Feats of engineering and incredible scenery keep the journey on the Rocky Mountaineer interesting. Photo / Supplied
Feats of engineering and incredible scenery keep the journey on the Rocky Mountaineer interesting. Photo / Supplied
Brian Fallow cannot take his eyes from spectacular mountains and canyons as they glide past his train window, from Seattle to Banff.
There is nothing like flying across the Pacific for 14 hours in battery chick class to make you appreciate the comforts of a good train.
Leg room. Bum room. Eating at a proper table with a proper wine glass. Having something worthwhile to look at out the window. No risk of jet lag and no need to keep your eyes on the road.
Canada's Rocky Mountaineer is a private rail operation set up 25 years ago when the state railway stopped running passenger trains through some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere.
It runs between April and October. As the weather closes in during the (northern) winter the view from the train would get restricted, which would rather defeat the purpose.
It has double-decker carriages with dining facilities down below, large windows curving into the roof in the deck above and a lift for anyone of impaired mobility.
The Rocky Mountaineer is based in Vancouver but I joined the train in Seattle, the terminus of a 250km subsidiary route it has run for the past couple of years called the Coastal Passage, linking the two cities.
The coast in question is that of Puget Sound and then of the waters that separate Vancouver Island from the mainland, rather than the Pacific Ocean itself - pretty enough in a tame sort of way.
Vancouver is evidence Auckland's aspiration of becoming a vibrant, civilised city of two million people is attainable.
It regularly appears on people's lists of the most liveable cities in the world.
It is cosmopolitan with nearly half the population classified by Canadian statisticians as "visible minorities".
The stranger's immediate impression is of affluence. Ubiquitous restaurants, for example, and well-dressed people at every turn.
After a while, though, you start to notice a few people for whom life is clearly not going so well, the same mendicant homeless who have become evident in our major cities too in recent years. Maybe the proportion is higher because of Vancouver's famously high housing costs, or because of its mild climate compared with the cities of Canada's continental interior.
In any case it was heartening to witness a small act of kindness: a young woman who had a sandwich and a gentle word for a homeless man old enough to be her father.
Of the city's tourist attractions one stood out: FlyOver Canada, to be found at Canada Place on the waterfront.
It is a virtual flight, a bird's eye view of some of the landscapes of that immoderately large and diverse country.
The image is projected in such a way that it entirely fills your field of vision. Nothing bounds or impedes the view.
You are strapped into seats that move and tilt so the kinaesthetic sensation reinforces the illusion of flying - zooming among mountain tops, swooping down onto plains, soaring over cities. Brilliant.
The rail journey from Vancouver to Banff in the Rocky Mountains is just under 1000km and at a leisurely pace takes two days.
Inside the GoldLeaf service dome coach. Photo / Supplied
The route takes you first through a mountain range called the Coast Mountains in Canada and the Cascade Range in the United States, clad in temperate rain forest.
Eventually the railway has to cut through very steep and forbidding gorges where Mother Nature seems to be saying: "Just go away. Leave me alone. You have no business here."
In the rain shadow of the mountains the landscape turns semi-arid, reminiscent of Central Otago, and with lots of sage brush but scant evidence of human habitation.
At times the train has to pull aside and make way for a freight train travelling in the other direction. It is not that the operators of the railway value freight over people. It is just that the freight trains are often so long, up to 200 wagons, that they won't fit in a siding, but the Rocky Mountaineer does.
"Impressive, isn't it," a fellow traveller remarked as we watched an apparently endless train with wagons filled to the brim with fossil carbon rattle past on its way to port.
"Not if you worry about global warming," I said, sanctimoniously.
The two-day journey from Vancouver to the Rockies breaks overnight in a town called Kamloops, population 90,000. In the winter it serves as a base for skiers.
On board the Rocky Mountaineer. Photo / Supplied
The next morning the train split in two, with some of its 600 passengers going northeast to Jasper, while the rest continued on the Canadian Pacific Route to Lake Louise and Banff.
To save the time it would take to load and unload passengers' baggage from the train, the Rocky Mountaineer sends them ahead by truck so your bags are waiting for you in your next hotel room.
In Kamloops my bag got separated from the herd somehow, but someone from the hotel drove the 500km to Banff to ensure it was there when I arrived. Impressive service: not so much going the extra mile as going the extra 300 miles.
As the terrain becomes more seriously mountainous it is strangely disconcerting to see all those conifers growing wild as nature intended, rather than confined to plantation forests with wilding pines treated as weeds.
Even though it was still late summer/early autumn and the weather was mild there was already snow on the mountain tops.
Constructing this railway, more than most, was a nation-building exercise tying this unreasonably wide country - five time zones - together.
The Rocky Mountaineer offers a unique perspective of the Canadian Rockies. Photo / Supplied
We trundled past the point where 130 years ago the last spike linking the western and eastern parts of the Canadian Pacific railway was driven home.
As the mountains start to reach serious, Southern Alps-like elevations some impressive civil engineering is on display, including bridges more than 100m above the river bed below.
And a spiral tunnel in which the track loops back on itself twice within a mountain, to gain the necessary height.
By the time the train reaches its destination, Banff National Park, it has passed through the continental divide, the watershed that separates rivers flowing west to the Pacific and east to the Atlantic and is in the province of Alberta.
The national park, half the size of Fiordland, is home to bears and elk.
The resort town of Banff, and Lake Louise whose turquoise waters are about 60km up the road, were described to me before I Ieft by a retired diplomat I know as "Switzerland without the Swiss". A compliment was intended, I believe.
The view from the outdoor Vestibule on the Rocky Mountaineer. Photo / Supplied
In fact, a notable percentage of the hotel and restaurant staff I encountered were Kiwis or Aussies on a working holiday.
The Rockies at this point are providing mountains around 3000m high. A range of outdoors activities - hiking, mountain biking, kayaking etc - is on offer.
But for the less, shall we say, agile, a panoramic view is available by riding the gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain, which overlooks Banff. It is breath-taking, and not because of the altitude.
If first impressions count, last impressions do too and mine was of a guy - a local, heading for Las Vegas - shouting me a beer in Calgary airport's departure lounge.
It was one of several encounters with people not in the tourist industry (and hospitable for a living) who reinforced the stereotype that Canadians' default state is courteous amiability.
