A bit of history...
There were (and are) two competing trans-continental rail routes across Canada, Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.
The Canadian Pacific Railway opened the first trans-continental line across Canada in 1885, running from Montreal/Toronto to Vancouver via Winnipeg, Calgary, Banff & Kamloops. Instead of taking the easiest route through the Rockies via the Yellowhead pass, political tension with the United States led them to take a more difficult (and scenic) southerly route through the Kicking Horse pass.
In 1955 Canadian Pacific introduced a fleet of futuristic stainless-steel cars with observation domes onto its premier train, the Canadian, and it is these classic cars which were rebuilt in the 1990s to operate today's VIA Rail Canadian.
The second and later line was built around 1917 by the Canadian Northern Railway, which was nationalised in 1921 as part of Canadian National Railways or 'CN' (as in CN Tower), and re-privatised in 1995. The CN route runs from Montreal/Toronto to Vancouver to the north of the CPR route, via Winnipeg, Edmonton, Jasper and the easier Yellowhead pass to Kamloops & Vancouver. It is this later CN route which is used by today's VIA Rail Canadian.
VIA Rail was formed in 1978 as a government corporation to take over the passenger trains from Canadian Pacific & Canadian National, which now only run freight trains. Initially, VIA Rail continued to run both the CP's Canadian and the CN's Super-Continental daily on each of these two trans-continental routes, with the rolling stock getting progressively older and less reliable. However, in 1990, these two daily trains were reduced to just one train running several times a week, the present-day Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver via the Canadian National route through Winnipeg, Edmonton and Jasper.
VIA Rail lacked the funds to buy new cars, so they completely rebuilt and upgraded the original stainless steel coaches built by Budd in 1955 for the Canadian Pacific's Canadian, making this train a real classic in its own right, albeit now running on the 'wrong' company's route.
There are now no regular passenger services at all on the original 1885 Canadian Pacific route from Toronto to Vancouver through Calgary or Banff, other than the Rocky Mountaineer which runs between Banff & Vancouver, 3 times a week from April to October.
Tomorrow we start our journey across 5 provinces and 3 times zones. We are crossing the second largest country in the world by rail. Here we go 🚂🚂🚂🚂🚂
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