Featured image: Take a train journey with the Rocky Mountaineer | Photo provided by Rocky Mountaineer

Canada’s iconic luxury train feeds you landscapes and wildlife between meals

by Jennifer Bain

Barrelling down the railway track, passing Canada’s only true desert on the way to the Rocky Mountains, I couldn’t believe my luck. It wasn’t just the awe I felt at seeing migrating sockeye salmon at the shallow edge of a river. It was where I was standing.

I had climbed down the spiral staircase in my glass dome car to hang out on an open-air vestibule.

Hello, sun in my face. Greetings, wind in my hair. Howdy, scent of sagebrush bursting into yellow blooms. It was my second time on the Rocky Mountaineer, but the first time I realized you don’t get this kind of freedom on most trains.

“We don’t have WiFi onboard,” onboard host Tyler D’Souza had promised. “You shall simply have to contend with the beautiful river canyons and mountain ranges to keep you entertained.”

Unlike bears and moose, canyons and mountain ranges can indeed be guaranteed.

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Beginning my train journey with the Rocky Mountaineer

Let’s back up for a minute to the morning I was whisked by motorcoach to the train’s Vancouver station. Red carpets were rolled out at each railcar. Bagpipers in blue tartan performed on the platform. The Canadian-owned company’s CEO was among those gathered to wave as we departed for Jasper.

What is it about trains that makes adults and children alike wave at them?

I was alone that September morning, but travelling to a conference with a group of six strangers who would become friends. We were on a railcar with 67 people that was part of a train with 844 guests.

Oh, what a seat I had (two actually, since there were extras).

From the control panel, I could toy with a seat warmer and buttons for lumbar support, a footrest and a recline option. “Lovely thing about that recline — it doesn’t just tip backwards but rather scoots the whole chair down into itself so use it to your heart’s content,” D’Souza explained. “You won’t wind up in the lap of the guest behind you.”

Personal space is my kind of luxury.

These train journeys only run in daylight, and you’ll sleep in hotels.

Having twice slept on the Canadian — the four-night VIA Rail route between Toronto and Vancouver — may I gently suggest that it can be romantic to be lulled to sleep and frequently awakened by a symphony of train sounds but it’s a drag to miss half the scenery.

Speaking of VIA, the Government of Canada came up with the Rockies by daylight idea in 1988 and ran trains for two seasons before turning it over to the private sector.

The first time I rode the Rocky Mountaineer, it was the westbound First Passage to the West route between Banff and Vancouver with a night in Kamloops in October 2018. This time it was the eastbound Journey to the Clouds route from Vancouver to Jasper with a night in Kamloops in September just before the fall colours exploded.

To go east or to go west? I favour starting in the city, getting the urban sprawl and big box stores out of the way, and then building up to the mountain finale. Either way, prepare to meet your inner train nerd.

Onboard the Rocky Mountaineer

My train started with 26 pieces, including two locomotives, two generator cars, crew cars and guest cars.

“We’ll be down to 13 tomorrow,” train manager Jill McDowell confided. “Today we ride as one into Kamloops and then we split overnight in the rail yard, and then we’ll have part of the train that obviously heads into Banff and Lake Louise, and we go into Jasper. So today’s a good day to see the train itself because we’re nice and long, and you get kind of the behind and ahead views. You’ll get it tomorrow but we’ll be half the size.”

Standing on that open-air vestibule, I could indeed admire most of the extra-long train as it snaked around corners and crossed bridges.

What’s neat is how each railcar becomes a self-contained world. Mine had seats upstairs beside huge domed windows and a glass roof, plus a kitchen and 36-seat dining room downstairs near our private viewing platform. We had two hosts and a two-member culinary team to ourselves.

Trust me when I say it’s tough to concentrate on the scenery when there’s a pretty bowl of chia pudding in front of you topped with pistachios and pomegranate, or an Alberta striploin steak sided by smoked paprika crushed potatoes and broccolini.

I’m not sure how many sockeye salmon and Bald eagles I wound up seeing, but I know that I ate two breakfasts, two lunches and two desserts (a chocolate torte one day and a lemon lavender posset with a gold-dusted macaron the other).

Being wined and dined through the Rockies is a treat, especially because it’s all included. As D’Souza put it, when revealing that the thoughtfully curated alcohol menu would be served from 9:30 a.m. until 45 minutes before arrival each day: “Trust me — I’ve got plenty. We shall not run dry.”

He and fellow host Tony Ganton cheerfully doled out non-stop beverages and snacks, but above all, they were passionate storytellers.

From making Indigenous land acknowledgments and explaining why we should get our cameras ready for Hell’s Gate (a tourist attraction with an airtram at the narrowest part of the Fraser River), to pointing out Osprey nests and mile markers, they kept us educated and entertained.

“I’ve got a radio call about bighorn sheep so let’s turn our attention to the left-hand side and try to spot some,” D’Souza announced during a rousing talk about the coal industry. “They camouflage quite well but they give themselves away with white tails.”

“Right there,” shouted a gleeful woman.

“You see some on the left, up the hill?” D’Souza asked. “Oh yes. Great eye. Great call. Alright — everyone get their peering eyes on.”

Truthfully, my “peering eyes” fixated on Canada’s only true desert around Ashcroft, B.C., and Painted Bluffs, a provincial park on Kamloops Lake with a hillside that looks like it’s draped in purple and green velvet thanks to geologically important batholithic rocks and soils.

I devoured the Mile Post, a history-packed onboard newspaper that listed sights by the mile markers alongside the tracks. And I secretly watched the crew give a master class in logistics.

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We left early each day and arrived within the promised window. We divided into two meal sittings, switching the order the second day and getting lemon cranberry pound cake with optional lemon drizzle on the morning we had to wait. Approaching Kamloops, we were given hotel keys and assignments for the buses that waited just steps from the train. We found our checked bags waiting in our rooms and left them there the next morning since they travel by road.

I’ll never forget the clean train smell and sparkling windows on day two.

I’ll also never forget my travelling companions. We were a motley crew of five women and one man from Canada, France, South Korea and the U.K. and we got rowdy at times at the back of the rail car but nobody seemed to mind. It was a congenial 65 and up crowd and, admittedly, a lot of American couples on a guided group trip, but train rides are made for socializing and solo travellers are welcome.

Introducing myself to two octogenarians who were on their own, I discovered they were Canadians from Williams Lake, B.C., which is interesting because the train’s core market is international. For years, Midori and Ed Kozuki watched these trains go by across the lake from their home and said, “We’ve got to take that train one day and see things from a little different perspective.”

They were having a ball.

Barrelling down the railway track at 50 kilometres an hour — that’s less than half the highway speed limit — I loved ogling this beautiful country without having to watch the road.

We got stir crazy at times and sombre when we passed the ruins of a tuberculosis sanitorium and slowed at a stone memorial to pay respects to 21 people who died in a head-on train crash in 1950.

Crossing into Alberta and then Jasper National Park, we ordered arrival beverages and enjoyed a final discussion about logistics and bittersweet endings.

“It is sweet in that we have done exactly what we set out to do — made our way right up to the Rockies, right up to one of Canada’s most beautiful national parks. And off on an adventure you shall be momentarily,” said D’Souza. “But the bitter part is that tomorrow morning as you wake up for that adventure, well you don’t get to see our four faces. Whatever shall you do? You will soldier on somehow.”

That blow was somehow softened when we pulled into Jasper and saw all the people eagerly waiting to wave us in.

Planning your Rocky Mountaineer train journey

The Rocky Mountaineer’s three Canadian routes run from April to October. GoldLeaf service offers a two-level dome car where you sit upstairs and dine downstairs. You dine at your seat with the single-level SilverLeaf service. The train is wheelchair accessible and GoldLeaf cars have a small wheelchair lift, but you must transfer to its transport wheelchair and then to your seat. Prices vary, but the two-day Journey to the Clouds in GoldLeaf will cost about $3,100 plus tax in 2026. The Moab to Denver route has been rebranded as Canyon Spirit. The trains are run by the Armstrong Collective.

Note to readers: Many of JourneyWoman’s partners offer train, land tour and air packages for the Canadian Rockies, including Collette, Globus, Trafalgar, Cosmos and G Adventures.  Find deals and discounts on Canadian Rockies trips on our partner site TourRadar here. 

You’ll likely fly into Vancouver and out of Calgary or Edmonton (or vice versa). Train journeys are packaged with various hotels, but I stayed at Vancouver’s Fairmont Waterfront, the Doubletree by Hilton in Kamloops (included) and the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. Click here to check for flights.

Disclosure: Jennifer Bain travelled as a guest of Destination Canada, Travel Alberta and Rocky Mountaineer, who did not review or approve this story before publication.

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