As one of the porters said to us as we chatted to her while she made the beds and shut them away, it's like a barbie camper van. How true! So neat, with a hook or spot for just about everything.
The food was terrific, like airline food but much much better. There's something so appealing (to me at least!) about sitting down, having a very short menu placed in front of you, and then 3 courses being brought out in fairly quick succession. So little decision making or work required on the part of the traveller! There were 3 sittings for lunch and dinner, and it was a little strange having dinner at the early sitting at 5.30 pm when we'd only just turned our clocks forward an hour!! (Canada has 6 of the world's 24 time zones.)
We went through at least 3 time zones, which gives you an idea of how huge the country is. So huge that you can go to sleep at night and wake up to much the same landscape! It really suited a long train trip like this one - and if the landscape had changed, that was ok because you had all day to see it anyway. We left the Rockies in the evening, and woke to the prairies of Saskatchewan. Other people may say it's boring, but personally I was glad to see some horizontal sight lines. Must be the mallee girl in me, but I love to see the horizon stretch out around me, and the sky looming so large.
Like this:
and this: 
