Saskatchewan and More Train

The train was running late by the time our second day started. It goes at glacial speed in the north (permafrost doesn’t make a good rail base, and the northern part of the railway was washed out in 2015 and didn’t start running again until late last year). But they cut short our stay in Thompson to the minimum to make up time. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough, so we had to make an extended stop in The Pas to rest the driver, and left there five hours late. 

We had lost the majority of our fellow passengers at Thompson and were left with some really hard core train buffs. One of them had inveigled his family into traveling on the train. He practically runs the local railway museum. He and his father collected every single different type of Queensland cane train carriage, and have 200 metres of shunting track so they can show off the trains.

Another pair left the train when we went into Saskatchewan and stopped at Canora. 

The son had managed to talk to the engine driver at Thompson and was invited to see the engine room at The Pas (where we stopped at about 2am). The next day he was describing it as the experience of a lifetime. After they left the train, they chased it, and stopped at several crossings to take photos. They eventually stopped when we crossed back into Manitoba.

Shortly before we left Manitoba we started to see crops. 

The other people were quite surprised when we reached Hudson Bay (the first town in Saskatchewan).

But we were still seeing a lot of forest - sometimes forest on one side of the line and crops on the other.

We came back to Manitoba, and we still weren’t in true prairie country.

By the time we reached Dauphin, the train was racing along. It went faster with each mile, whereas, at first, they had told us that butterflies went faster than the train. Dauphin had an ornate station and church. By then we were in true prairie.

After that, it grew dark. We reached Winnipeg at 10:30pm - hours before we expected to, even though we were almost 6 hours late.