Elwyn
Member
I made this journey in September 2018 and strongly recommend it. It’s one of Canada’s undiscovered special train journeys, and costs a fraction of the Rocky Mountaineer train. It’s an old fashioned scheduled service and is priced accordingly. I travelled from Jasper to Prince Rupert. It takes 2 days and many folk stay at the Ramada in Prince George for the overnight stop. That’s about a 10 minute walk from the station. You can “Interlline” your heavy bags through for the whole journey. They stay in the locked baggage car. Saves carrying them to your hotel.
The train slows for special views and smokers can get off for a puff at various points on the journey. The staff look after you really well. Very comfortable and friendly. Always slightly behind schedule. But beautiful scenery.
There are just 2 train units that do this journey. (There are 3 departures a week in each direction). One train set has a dining facility and the other doesn’t. The one with the dining facility charges extra, both for dining and for access to to the observation car. You need to check the website to discover which unit is in use on any particular journey The one with the dining facility has extra charges if you want to dine and use the observation car. The other train doesn’t. So my advice is go for the one without the dining car. It’s better value. Take your own food and drink, and buy the odd coffee or craft beer on the train.
My train consisted of a baggage car, a passenger car and an observation car with lounge and refreshment bar. On my journey, from tbe observation car, I saw a coyote as well as a black bear cub running across just in front of the train.. I also saw a car jump the lights and miss the train by inches. Not as pleasant as the wildlife.
Prince Rupert is in the middle of nowhere. However it is a days sea travel closer to China than Seattle and other places on the American East Coast. So it is more economical to send containers there than to other ports in Canada and the US. On my journey to Prince Rupert we probably passed 40 container trains with an average of 200 to 300 containers on each. That, on a single track line, was amazing. Most of the passing loops are half a mile long. Some trains took 5 or 6 minutes to pass our train.
The train slows for special views and smokers can get off for a puff at various points on the journey. The staff look after you really well. Very comfortable and friendly. Always slightly behind schedule. But beautiful scenery.
There are just 2 train units that do this journey. (There are 3 departures a week in each direction). One train set has a dining facility and the other doesn’t. The one with the dining facility charges extra, both for dining and for access to to the observation car. You need to check the website to discover which unit is in use on any particular journey The one with the dining facility has extra charges if you want to dine and use the observation car. The other train doesn’t. So my advice is go for the one without the dining car. It’s better value. Take your own food and drink, and buy the odd coffee or craft beer on the train.
My train consisted of a baggage car, a passenger car and an observation car with lounge and refreshment bar. On my journey, from tbe observation car, I saw a coyote as well as a black bear cub running across just in front of the train.. I also saw a car jump the lights and miss the train by inches. Not as pleasant as the wildlife.
Prince Rupert is in the middle of nowhere. However it is a days sea travel closer to China than Seattle and other places on the American East Coast. So it is more economical to send containers there than to other ports in Canada and the US. On my journey to Prince Rupert we probably passed 40 container trains with an average of 200 to 300 containers on each. That, on a single track line, was amazing. Most of the passing loops are half a mile long. Some trains took 5 or 6 minutes to pass our train.