The Rocky Mountaineer – its name in capitals on midnight blue wagons with a golden top – is quite possibly the most handsome sight to roll into Western Canada’s historical train stations, and your ticket to one of the world’s top iconic railway routes. But beyond this, an abundance of modern conveniences arguably make the train the most quietly luxurious way to explore wild Canada.
To say that we were excited walking onto the platform of Jasper’s train station on a sunny September morning, with the Rocky Mountaineer’s livery glistening in the rising sun, would be an understatement. There it was, its bulky yet elegantly curved wagons set firmly on rust-coloured rails, looking almost like an impenetrable fortress. But as its doors opened and red carpets were rolled out, the train’s crew welcomed guests aboard with a cheerful candour that a fellow guest who’s “been coming for years” told us has become a trademark since the company’s inception.
It’s not hard to imagine that the train, in one form or another, has been snaking through Alberta’s and British Columbia’s alpine landscapes for at least a hundred years or so, but while the tracks it travels on first connected the provinces in the early 20th century, the Rocky Mountaineer only went on its inaugural journey in 1990. And yet, embarking on one of its adventures, to us, felt somehow as though we were riding the rails of history and travelling back to a time when these very tracks opened up opportunities of trans-provincial trade, and generated wealth from Vancouver to Lake Louise.
Our two-day ‘Journey through the Clouds’ took us from Jasper to Vancouver via Kamloops, where we spent the night, while the alternative three-day ‘Rainforest Gold Rush’ trip travels via Quesnel and Whistler, instead. Meanwhile, the ‘First Passage to the West’ takes passengers all the way from Lake Louise or Banff to Vancouver, and the ‘Passage to the Peaks’ connects Lake Louise or Banff with Jasper via Kamloops – mind you, all trips are available both ways, so in whichever direction you’re travelling across the country, the Rocky Mountaineer lends itself as an alternative to flying that’s decidedly more scenic.
Of the two travel tiers available, we chose the more luxurious GoldFeaf Service over the SilverLeaf Service, benefitting from a roster of added-value perks. The most obvious difference between the two is perhaps that GoldLeaf Service guests are seated upstairs in bi-level coaches topped with a glass dome ceiling offering unparalleled views of Canada’s wilderness, while a designated dining space awaits them downstairs. Other benefits include a private outdoor viewing platform, where we spent many a blissful moment watching as the world went by, as well as higher-end partner hotels on both ends of a trip and during layovers (just don’t expect top-notch luxury in Kamloops or Quesnel).
Our beige GoldLeaf seat was reclinable, and offered plenty of leg space as well as a foot rest and a padded head rest for maximum comfort. We never once felt cold during our journey but if we had, seats also have built-in heating with intuitive controls, and charging ports are available, should your phone battery go belly-up after the ten-thousandth photo taken. There’s no onboard WiFi and that’s for good reason, too: it’s hard to get signal even on a data plan during large parts of the journey through this rural territory, and, in any case, as one of the team remarked, “people travel with us to look out the window instead”.
Music by mostly Canadian artists from Celine Dion to Gordon Lightfoot played throughout our journey, a suitably evocative soundtrack for the panorama on view through the huge windows flooding the carriage with light. While some travellers might not be keen to share a space with others, rest assured GoldLeaf coaches feel spacious and relaxed, and the Rocky Mountaineer itself runs extraordinarily smoothly along the tracks. Disabled guests, too, have been thought of, with wheelchair lifts helping them travel between floors, and a special wheelchair available to move down the aisle (although disabled seats are conveniently reserved by the lift).
| Perfect for | Fly into | Right on time |
| The Adventurer | YVR if your journey starts in Vancouver, or YYC/YEG if it starts in Jasper | GMT -7 |
| While you’re Out There |
| Kamloops, which means ‘where the rivers meet’ in the indigenous Shuswap language, is where the South Thompson River and the North Thompson River converge. After rolling into town at the end of our first day aboard the Rocky Mountaineer, we walked down to the shore, watching salmon leap from the water as they swam upstream – an experience we can’t recommend enough. Joining us on a pier were a few friendly locals who pointed us in the direction of some unexpectedly sophisticated street art… poke your head around the corners along Seymour Street and 3rd Avenue, and you’re guaranteed to spot some. |
Despite the carriages’ many mod-cons, we spent large chunks of our time on the outdoor viewing deck. The ‘Journey through the Clouds’ takes travellers past Moose Lake, the Fraser River, the majestic Pyramid Falls and the Canadian Rockies’ highest peak, Mount Robson. While the main sights are announced in advance and the train slows down to allow for better viewing, countless other spots of outstanding natural beauty await along the journey: on the Alberta part of the trip, untouched conifer forests took turns with mountainous terrain, lakes and beaver dams, while British Columbia’s incredible diversity took us from the Okanagan Desert’s Wild-West-looking canyons and epic, river-crossing steel bridges to flat farmlands where locals living in small towns along the tracks would wave from their backyards. At times, we felt almost as though we could high-five them.
Meanwhile, views from the dining area were equally absorbing, and the Rocky Mountaineer’s menus, kept in the exact shade of sage green as the Fraser River, offer a small but delicious selection of meals spanning breakfast and lunch. In the mornings, we tucked into chia seeds and vegan croissants with plenty of coffee and fresh juices, while lunchtimes had us going for a chickpea and spiced cauliflower nourish bowl with olives and wild mushrooms one day, and sweet corn and kale gnocchi with cannellini beans, sun-dried tomatoes and romesco sauce another. On the whole, we were positively surprised by how well our diet was catered to, with appetisers including vegan-friendly cheese and sausages, and a plant-based chocolate dessert that made our fellow diners green with envy.
The Rocky Mountaineer pairs guests into groups of four for each seating, and as solo travellers paired with predominantly couples (most of whom a fair bit older than ourselves), some of our meals felt a little awkward at first. That’s no one’s fault, of course, and in any case, liberally flowing wines, cocktails and our new favourite cider by Okanagan brand Wards certainly helped to break the ice. For what it’s worth, although we didn’t at first glance have much in common with our fellow passengers, we ended up having many wonderful encounters and adored our extensive conversations with a female duo of divorcés from Manhattan – fabulous, darling! – who, we’re fairly certain, were on a mission to spend their ex-husbands’ money.
Throughout our two-day journey, there was never a moment when we felt bored by the views on offer, and the stories behind them. The wonderful crew on our trip would occasionally narrate the surrounding scenery with historical and topographical facts that brought the storied railway route alive, adding an immeasurable amount of meaning to the experience of ‘just’ looking out the window. We rejoiced each time we spotted osprey nests and eagles, though Canada’s more elusive wildlife is harder, but not impossible, to see: bears, elk, bighorn sheep and mountain goats make rare appearances.
In the late hours of the afternoon of our final day on board, we travelled through British Columbia’s vast hinterland, bathed in golden light, where streams were dotted with ducks and the smell of timber in the air announced the imminent arrival of factories along the route. Nature increasingly gave way to industry and infrastructure, and a few more river crossings via spectacular steel bridges offered some real highlights just as Vancouver came into view. So did an impromptu rendition of Nat King Cole’s ‘L-O-V-E’, performed by the aptly named Joy, one of the crew members on our trip. “V is very, very… extraordinary”, she sang, and we found ourselves thinking that the same could be said of the journey we’ve been on – perhaps our favourite one from an entire year of travels around the globe. Choo Choo to that!
Photography courtesy of Armstrong Collective
