The ‘Orient Express’ is no match for the service, elegant dining and comfort of VIA Rail’s ‘Continental’ from Toronto to Vancouver. Not the Eurostar with its flashy style and high speed nor the Trans Mongolian Express for sheer distance nor the efficiency of Japan Rail can compare with VIA’s Continental. As for excitement, ‘The Polar Express’ has to go a long way to beat the Continental.
Leaving Edmonton in the early hours of day, travelling to Vancouver to spend Christmas and New Year with my daughter, Kate, the carriage attendant delivers a note in unfamiliar handwriting. It reads: Mr. Cockerill: There is a surprise for you on the train. Look for the girl with dark hair.
‘Where is this girl with the dark hair?’ I ask. The attendant cannot tell; he doesn’t know. As it is the breakfast hour, I enter the dining car and decline a seat with three other diners because I spy, at the far end of the carriage, the seated rear view of a young woman with dark hair. She is alone and might have written the message, so I pass between the diners clutching the note in my fist to question her. I cough a slight cough to attract her attention.
She turns, her face wreathed in a delicious smile. No! It is more than that. She has the fabulous grin of the Cheshire Cat. Eyes glistening with delight, she flings her arms about me and says, ‘Hello, Dad.’
She is Kate, who flew to Edmonton the night before and, with VIA Rail’s collusion and connivance, boarded the train undetected. She had her note delivered by the stone-faced attendant who was in her confidence. Her surprise is complete – and so is my day.
