An Overnight Run on Via Rail's The Ocean (1904), the Oldest Continuously-Running Named Train in the World
// If Canada has an international reputation for passenger rail, it is largely built on trains that cross the Rocky Mountains: Via Rail's long-distance The Canadian, which takes four days and four nights to go from Vancouver to Toronto, the privately-run Rocky Mountaineer, and the lesser-known Royal Canadian Pacific, an excursion train that runs vintage coaches, where tickets start at $11,000.
But there's a lesser-known train, one that straddles the line between tourism and transportation, that runs far from the snow-capped mounts of the west. This is Via Rail's The Ocean, which runs through a different kind of landscape—the shores of the St. Lawrence, the Atlantic, and the rivers of the Maritimes—and has been carrying passengers from Halifax to Montreal since 1904. Though the Southern Pacific Sunset Limited began running in 1894, service was interrupted for several years in the 1970s until Amtrak revived the route. That makes The Ocean the oldest continuously-scheduled train in the world—older even than South Africa's Blue Train and The Orient Express, according to rail historian Jay Underwood. A coach ticket costs a fraction of the price you pay on private excursion trains, and, if you opt for the more-expensive sleeper, you save on the price of a hotel room and get four excellent meals in the dining car thrown in. In my opinion, an excursion on The Ocean, which takes 22 hours to cross three provinces, two time zones, and 840 miles, is one of the most satisfying, and certainly one of the most underrated, train trips you can take in North America.
