I made the mistake of wanting to finish watching a movie I had started on Thursday. This meant that 6 AM arrived far too early. I corralled my gear and carried Leonardo down the stairs. I set off only to noticed that my bike computer wasn’t telling me how fast I was going. I took a quick look at the front wheel where I discovered that the magnet that activates the bike computer was absent. I had taken Leonardo in for a tune-up recently. Among other things, they had trued the front wheel. I am suspicious they had removed the magnet and forgot to put it back. I went home and got the magnet off Victor.
I was alarmed at Central Station when the baggage counter was closed. I waited in line at the ticket counter before spotting a passing Via Rail employee and flagging her down. She told me to pay for the bike at the counter and she would arrange the rest. It nearly went slightly wrong as she grabbed a luggage to Halifax before noticing and substituting one for Jonquière. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Another Via Rail employee, manhandled Leonardo down some stairs to the train while it had three bags still attached.
The question asked passengers arriving on the platform was not what car are you in, but which train are you on? There were two trains waiting, one behind the other. One for Senneterre and one for Jonquière. Each had an identical consist of a locomotive, a baggage car and a passenger car. I boarded the correct train, noting how Leonardo was parked in a rack in the correct baggage car. There were a handful of passengers and a solitary and very enthusiastic Via Rail train employee who was the train manager, as well as all the other functions required for passenger comfort. She instructed several of the passengers (myself included) about how to break the windows and open the doors in an emergency.
The train left the station, lead by the Senneterre train and trundled through Point Saint-Charles and Saint-Henri. I had selected a left-hand seat thinking that it would have less sun. However, I temporarily switched to the right-hand seat to take a picture of my street. I apologetically explained why to Ms. Belanger the train manager who laughed and said she understood and the left-hand side had better views of a certain river we would travel along. Also, there was plenty of space as there were less than ten passengers. A few more got on at Sauve and Anjou stations which are actually commuter rail stations.
We had to wait quite a while near Pointe-aux-Trembles to let a commuter train and then a long freight train go by. I noticed that it was carrying ingots of aluminum and lumber in open cars. I surmised that it had come from the Saguenay. It took us more than two hours to leave the Island of Montreal.
The train rolled along through the fields and towns of the Champlain sea before entering the Canadian Shield a little before Shawinigan. There, I realized that I have may been wrong about the origin of the freight train as Shawinigan also produces aluminum and lumber. Ms. Belanger chatted with various passengers, asking them about their destinations. She asked one man about St-Tite’s Western Festival and whether it was still ongoing. It was. St-Tite was surrounded by hectares of RVs as well as a few corrals for horses and bulls. St-Tite’s Western Festival apparently began in 1967 as a centennial project designed to promote the leather goods which was a major industry for the town. It has only grown. The station shelter was decorated to look a bit Western.
At Hervy, the trains were separated. Schedule padding was in evidence as “suddenly” we were nearly on schedule, having been more than 30 minutes late earlier. We headed deeper into the Canadian Shield and out of cellphone coverage. Fishing and hunting camps began to appear, some of which sported solar panels attached to high point so as to clear the trees. The schedule listed about twenty stops between Hervy and Chambord, most of which were flag stops. If memory serves, we only stopped at one of them near the start of the run through the woods. And that one was more of station than the one in Clearwater. After lunch, I tried to doze. After about fifteen minutes, I looked out the window and saw that we were travelling along river in a steep sided valley which was very scenic if a shade too small to be be grand. I assume that was river Ms. Belanger had talked about.
By my count, there was at most 12 passengers on the train at any one time. The car was a HEP 1 coach, i.e. a stainless-steel Budd-built coach like one the Canadian. Also like on the Canadian was the ample leg room. I asked Ms. Belanger if there was ever more than one coach and she said no. I couldn’t help but feel that it might be more efficient for Via Rail to run a single Budd RDC-2 (Rail Diesel Car with a baggage compartment) instead of having a locomotive capable of hauling twenty or more cars at a 100 miles an hour pull two mostly empty cars. For that matter, surely they don’t need a full baggage car? Why not a combine coach? (That is a coach with a luggage compartment.) I suspect that the answer comes down to there aren’t enough RDC-2s left in Via’s inventory to allow their use, and I once read that RDCs aren’t good in very snowy conditions. Their modern equivalents are designed for commuter rail services so Via would have to pay for a special design to be created something that would not be truly justified for just two lines, possibly three if the White River line were to use them.
Despite leaving Hervy nearly on time, we were soon about thirty minutes late. I heard Ms. Belanger say that the train was operating at reduced speed (about 25 mph) because the heat was affecting the rails. However, the padding in the schedule meant that we were nearly back on time when we reached Chambord and left the bush for the neat fields and towns of Lac St-Jean. The sun was setting as we reached Jonquière. I helped unload Leonardo. A fellow passenger carrying a bike helmet asked if I was going to do the Vélo-Route des Bleuets around Lac St-Jean. He was surprised but not displeased when I said that I was going to Halifax instead.
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