Well, early this year I purchased a new digital camera (my first) in anticipation of posting photos from a June trip to New England, Quebec City, Niagara Falls, and a subsequent train ride on "The Canadian" from Toronto across the continent to Vancouver.

I bought the camera well in advance, tried it out quite a bit, and it seemed to work fine. Halfway through my trip however, it simply quit working (still not sure why)... and here's the kicker - I bought leading edge technology (or as they say) "bleeding edge" (I should have known better). The possiblity exists that the rechargable battery had simply failed and since I was stupid/cheap enough to have not bought another one, I was forced to try and buy on one while one my vacation... and here's the bleeding edge part: it's too new! Nobody carried it (sigh). I still don't have one.

In any event, I had not brought along a backup camera (once again - stupid, stupid) and so was forced to rely upon the disposable type. Actually, they work suprisingly well, but not so well from a moving train.

... and to top it all off, I now find out that the digital camera apparently honked up many of the photos that were taken before it failed completely.

So... I'm in the process of cobbling together the photos I can (some digital, some from the disposable cameras) and so far have managed to place on Webshots.com an album of Niagara Falls pictures, and one of the train journey across Canada. An album of photos from Quebec City will follow shortly (some of those pictures actually look pretty good).

So, for what it's worth (for those who are interested), you can feel free to take a peek at my extremely humble collection of Canadian travel photos. I apolgize for the fact that they are not up to the quality of my previous South Pacific albums, but they are the best I can do considering the technical problems I encountered and the rather cloudy weather over the Canadian Rockies. I still think they may be of value, especially to those contemplating such a train ride.

Here's teh URL:

http://community.webshots.com/user/lordbalfor

Thanks for letting me rant.

Ken

Great pictures Ken. I like the explainations under the photos.... gives the story. I can't wait to see the Quebec City photos! Thanks!

Will be taking the train across Canada trip next week ... what shall we "not miss"? Could you give me a quick summary of your experienc?

Thanks
Peg

I hope you got your camera problem sorted out. (We love our digital camera so much, the SLRs are gathering dust.) You seem to have managed alright without it though. Just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading the reviews on your site.

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your photos from your trip across Canada, since we are doing the same trip next month. They helped me visualize what the interior of the train will look like. I have one final question...what was the dress like among most of the passengers? (How casual can we go for dinner, etc.?) Thanks for any information you might have.

Very nice pictures.

I'm sorry about the weather in the rockies, but it could be worse. When the government bureaucrat types were in charge, they cut the rail service and re-arranged the schedule for some sort of convenience - leaving the rockies as an overnight trip. Glad to see that's been fixed.

So, do you have to arm-wrestle for the dome car seats, or wait for someone to have to go to the washroom, or what? Enough to go around?

I sympathize with you...

...and I've vowed my next digital camera will have AA batteries, not anything that gives less power and costs $65.00.

JennyL- Glad my photos helped you visualize the train interiors (that was a big part of my reason for posting them). I always like to be able to do that, so I thought others would as well.

Dress on the train was pretty casual. Mostly I wore nice shorts and a tee-shirt. For dinner I put on a regular short-sleeve shirt (but I still wore my dress shorts). To be honest about it, though the scenery was terrific and the food great, the thing we liked most was the friendly interaction among the passengers. We had a great group of lively Brits aboard until Jasper. Once they got off, the ride was really too quiet.

Soooo - my advice is to mingle and interact. That really makes the ride a lot more fun (and it's pretty easy to do as you're all kind of "forced" to get to know each other due to the confined quarters).

Oh... also really liked sleeping on the train. We had a 2-bunk bedroom and the beds were very, very comfy. Being rocked to sleep by the motion of the train was great!

And finally, I guess the best tip I might have was not to underestimate the first part of the trip (across the Canadian Shield). It was far more beautiful than I imagined. Leaving from Toronto, the scenery starts getting rather nice around noon or so the first day.

MD - Getting dome seats was not too bad. There were a few times when the seats were taken, but mostly people tended to rotate in and out (since it's such a long ride). Of course this might not have been the case through the Rockies if so many of the passengers had not gotten off in Jasper. As it was, there were maybe 8 people or so in the dome car then.

PS: We were in the last section of the train and so spent a lot of time in the domed Park Car at the rear.

Ken

Thanks, Ken. Glad we don't have to pack dressy clothes to eat in the dining car. We are really looking forward to the trip and hoping to meet lots of interesting folks along the way.