Good times

Sometimes, there’s something distinctly wrong with going to
sleep when it’s dark and waking up before the sun graces our world with
light. At 4am I was rustled from my
restless sleep – there’s was lots to do today starting with making sure we
didn’t miss our 5:30am bus to Seattle. An early morning wake up time like that was
just plain wrong – though I got it better than my sister. She didn’t sleep until 2am – late as usual
doing last minute packing.

Quickly getting ready and wrestling our heavy packs on our
back, we move them to the car for the ride to the train station downtown. It was dark, cool, and very peaceful – a
state only seen in Vancouver in the latest of nights or earliest of mornings; quite relaxing really. On arrival, we were greeted by the towering
stone building of the Via Rail building backlit by the rising sun. No offence to the general US public, but
we were quickly made aware that we were heading down south. One of the tourists, which we assumed were
American, rudely shot down a street resident as they were approached. “I don’t have any money for you!” We think he
only wanted to provide a small service in hopes of some financial gratitude. Anyway, clambering into the bus, we jetted
off on a three our tour of Greater Vancouver down to Seattle.

Arriving downtown at the train station half an hour late, we
grabbed our bags and rushed inside only to be faced with a few hundred people
all attempting to check in. Luckily for
us, with our outrageously expensive sleeper-class tickets, we found ourselves
in a line with 20 other people so the wait was relatively short.

Walking out the door onto the platform, we were faced with a
handful of two story stainless coach cars. I was expecting some older style, single level cars – what can I
say? It was my first time on a train. Making our way to the front of the train, we
found our car, jumped on and found our home for the next 24 hours. 

Well, it was smaller than I expected. The room was no wider than four feet across
with two seats facing each other surrounding a private window looking out onto
the platform. It was a little
claustrophobic really, with the bunk bed propped up against the ceiling, but
oddly enough, the room felt larger as soon as the curtain was pulled shut. Stowing our bags were a little interesting …
room for one against the wall near one seat and room for another under the tiny
table between the two seats. The closet
consisted of a slot in the wall about six inches wide.

The train left 15 minutes late … after a quick nap, we went
to do a little exploring. The hallways
were just a little more than shoulder width … maybe an extra six inches on
either side. Not to be bad or anything,
but we started to wonder how some heavier set people might make it through the
sleeper cars. Moving between the cars
was interested as well. With a ‘push’
button at waist level and foot level, a hard jab (or kick) to the button engages
hydraulics sliding the doors aside unveiling shifting platforms between cars. Stepping through the archway you time your
jump hoping that the door behind, and in front, don’t close on you knocking you
to the side. On the rougher sections of
track as well, you’ll get thrown from side-to-side like a pinball.

Sleeping was interesting. With the bunk lowered, you climb up a few short steps and slide into
bed. For safety sake, they provide a
belt which secures to the ceiling so that you don’t roll off while moving in
bed or during the more rocky sections of train track. The bottom bunk? It forms by sliding the two seats
together. It was quite cozy if you ask
me, and honestly, I think we were lucky to have the opportunity to sleep over
night.

Destination?  San Francisco at 8am!  (Well, Emeryville then a short bus ride into the city)

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 14th, 2005 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.