Our chauffeur took us to Halifax station and we learned that he was originally from Bosnia and spent time in Ljubljana. He liked life under Tito. We picked up our train tickets for the four trips to Jasper and waited in the Sleeper Plus passenger lounge till 11:30 boarding time.
We had a lovely 2 bunk cabin with a small but efficient ensuite. Our steward Joanne explained the layout of the train and chatted about our tour for some time. Meals were included, so we went straight to lunch and were served at tables just like the Ghan.
Ever since our school days we had known about the Canadian Pacific trains with their fancy dome cars and now we were able to climb up into the dome, sit at the front of the dome and look ahead over the 20 carriages in front to enjoy the scenery.
A train buff sitting near us assured us that this carriage was made in the 1950s and has been renovated many times. It is the actual dome we saw in the advertisements when we were young. There is possibly no other train in the world like it. Malcolm took a half-selfie to show the dome cabin.
We were level with the treetops in the dome and saw spruce, fir, pine, birch and maple trees (we think). The only animals we could see were cattle. We crossed many creeks, swamps, lakes and rivers and water of some form was never far away, as we were following the coast of Nova Scotia until we diverted to the St Lawrence River. This station was quite pretty.
Our stop in Moncton was twenty minutes so we had time to walk from the back to the front.
We had another three course meal for dinner and wound our watches back an hour, so we were in bed by 8:30pm and slept very comfortably.
Today was a very scenic trip in the best train we have been on yet.
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