VIA announced its original plan within the last two weeks in emails to already-booked Sleeper Plus travelers. The plan would have given exclusive use of the Park car to Prestige class patrons for the champagne departure toast and during all daytime hours throughout the May 1 to mid-October season.
Sleeper Plus passengers book the Canadian’s traditional bedrooms, roomettes, and upper and lower berths. VIA briefly said it would prevent these passengers from visiting the cruise liner’s end-of-train lounge-observation-dome car except during a 7 to 10:30 p.m. period on three of the Toronto-Vancouver train’s four-night journey.
VIA describes Prestige class as “epicurean,” “refined comfort,” and “train-travel at its best.”
May through October is when the train operates with a consist that also includes at least two other “Skylineæ dome-lounges for the entire journey and a full-length “Panorama” dome between Vancouver and Edmonton, Alberta.
Now, those proposed restrictions won’t take effect, at least for the upcoming 2016 summer season.
Although the initial notice said “feedback from customers” was responsible for the policy that has since been reversed, Trains News Wire has learned that it was also the result of suggestions from on-board concierges who implemented the Prestige model throughout its initial 2016 season.
With six deluxe bedrooms in each of two rebuilt “Chateau” sleeping cars and one in the Park approaching sell-out, the number of potential Prestige Class passengers could exceed the 24-seat dome’s capacity even if no Sleeper Plus passengers came to visit the popular car. Most sleeping accommodations are expensive on the Canadian compared to what Amtrak charges for a transcontinental trip, but paying more than $6,300 in U.S. dollars to enjoy a spacious Prestige bedroom between Vancouver and Toronto only to be shut out of dome seating became an issue.
There were also service complications that unnecessarily introduced uncomfortable snob appeal, such as only serving complimentary hors d’oeuvres to Prestige passengers while passing over a Sleeper Plus passenger in the next seat. Strong and immediate protests of the proposed policy change prompted the company to reverse its decision.
Ryan Robutka, VIA’s senior manager for sales and marketing, tells Trains News Wire that the rear dining car — with a Skyline Dome activity car immediately in front of it — will now run directly in front of the Prestige class cars to eliminate the walk of those customers through three sleepers.
“It is also possible that many Sleeper Plus passengers will go no further than the that activity car dome, though they are welcome in the Park car. Activity coordinators will now walk the train to give commentary in all of the domes, including the Panorama, rather than having one assigned only to each Skyline,” Robutka says.
“The staff will be working as always to make sure both Prestige and Sleeper Plus passengers enjoy their trip,” he says. How everything works out in the summer of 2016 will likely determine how the Park car will be used in 2017.
Robert: US$6,300 = C$8,400? Wow!, if I got my math right. Could have! Of course, I have never heard on anyone getting ptomaine poisoning, enjoying an on-board fire, or running aground on the “Canadian”, like on the ten companies of Carnival Cruise Lines. Yar, they eat well (temporarily) and dress like elite Miami Beachers (black socks and sandals mandatory). The days of putting a tie on, for dinner in the dining car, are (sadly) long gone. I still take my cap off!
I still remember ‘heading home’ to New York, on the “Canadian”, in 1956, from Calgary. Most memorable was riding the dome, at night, across the prairies of AB, SK, and MB. Not worth $6,700 to recreate, methinks. As Kathleen said, < $127 was a fair price. I'll have to check my old ticket collection to see what I paid. Maybe my old CPR timetables will give me a hint. I now ride Amtrak for free, first-class, thanks to my AGR MasterCard!
You can go more cheaply than $6,300 guys. That is just the top rate. Just like on a cruise ship there are different rates for different types of accommodations. And that is what this train has become. A cruise ship. It no longer provides any real transportation just a long slow ride 2/3 of the way across Canada. With meals included. As much as I dislike Amtrak at least it does provide some transportation even on its long haul trains. It might be worth taking during the winter but I doubt I’d pay that much money to be in the company of the overfed, underdressed slobs that I see on trains today.
Kathleen, I miss those days too. Not just because of the more scenic CP route and the lower price, but because there was a degree of elegance and class about CP passenger service (and CP hotels) that Via has never come close to achieving.
I’m so glad I rode it when CP ran it…..and for $127. in a roomette from Montreal to Vancouver.
This train should be put out of its misery. The only part of its route worth seeing is between Jasper and Vancouver, and you can see that much better from the Rocky Mountaineer, which is a private enterprise, The rest of its route was boring, even in the old days when you could make the entire trip in 67 hours. Unless you have a fetish about 1950s vintage rolling stock, Amtrak’s California Zephyr provides a much better ride at a fraction of the cost, and it runs every day, which makes planning a trip much easier.
No matter what, it seems that the Canadian is gradually taking longer to travel between Toronto and Vancouver (of course the most expensive two cities to live in Canada perhaps the western hemisphere), Now I think it would be better to scrap the entire sleeping car fleet to allow five overnight stops into a reliable all daytime six-day trip with stopovers at Capreol ON, Sioux Lookout ON, Brandon MB, Edson AB and Kamloops BC. This will be MUCH cheaper to run the debt cost The Canadian at lower ticket costs and anyone could walk around anywhere on the hassle-free train. Almost every traveller on that train are now for unhurried sightseeing.
It’s been a dream of mine since I was a young child to ride that train, but for $6,300 USD, (which is about 9 million Canadian), I’d better have full access to the locomotive as well as any car I bloody want to. These kinds of divisive rules if they ever come in, along with the incredible cost, over the less scenic route has pretty much made up my mind that unfortunately I’ll be spending my travel money elsewhere. Too bad really. Craig Schroter, Lindsay, Ontario
Wow! I rode the ‘Canadian’ from Calgary to Montreal, first class, at 16 y-o-a, having gone to Calgary on the ‘Soo Dominion’, first class, albeit in a heavy-weight ice-cooled Pullman. This was ca. 1956. $6,300, for equivalent mileage? I’d still be walking from Alberta!
I rode the transcon trains on CNR and CPR a few times from the late-1950s to the early-1970s and haven’t been back since. There is no way that I would waste $6,300 to ride between Vancouver and Toronto. Only a couple years ago I read somewhere that it costs over C$ 7,000 to travel in sleepers from Halifax all the way to Vancouver and I could hardly believe it. What a foolish waste of travel dollars.
Hahahaha. Look at the picture and see what a refined populace is in the lounge. They paid their money and they get what they paid for. Perhaps.