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Railway Journeys are Best

Whenever travelling by train I always remember my first proper train journey — all across Canada from Halifax to Vancouver in 1940 — a journey that took seven days and nights, so that we ate three meals each day in the restaurant car and spent each night in the bunk beds that folded open above our daytime seats. Living on a train for so long when I was age seven has helped me to relax and feel comfortable on train journeys ever since.

Crossing the prairies was very tedious as it took several days and the scenery was flat and featureless. I managed to enliven the proceedings when we stopped one night in Calgary, a stop that was meant to last about twenty minutes. While I was asleep I started sleepwalking and I got off the train without waking up. Mother had to pull the cord to stop the train from starting until I could be found walking along the platform. Although this was not the first example of my sleepwalking I believe it may have been my last!

Mother told us to look out for the appearance of the Rocky Mountains, as we went steadily west, and this part of the journey was most spectacular. As we approached the watershed dividing streams and rivers that go into the Atlantic or the Pacific Oceans we began to go through canyons with tumbling rapids and through narrow tunnels. We needed a second engine to pull us up the gradient, and approaching a spiral tunnel we could see both ends of the train at once.

I was travelling then with my Mother and my brother Michael. Some of the adult travellers made quite a fuss of us, since we were seen as ‘refugees’ and we spoke with a funny accent. On several occasions some of the men took a handful of small change out of their pockets and told me I could have it if I could add it up correctly. Since understanding the decimal system was so easy I had no difficulty doing this, and when we got to Vancouver I had nearly ten dollars, and bought fine Indian headdresses for my brother and me.

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