Last Train Across Canada

Hi All,

I have the videotape of the coast to coast TV show using VIA rail, before the coast to coast route was cut back. Depends on what you call scenery. If you like seeing big cities, you got it, if you want to see the wide open spaces, woods, and be in the middle of nowhere, you got it. Also the train has excellent food service, nice sleeping accommodations, pleasant cameraderie, and great service. Make sure the train has vistadomes, and you will be all set. Good luck.

Hi Alan,

I gather you're talking about the two-hour PBS show "Last Train Across Canada" featuring Australian journalist Murray Sayle which aired about fifteen years ago. I enjoyed the show and think it deserves it's own topic.

It was a very entertaining documentary despite its technical flaws from a railway perspective. Although the editors took artistic license at times by making the various side trips to remote end points look like stops on the main transcontinental journey, it has plenty of great train footage. I too own a VHS copy of the show and highly recommend it to anyone interested in Canadian passenger trains during that time.

Hi Ken,

Exactly right. Remember the length of the show, the side trips, usually north of the ROW just showed how remote the area was. And the Polar Bear shots were something else. It was hard to believe that some of the people living along the ROW had no other means of communication with the outside world. It was just them and their livestock, mostly dogs. Also, excellent shots from the cab of how to travel by train through a snowstorm. At some points you actually saw a whiteout. Scary until you realize that the train was the only thing moving in that area.

Glad to hear you also have a copy of Sayles' escapade, or as Murray would put it, "Mooooooooo !!!!"

Is that video still available? Say in DVD format?

Skullitor wrote:Is that video still available? Say in DVD format?

There are some used copies available in VHS at Amazon.com. I've never seen it in DVD.