VIA Rail Canada's Lake Superior

VIA Rail Canada's Lake Superior

In July 2009 I drove up to Sudbury, Ontario to ride VIA Rail Canada's Lake Superior, the train from Sudbury to White River and back. This thrice weekly service uses Budd RDC's to travel 300 miles of the Canadian Pacific mainline through the Ontario wilderness. I didn't fully understand this train's purpose until I arrived at the station in Sudbury on the morning of my departure; put most simply, this train, like the Algoma Central's train from Sault Ste. Marie to Hearst, survives primarily because it serves the camps that many families have in the interior of the province, camps that are far from the reach of any road. The train shows up in VIA's regular passenger schedules, but it connects with no other service. (VIA's transcontinental Canadian calls at Sudbury Junction some ten kilometers away on a completely incompatible schedule.)

The pictures shown below, while taken over two days, show the route pretty much from east to west. There were (in aggregate) 75 passengers (and well over a dozen canoes) on the outbound train from Sudbury to White River; a very large proportion disembarked to canoe down the Spanish River; very few besides myself continued beyond Chapleau although a few riders did get on and off during this later part of the journey. At Franz we crossed the tracks of the Algoma Central.

For those interested in experiencing this rail journey, a little bit of logistical detail may be helpful. The nearest hotel to the station in Sudbury was the Quality Inn which was just up the hill. The station is in a rather seedy neighborhood but the hotel was certainly adequate. Moreoever, by prior arrangement, the hotel allowed me to leave my car in their parking lot which made life a good deal simpler. There are two motels in White River: the White River Motel and the Continental Motel. Both are just outside of town on the trans-Canada highway, about a ten minute walk from the station. (In theory either motel will pick you up at the station which might be useful if the weather were lousy.) Walking out to the highway to get to the motel, I passed through the small park dedicated to Winnie the Pooh (it is said that the story of Winnie the Pooh was based upon a real bear in White River). I stayed at the White River Motel and ate dinner across the street at the Continental. Happily, despite a delayed arrival, I was still able to get dinner and a glass of wine at 9:30 p.m.

If you are looking to take the train in order to visit the Ontario wilderness, you are probably better off if you leave your car at the station in Cartier, safely outside the city of Sudbury. The crew are extremely helpful and just about anything that can fit into a baggage car can be brought along. While there is no food service on the train, there is a microwave so you can heat up any food or beverage which you do bring along. The train does provide bottled water.

This trip had a particular nostalgic value for me. Back in 1967, the first train I ever rode was a Budd RDC from Boston's North Station up to Newburyport. Like two of the three cars on the Lake Superior, the B&M RDC to Newburyport was a mixed passenger and baggage configuration. Moreover, thanks to an uncle who worked for the railroad, I had gotten to take that first trip standing up in the front of the car with the engineer at my side. That old B&M RDC (shown at right in a picture published at another website ) was number 6300; these three RDC's were 6205, 6215 and 6250.

At the Station in Sudbury