Well, I knew that trains in north america don’t have the standard we’re used to in Europe, but my overnight train ride from Québec City to Halifax was an adventure in itself. Let’s start with the seating: they packed all economy passengers into two cars, leaving no seat empty, even though there were a total of four cars available for economy passengers. The reason why: “so we don’t have to walk through 4 different cars to wake everyone up at the stop they have to get off”. It’s not like people can think for themselves and have alarm clocks built into the smartphone they have with them, is it? But yeah, at least we were able to make friends. Since we had a medical issue with one of the passengers which forced the train to make an unscheduled stop, we ran about 50 minutes late when I woke up early in the morning. Not complaining about that, still funny how the employees said “we’re only 50 minutes late”. And still about 50 minutes late we finally got into Moncton, New Brunswick. The announcer said, we could go for a quick walk and get some fresh air. So we did, and after about 10 minutes we were told the train was leaving, so “everybody aboard”! 2 hours 20 minutes later, we had moved about 5 meters. But sure, we had to run to get aboard the train, and no information about what caused the delay. I later heard that there was a problem reconnecting the engine to the rest of the train after removing two extra cars the train carried.
Good thing me and my co-travelers were in good and sarcastic spirits:
“I think the train never moved, that was just an illusion and we’re actually all still at the station we got on”
“Maybe we’re still waiting for someone to get on the train and there’s a glitch in the Matrix so they can’t get through the door?”
“Maybe they’re still building the tracks?”
“This journey was advertised as a “timeless classic””
No matter how far out these theories sound to you right now, they all sounded very legit in the moment we discussed them. Seriously.
After all, it was still fun and a good time and I can only encourage everyone to take the trip by train, instead of flying.
Plus, we got treated to this view, just short of Halifax: