The Best Way To Get There

Don't I wish VIA business class was like this.
Dining car, Venice-Simplon Orient Express.
(Simon Pielow, Wikimedia Commons.)

Last month Lorna and I attended Can*Con, in Ottawa (The Nation's Capital!). (And a lovely con it was, too, in a lovely hotel I'm looking forward to returning to.) Ottawa is about a four and a half-hour drive from the east end of Toronto, maybe more like five hours these days, with the extra time being required just to get to the edge of the city. And while I still like a good road-trip, it's no longer my favourite way of getting around.

My favourite way is one of the older ways: I like to take the train.

I think I owe my love of business class on VIA Rail to a couple of friends who took the train to Montreal a while back and described their trip in such glowing terms that I started looking for excuses to take the train anywhere that was more than a couple of hours away. Ottawa fit that bill perfectly.

What I love about taking the train is that it's much more comfortable than a plane, requires much less attention from me than driving, and there are things to look at while I'm sipping my tipple of choice.* The food isn't going to make anyone call up the Michelin Guide, but for my money it's better than anything you can get on a plane outside of first class. And if I want to write I can write (though writing longhand is a bit of a challenge given the way the cars move about as they progress) and if I want to read I can read.

And if I want to just look out the window there's scenery to watch that isn't clouds. In our recent train journeys we have seen foxes and bats and coyotes and the vastness that is Lake Ontario and the marvellous way leaves in this part of Canada can be silver and grey and green and orange, seemingly all at the same time.

Now I'm thinking about multi-day train journeys, in private compartments. Which reminds me of the guy I used to work with at CBC Radio, who would write scripts during cross-Canada rail journeys because confining himself to a train was the only way he could force himself to pay attention to his writing.

*Which is a Hadrian: a Caesar made with gin instead of vodka.