"Ultimate Canadian Rail Adventure" - Time Out #57

Growing up in Our Town long ago, I had lots of little boy dreams, and with world view much smaller then, my wonderful father, Col. Breedlove, helped me realize many of these far out wishes.

Like most little guys growing up in the 1950's, I loved railroad trains of all types. That list consisted of my trusty Lionel model with its many attachments. I frequently retrieved it from its special storage box, assembled the necessary track, and had it operating in our front room in practically no time. I literally thought in my mind's eye back then, I was operating a big locomotive inside our modest West 4th Avenue home. Heck, I think I might have even put a train engineer's hat on as I pretended to guide my massive iron horse across our old hardwood home floor.

To my absolute delight, my father made one of those great father decisions when he decided early one summer morning, he and I would take the family car 25 miles over to the train station in Perry, and board a Santa Fe special for baseball, a round trip passenger train to Kansas City. What an incredible day trip for a aspiring little league baseball player (i.e., me), to go see the lowly, hometown Kansas City Athletics host the mighty New York Yankees in old Municipal Stadium. Not only did I witness Oklahoma's own #7 Mickey Mantle that day, but saw his great fellow pinstripe teammates, Yogi Berra, Bill "Moose: Skowron, Phil Rizzuto, Billy Martin and crusty manager, Casey Stengel, among others.

I still have a signed baseball my father bought that day for me at the ballpark, with all the Yankee team signatures on it. What a prized possession for this Westwood Elementary alum!

So, the baseball game experience itself was really thrilling.

But, so was that wonderful passenger train ride through northern Oklahoma and all across Kansas, truly the Sunflower State. My Lionel toy back home had actually come to life with me on-board.

Through the years since that summer day long ago, I have always jumped at the opportunity to ride the rails. I really think it is one of the most relaxing ways to see Nature's spenders, along with a sketch of people's communities along with way. When living in Memphis years ago, we took the famed Southern Crescent round trip to New Orleans, and in the not too ancient past, my bride, Debbie, and I rode the then relatively new, high-speed Acela Express Amtrak train from New York City's Penn Station to Boston, hitting a top speed in rural Connecticut/Massachusetts of about 150 mph, while we were thoroughly enjoying the beautiful countryside. In 1981, Ms. Debbie and I rode the Amtrak Southwest Chief from Newton, KS, to San Diego when we were completing our permanent relocation from her original home in San Diego to our permanent home in Stillwater, America.

All aforementioned railroad jaunts were inspiring, but the champion (thus far?) was our trans-Canada adventure a few years ago aboard The Canadian. We chose to go west to east over the almost 2,800 miles through 5 huge provinces, Vancouver, British Columbia, to Toronto, Ontario.

What a scenery-shocking experience, especially from their elevated, all-glass top dome car for 4 days and 3 nights. We had a comfortable sleeping accommodation room , along with a sink and toilet. The shower facility was very nearby our on-board room. The dining car was reserved for only those who had sleeping accommodations, as were the observation car and end-of-the-train, old classic lounge car.

We flew to Vancouver from Oklahoma City, and reacquainted ourselves again with one of our favorite cities on Planet Earth. Canada itself is a incredible country (we've been in every province except Labrador/Newfoundland), and Vancouver is as pretty as it gets. In fact, most of British Columbia is awesome, with its diverse geography, all the way from the lovely Pacific Ocean coast on the west to the magnificent Canadian Rocky Mountains on the east.

We boarded The Canadian in the early evening at Vancouver's beautiful train station, then began our memorable journey east. The passenger rail system in Canada is operated by VIA Rail Canada, a quasi

national government agency there, similar to the way Amtrak is administered in our country.

We made such memories across British Columbia through the night, stopping at historic Kamloops, then on to Jasper, Alberta, and a hour or so stop the next day there to briefly walk around their famous western town. Next, it was on to the Wild Rose's (Alberta's nickname) capital city, Edmonton, for another brief stop, before entering the 2nd prairie province, Saskatchewan, and it's provincial capital of Saskatoon. Onward to the 3rd prairie province, Manitoba, and a couple of hours stop in its capital, Winnipeg. The last rail portion was an extended one though huge province Ontario with its spectacular timber, lakes, streams and other interior geographical wildness. The magical train adventure part of our trip concluded in modern Toronto, where we explored the city for a few days, then later drove nearby to a favorite frequent destination of ours, Niagara Falls, before flying back home.

Over the time since we made this trip across magnificent Canada. I have thought many times of sitting high atop the landscape in that train observation car, and just reflecting on how small we are as humans in this vast earthly world we live. Fellow passengers from all over the globe shared the experiences, too, and we had frequent chats with them.. I always recall just how absolutely beautiful Nature is, whether it be the gently blowing ripe wheat of Canada, their yellow soybean and canola plants in full bloom, or their varied wildlife constantly seen, as the train traveled swiftly through their vast wonderland.

Passenger train travel.....try not to ever miss it.........certainly one of life's joys to experience..........