The Green Party is very much a proponent of traveling by train. As a matter of fact, our platform calls for a massive investment into rail infrastructure so that our cities and towns can be linked by rail with local public transit radiating from the train stations.
There are many good reasons for this, with Climate Change and Peak Oil topping the list. The answer to traffic congestion is decidedly NOT more pavement over farmland.
So when I was required (by my employer) to travel to Quebec City for the Canadian Wind Energy Association Annual Conference, I decided to forgo travel by plane and book the trip on VIA Rail instead.
All in all, I was able to save several hundred dollars and a whole lot of CO2, and all it cost me was the extra time. And given the way airports and airlines work these days, I’m not even convinced of that.
So here I sit in my coach as the geography of eastern Ontario slides by the window, having a pleasant trip thus far, and thinking of a few blog entries using the on board high speed wireless internet.
Perhaps I’ll go read the Star and the Globe and see what comes up.
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We did Montreal by train and it was great. A beverage in the VIP lounge and off to our sleeping car. We woke up bright and fresh, had breakfast and stopped 3 floors below our Hotel in downtown Montreal(the Queen Elizabeth).
The trip home using Via One included lunch, drinks, snack and was quite comfortable. Only the last leg home on GO with too much luggage and shopping was a pain, but we have only our own consumerism to blame on that point.