Why would anybody from Edmonton head to Winnipeg in July for a holiday, given the Okanagan, the rest of the B.C. interior and the west coast is closer by?

And why would you take the train?

Because we've headed to B.C. for summer holidays dozens upon dozens of times.

We have friends and relatives in Winnipeg. It's a terribly underrated city with a lovely riverfront downtown promenade, culminating in The Forks - think Granville Island in Vancouver. A town alive with culture, new sports arenas and excellent restaurants. 

We had never taken taken the VIA Rail Canadian before - the train(s) that run from Toronto to Vancouver and back three times a week during the summer, with stops in Jasper, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg.

Taking the train was something different. It beats driving across the prairies (boring). The cost, in economy class, was comparable to flying and heck, it was only one night sitting up. Not too bad a price to pay, not when the next level up, a sleeper, was going to cost $600 plus.

 Travelling by train is a leisure activity. It's not the destination, it's the voyage, etc. etc..

Consider travelling by VIA Rail, across the vast distances of Western Canada  an exercise in nostalgia. 

Like going back in time to an old A&W with the girls on rollerskates.

Don't be in a hurry. On CN Rail lines, passenger trains are strictly second class, delegated to the railway siding whenever a freight train is thundering through on the single lane. Suprisingly, between Winnipeg and Edmonton much of the main CN line carrying dozens upon dozens of 100-rail units is still single tracked.

Officially, it's a 20 hour trip that you drive in 14 (check) or fly in two.

But the train is frustratingly fun.

The nostalgia is simple. All the 22 passenger cars on the Canadian are of 1950s vintage. They've been refurbished many times, are comforable, air-conditioned with electrical outlets. But they are of the past. You think Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart will come around the corner.

The VIA Rail staff are very good, very friendly, very accommodating. Unlike Air Canada, they are there to help. It makes travelling a pleasure.

The food in the restaurant car is very good, reasonably priced and there's that faded elegance factor. 

The frustration comes in the fact that the "tourist train" is not given the same priority by VIA Rail as its income-earning commuter trains down East.

Case in point: The VIA Rail website gives current, real-time  arrival and departure times for its Eastern Canadian operations. But if you want to check if your train is on time, you have to call the VIA Rail call centre and wait 10 minutes for a live operator, who then has to put you on hold (again) while he or she checks. Ridiculous!

On the train itself, the digital age hasn't checked in on the passenger information side. .There's no digital signboards informing passengers where they are, no information about local history, railroad history etc.

You're basically on your own, other than useful info from the train attendancts when they pass by.

On "sitting up" overnight. It's not that bad. The economy class (two coaches) seem to always be about half full, so one can curl up in a fetal position across a couple of chairs for a not bad snooze.

And, darn it, the prairie is pretty! Not flat, but rolling, with beautiful river valleys.

VIA Rail has always been famous for being drastically off schedule, for trains arrving four or five hours late as a matter of course.

This is changing, I'm told. More sophisticated scheduling software (run out of Edmonton's CN Yards) coordinates train movements better than in the past. CN may put more priority on its own trains, but at the same time, VIA Rails is a major customer, and they've figured out VIA's being more efficient is also in their best interests.

In fact, sometimes VIA Rail is arriving early ... which, if one is being picked up, makes

it even more difficult to find out arrivals in real time. 

If you're not in a hurry, and want to try something different, take the train ... to Winnipeg!