For anyone’s who’s grown up in North America, I don’t think we understand the appeal of proper train travel. Convenient, regular, extensive, nearly-always-ontime train travel. It’s an exotic notion to us, riding the rails. Something from a distant time or done in distant lands.

So we have to first fly to fully experience the train as it could be. Say, 16+ hours in motion, to the airport, through the airport, on the plane, off the plane, customs and border control. A connecting flight, perhaps. Repeat. Air travel, even for those who have minimized its adversarial impacts, is a hassle. There’s precious little, aside from (fingers crossed!) the destination, pleasant or pleasurable about it.

But then, you’re aboard the train.

Right bang on schedule. Almost nothing to it aside from purchasing a ticket and finding your seat. In places that functionally operate a train service, there’s even instructions where to wait on the platform in order to quickly and easily get your ass sitting down in the right place.

In terms of mass travel, trains are as hassle free as you could possibly ask for. And once you electrify the old Iron Horse up, depending on the source of electricity of course, there’s not really a cleaner or greener way for a population to get from point A to point B. With very few exceptions, a robust rail system (or series of them) should serve as the spine of any country’s transportation network.

What we get instead, we North Americans, generally speaking, are pockets of irregularly serviceable regional operations, mixed in with despairingly substandard stabs at workaday utility. Perpetually underfunded, highly politicized, trains and their rail-bound brethren have been relegated to poor cousin status by our civic leaders for generations now. While we talk of burning billions of dollars to tunnel a new highway under an existing highway, we continually cheap out on building out the rail system serving the exact same constituency. We’ve had it drilled into our heads by autocentrics that train travel is either yet another onerous social program demanded by the poors who can’t afford cars or a luxury item that is indulged in by mere hobbyists.

An irony, or sorts, for a place that, as legend has it, was forged together by a cross-country railroad. The Last Spike and all that. A once vital link that’s now been reduced to a vacation jaunt and novelty act. The view of the mountains at Kicking Horse Pass is to die for!

Otherwise, Canada’s too big, too few people spread out over too much territory, for rail to serve any sort of practical purpose. This isn’t Europe. This isn’t Japan. This isn’t… China.

It’s unfortunate, I think, gently rocking back and forth, as one does, in a seat on a train, heading north and west to the coast, this North American, one-track (haha), car-addled mindset of ours. There’s a different connectivity to the world and those around you as you move from one place to the next by train. You’re not flying over. You’re not focused exclusively on the vehicle right in front of you when you drive somewhere, unaware of everything else around, above or behind you. On a train, you’re not exactly in it as you pass by, but you can be with it, observing the surroundings at a discerning human pace. That particular spot. Those vineyards in those nearby hills. This town looks like fun, doesn’t it? We should come back to visit sometime.

A connectivity both local and wider in scope.

A connectivity we could use a whole lot more of these days.