All Aboard!

Just over a week after we left Toronto, we finally boarded the Rocky Mountaineer train.  Though we'd been travelling under the auspices of the Rocky Mountaineer from the time we left Toronto, the first part of our journey was with ViaRail, and we left them in Jasper, we moved into the care of the Brewster Coach Company.

All of our arrangements had been made by Rocky Mountaineer, and although we met a couple of members of their staff on our last night in Jasper, and that was simply to tell us that we didn't need the tags they were there to provide to other RM passengers travelling in different directions with different itineraries.  

And so it was that it was only on the morning of September 8th that we received the necessary baggage tags, (and the RM pin!) and boarded a coach that took us to the railway station ... the RM own little terminal that boarded us on their train which would travel on the CPR line.  Rocky Mountaineer is the only passenger train that travels on this CP line.

We were welcomed aboard by Mandy, Jennifer, and Curtis, who would travel with us for the next 48 hours, pointing out interesting spots, providing us with the history and background for the places we were passing, and making sure that we had everything we needed.

For those who do not know, Rocky Mountaineer differs from Via in the fact that it does not move at night.  Travel is planned so that your evening meal and your overnight accommodation are arranged at hotels.  No chance of missing scenery because you are asleep -- except for afternoon snoozes or other catnaps!

We'd been warned that breakfast would be late and to have something at the hotel.  But actually, the prelude to breakfast - fresh fruit - was served shortly after 9 am, so our breakfast was not delayed for very long.

You can see we made it onto the train ... you can also see that thee's a reason I don't do selfies!

Shortly after we embarked we noticed that the clouds were different.  It's a result of refraction -- but some of the clouds we could see had rainbow hues to them.

We were all put animal alert as soon as we left the station.  Before anyone said anything I saw ... probably a mule deer (we'd seen one the day before and had it identified by Al, so knew it wasn't an elk) - this might well have been the same one.  But of course, the train was moving and my camera was tucked away ... and the creature was leaving the noise of our departure behind rather promptly!

Our first stop was in Lake Louise where passengers from a different travel combination joined us on the way to Kamloops.