days, it was hosting Via Rail and nothing else. The discontinuance documents show the line had two car loads in and out in 1986 and nothing else afterward. This document from 1988 shows that CP was essentially losing anywhere from $250,000 to nearly $500,000 a year on this stretch of track, even though Via and officials from Carleton Place wanted the line kept in place. Notice from the document that the former Region of Ottawa-Carleton did not take a position on the rail line, but asked for the right of first refusal to buy the land.

My guess is that the Canadian, if it still had access to the Chalk River Sub and was running through to Montreal, would have gone to Smiths Falls and switched onto the old CN Smiths Falls Sub, where it could then continue on its way to Ottawa and then Montreal. It's fascinating to consider that train stopping at Fallowfield Station.

Is the platform at Fallowfield long enough for the Canadian? It's interesting to consider.

 

4. CN would have torn up the Renfrew Subdivision (SURE THING) There's no doubt at all that the Renfrew Sub would have been a goner had the CTA decision on rail service to Arnprior been different. Most likely, the land would have either been converted to a trail or sold off in parts of the city where it could be developed, like in Kanata. As it stands today, the line is still in place, with a 10 mph speed limit, giving you an idea of the condition of the rails. 

The final factor to consider in this alternate history is the fact that CPKC now has a transcontinental link across Canada re-established. Given that CP can run trains all the way out to port in New Brunswick, possibly there could have been consideration to keeping the Chalk River Sub in place or at least re-establishing a connection between Chalk River and Arnprior, if that part of the line saw a discontinuance even with the CP service to Nylene.

 

Of course, in the early 1990s, no one could have foreseen CP relinquishing its cross-Canada network only to reacquire it years later, but it's fascinating to think what might be possible if CP had been mandated to serving Nylene in Arnprior.

First impressions of 2025 at Fallowfield Station

I needed to do something. My family's new house had sprung a leak, as in the outside air (-28C with the wind at one point) was gushing into a room in our house, making things very unpleasant. I have been wrestling with many renovations to our new house, which has been neglected for years and is in need of some TLC.

But on Wednesday night, I had had my share of being cold and frustrated in my own house, so I decided to be cold and frustrated outside and maybe see a few trains. My daughters were at a nearby dance class and I had no errands to run. Time for some nighttime photography at Fallowfield Station in Barrhaven.

Unluckily for Via Rail, but luckily for me, the ongoing drama over the Venture trainsets has altered Via's schedule, but has created opportunities for railfans. For me, it meant that Train 59 westbound, which usually arrives at Fallowfield shortly after 6 p.m., was due to arrive at 6:20 p.m. At the same time, a late eastbound Train 644 from Toronto was due to arrive at 6:23 p.m. In fact, Train 644 arrived first on the station siding (track two), while Train 59 could be seen meandering west down the Smiths Falls Sub, just east of the Woodroffe Avenue crossing, waiting for 644's passengers to get across the main line onto the station platform. 

In other words, it was a meet at night in the blowing snow. I only had my iPhone, as it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to try my luck, but I was quite happy with what I got, considering the limitations of an iPhone camera.

This was the scene shortly before the meet, looking east toward Ottawa and Federal Junction, in particular. Can you feel how cold it was by this photo? You can see a light sheen of ice and snow on the platform. The blur around the red signal lights was mostly due to the blowing snow.

This is a shot of Train 644 arriving nearly an hour late at Fallowfield, as a Venture set leads the way home for travellers on track two. It looks a bit blurred, but much of that was the blowing snow. I like the look it gives the train, as if it is tearing by the station at speed, which was not the case.

I went to the east side of the station platform to get a still shot, as the train was parked to allow passengers to hustle into the waiting arms of loved ones and the hopefully warm confines of cars that would take them home.

I like this shot because it's less blurry, but it also has a darker feel, since I was positioned a little further away from the platform light standards. You can feel the dark, cold night of an Ottawa winter in this shot. You can also see a few brave passengers on the main platform awaiting the westbound Train 59 on the main. 

It was ambling up the track at this point, far from its normal speed. In fact, I noticed at one point that the signals at Woodroffe Avenue activated too soon, as Train 59 was nowhere near the road, to my eye, anyway. The lights then shut off again and the guards went back up. At this point, Train 644 had crept forward on the siding, awaiting clearance to proceed to Ottawa Station, just as soon as Train 59 made its way to Fallowfield on the main.

Here's a shot I like, and it doesn't even really give you any idea of the profile of either engine. I like train shots that sometimes don't conform to our usual shots. I really like how this one turned out. You can see the blowing snow affecting the light and you can see the effect of the F40 lights on the Venture coaches.

Here's one final closer shot of Train 59, which was a consist of six LRC coaches being led by an F40. When the consist went by, I marvelled at how beat-up the LRC equipment looked. Decades of dents, nicks, scratches and abuse seem to have left their mark.

All in all, it was a peaceful few minutes at the station. I love being trackside for a few minutes, with nothing else to do but watch the trains go by. Good therapy.

Summer observations in Eastern Ontario

From time to time, I collect some random sightings into an observations post. Mostly, the posts centre around Ottawa, but I'm happy to have a few images from Kingston, so this post will be an Eastern Ontario post. However, I do want to start with a bit of news from Ottawa.

Farewell, 4977

You may have noticed, if you follow this organization on Facebook, that the Bytown Railway Society has found a new home for its old heavyweight Canadian National coach 4977. The BRS officially moved the old coach off the grounds of the Canada Museum of Science and Technology this week, where it began its long journey to the Railroad Museum of New England. It's noteworthy that it had to be trucked down to the States.

Those who do follow BRS on Facebook know that this group has worked diligently for 11 years to refurbish the old coach. They also chronicled their progress on Facebook regularly, so all of us history nerds could appreciate their painstaking progress. When the job was officially done, the group brought the old coach out of its storage area at the museum. I was lucky enough one day to be in the area in the spring, so I took a couple of photos of the old car.

This is what the old coach looked like on Feb 29, as it was resting on the BRS tracks near the museum on a frigid sunny afternoon. I walked along the car and marvelled at how great it looked. The BRS obviously did absolutely everything it could with the funds and manpower it had to bring this old antique car back to life. I would imagine that it will get further cosmetic treatment at its new home in Thomaston, Connecticut. 

The New England museum says 4977 will join some other pieces of CN passenger history on its grounds: heavyweights 5046, 5089, 5114, 4980. 

Of course, this is a somewhat bittersweet moment for the society and for railfans in Ottawa. The harsh reality for BRS is this group does not enjoy a connection to active rails like it once did. There was a time when the society chartered railfan trips on local and regional rails. Of course, times change and priorities change. 

The rails in and around Ottawa have been significantly pruned back by CN, which has shrunk the size of the old Ottawa Central footprint to the point where only the passenger links into and out of the city are the only rails left, with some exceptions. There's the trackage out to Orignal, the Walkley lead, Walkley Yard, a bit of the Beachburg Sub and the old Renfrew Sub. That's almost it. The rest of predominantly Via Rail territory.

Also, I can only speculate here, but I would imagine the prospect of granting BRS access to Via trackage in the area is likely fraught with difficulties, liability issues, timing challenges and likely resistance. That's just a guess. I can't see today's railways having the same attitude toward sharing its rails with charters like they once did. I can only imagine the potential liabilities that would need to be ironed out. Then there's the physical connection, which is nonexistent.

So the coach will go to a museum where it can be enjoyed. A reason to pay a visit to New England. Also, it makes me grateful that I had a chance to see this antique up close before it left Ottawa for good. 

A Bit of luck in Kingston

Earlier in July, my family took a break from the whirlwind of trying to sell our house, pack, and move to a new house. We visited family in Stratford, which meant a long drive on Highway 401. When we were driving through Kingston, we were lucky enough to catch an eastbound freight train right around the area where the CN Kingston Subdivision parallels the highway. My wife in the passenger seat was a good sport and tried to get a few quick glimpses of the mixed freight as it rumbled by in the opposite direction.

This is what you get when you are travelling at 100 km/h in the opposite direction of a freight train. The visual hazards are everywhere so you take a few shots and hope for the best. CN ES44DC 2299 leads the way with trailing unit C44-9W 2659 pulling a lumber car. 

She even managed to capture an image of an old BC Rail boxcar with its door open. 

Stretching the Eastern Ontario boundary definition

All right, this last image is most definitely not Eastern Ontario, by the classic definition, but I thought I'd add it in as it is east of Toronto. On the same trip west to Stratford, we saw a number of GO Trains as we headed west on the 401. As we were driving through the eastern suburb of Ajax, I snapped this quick shot of an eastbound commuter train from across the 401. I've made this point before but I will make it again. Taking photos of trains with no visual distractions in your image is fine, but I often find these images don't give you any context.

I've tried this year to take photos with the context attached, meaning to place the subject in your frame alongside something that gives you an idea of the five Ws. (who, what, where, when, how). That is an old lesson from my journalism school days. Approach everything with the 5 Ws in mind, even if one of the Ws is an H. I like that there are cars in the shot. It tells me this was taken on a busy highway near a city. Context!

I was actually going to finish this post with a few images of Via Rail's evening train that I usually come across each week when my daughters are at a nearby dance class. With my wife off Wednesday evenings this summer, many of my railfan excursions were curtailed by the more urgent needs of settling into our new house. This past week, I had a clear window to catch a few trains, hoping that one of them was a new Venture, but one of the trains was quite early and I missed it while the other I was unable to catch since I was busy at Costco. O for 2. 

In the coming weeks and months, I plan to share the prolific amount of railfanning images I was able to get on that trip to Stratford, including a very rare grand slam of a photo where I caught four different railway liveries on four different engines in a single shot.

Stay tuned.

Going west in the corridor

In early June, my family took the train to Toronto so we could take in a Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre. The trip west from Fallowfield Station was my first time taking Via Rail since 2015. It was also the first time I took the train between Ottawa and Toronto since 2009, when I used Via Rail to travel for business. For my daughters, it was their first time on a train that wasn't the O-Train.

We began our day from Fallowfield, as mentioned, before 6 a.m., as we waited for the 5:45 arrival of Train 41, which was the earliest train out of Ottawa. Our consist was led by P42 918 and it featured four silver streamlined HEP cars. My family was in the fourth car. It was an ex-CP coach and it was a bumpy ride. My wife and I were assigned seats at the end of the car, which gave us more leg room, although our window was half the size. Makes it hard to take photos!

As I mentioned in a previous post, the first thing I noticed trackside was a long line of empty intermodal cars parked on what blog readers confirmed to me was the last remnants of the CP Chalk River Subdivision. I was told that CPKC sets cars aside on this track when they are not in use for long periods. I was told that it is not uncommon to see grain cars parked on this track for long periods.

It was in Brockville that I captured my first photo at CP Chelsea, where the former CP Brockville Sub takes a sharp turn to the right for westbound trains, which forces the train to slow down. You can really hear the wheels screeching as the tight turn applies pressure on the train. It was on this turn that I attempted my first "Dutch door" style photo of a train. This was the best that I could do. It was at milepost 27.57. I was happy to catch the two signals as well.

The old windows on our coach made for less than stellar images, but I still like the fact that I could get a shot of our train from this vantage point. This is the first type of image in this style that I have ever captured. While we were in Brockville, I made sure to get a shot of the station. I have been through this town on the train many times, but I never have taken shots of the station.

This was about as much of the station as I could shoot from my narrow window in the fourth HEP car. There wasn't much else to see in Brockville during our stop, even though this is a good spot for railfanning, as this is a good place to see the convergence of the CN and CPKC's eastern systems. I did see a few flatcars, though.

I kept my eyes peeled for interesting scenes trackside. When we approached Kingston, I looked out for something on one of the two station tracks but I wasn't on the right side of the train to see what was on the other track. It wasn't until I was west of Kingston when I caught a quick glance at the abandoned ex-GTR, ex-CN Ernestown station, which still sits trackside, having long since hosted its last passenger train. This station continues to be a source of fascination for railfans and history buffs in the Kingston area.

I made sure to saunter down to the end of our car at times to get a shot of the tracks as we raced through Eastern Ontario. The harsh early morning sun was not my friend on these shots. But, as this train was not a double-ender, you could at least get a shot of the scenery rather than the back of an engine.

It wasn't until we arrived at Belleville that my vigilance finally paid off. As we approached the station, I saw a parked container train just east of the station. The engines did not seem to be idling, so I'm not sure if it was a case of a crew timed out and a train waiting for its next crew to bring it further west. I tried to get a shot as passed the head end. But again, the narrow window imposed limits to what I could do.

As we waited for our train to ease off the Belleville platform, I wandered to the back of the train to see if I could get a shot of the container train. This time, I was able to get a more complete shot. I was much happier with this shot. There is a bit of window glare in the bottom of the image, but I was happy that I could capture the curvature of the tracks and the contours of the train as it stretched into the distant horizon.

I also tried to frame the train with the overhead walkway of the Belleville station. The shadows were pretty harsh as it was still relatively early, so the freight train is a bit lost in the shadows, but I figured it was worth a shot.

I got a quick shot of the Trenton Junction Station, as I don't recall taking much notice of this stop when I took the train in the 1990s. I know there was a time when Via service was discontinued in Trenton for a time. The roof of the station needs to be replaced. It looks rough.

When we approached Cobourg, there were a couple of ballast cars in the yard, all with tarps covering the tops. The station in Cobourg looks very similar to the Belleville Station, only on a smaller scale.

I thought it would be fun to capture this scene in Cobourg, where you can see both rail lines over the water. There's a sizeable stretch of tracks where both the CPKC and CN lines are within eyesight of each other.

Those were some of my observations in June as we travelled from Fallowfield to Toronto. I will continue with Toronto observations in the next post. 

Note: I have aimed to post three items a month on this blog, but that will not be case this month. As I mentioned recently, my family is closing in on the final steps that will see us move. We are very close to wrapping up the process, but it is dominating my time. Thank you for your patience.

Review: Riding the rails where the Ventures roam

This past week, I took my daughter to Montreal, as part of a late birthday gift. She is a big hockey fan so we went to have a tour of the Bell Centre, home of the Montreal Canadiens. We then followed that up with a trip to the team store, where she got her first Habs jersey. A fun day in a city that I love.

For the purposes of this blog, the trip was also a great opportunity to take the train. In this instance, it was my first chance to ride Via Rail's new Siemens Ventures train. 

This was the scene at Ottawa's main train station as our Venture was parked a few tracks over from a more traditional F40-LRC consist that was headed for Toronto. Our train was Via Train 24. My first impressions of the new Ventures coaches were that the centre aisle was wider than what you'd find on an LRC or silver HEP car. The interior is very white. The area for people with disabilities was spacious, much more so than the spaces you'd find on more traditional Via equipment. There was no shortage of space.

I've been reading some interesting commentary online about the new Via equipment being relatively scarce outside the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City route. There was also the Via "announcement" that its entire corridor now features the new Siemens trains, which is a bit of a stretch, to be sure. For my daughter and I, taking the train between Ottawa and Montreal meant we rode on a Siemens Venture set both ways. This seems to be the route where much of this equipment is being tested.

These digital signs were spread out along the car, which told you (roughly) where you were on your journey and how fast the train was moving. The Alexandria Subdivision is almost exclusively Via territory, save for the occasional CN freight train. On our way to Montreal, just east of Ottawa, our train managed to maintain a steady speed of 151 km/h for a long stretch, which was pretty impressive. As we got closer to Alexandria, the pace slackened a bit. Our train was given priority over a westbound train as well as a CN freight train closer to Coteau. As we neared Montreal, we yielded the main line for a westbound train, which caused us to pull in to Montreal's station a few minutes late, but nothing noticeable.

The train sheds at Montreal's Central Station were filled with new Siemens trains, but it's hard to get photos there, as it's so dark. The platforms at this station are as high as the coach doors, so there is no stepping down to the platform, as you have to do in Toronto. However, Toronto's train sheds are much brighter after the installation of much-needed windows there. It's a very different experience once you get off the train in Montreal.

The ride itself was incredibly quiet and smooth. Earlier this summer, I was on the last car of an all HEP consist on the way to Toronto. The difference in ride is not even close. The new Siemens coaches are a massive upgrade in terms of ride quality. I will say, however, the seats themselves felt a little stiff to me, although they weren't uncomfortable by any means. The leg room was more than enough and it was definitely a step up from the older coaches.

I mention the quiet. As someone with a hearing impairment, I have to wear hearing aids. I could hear all the announcements on the Ventures. I should clarify. It's not sound that is my problem, it's sound clarity. The acoustics of the Venture's sound systems are a massive improvement. Many details were well thought out in these new trains.

My daughter insisted on a platform shot, so I happily obliged. It's not easy getting anything decent on the Montreal platform, but I like this shot. My daughter and I had a wonderful day in Montreal. They locals treat you well when you're wearing the team colours!

The experience at Montreal station was pleasant as well. The Via personnel were very kind to us. We had to check one bag as we could not bring it on the Bell Centre tour. The gentleman at the baggage desk allowed us to check it for free, as he was enchanted with my daughter. I will have more to share about the Montreal station and my railway observations on this trip. Those will be for future posts.