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Posts Tagged ‘via rail’

My favourite trains (so far)

21 Nov 2009

I rarely remember my dreams. I have to wake up in the middle of them to remember what they were about, and quite often I’m so tired that by the time I can get my mental faculties together to try and remember the dream, I already forgot what it was. Which is probably good, since most of the dreams I remember make very little sense.

This morning’s dream was an exception. I was talking with someone I know (admittedly, can’t remember who it was) about trains. (Believe it or not, this is not an unknown conversation.) They asked me what my favourite train trips were, and I had said something like “whoa, that’s a tough one, let me think”. Then I started rhyming them off.

Oddly enough, that was about when I woke up … and I kept rhyming. So I figured, heck, that just sounds like a blog post!

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Top 25 Trains

14 Jan 2008

The Society of International Railway Travelers just released their list of the Top 25 Trains in the world.

I really gotta remember to join this group.

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VIA Wi-Fi = No-Fi

28 Dec 2006

So I’m taking VIA from London to Oakville, saving Alex from another four hours of driving on Ontario’s highways. I’m sitting here with my trusty laptop trying to do some work, using the “Wi-Fi” service on-board.

Except it doesn’t work.

I can connect to the onboard gateway, no problem. It recognizes me and that I’ve been desperately trying to send and/or receive something. Anything in fact. It has my byte counts. What it doesn’t do is actually let me receive any data. So far, I’ve not even been able to pull up a Google search.

I call false advertising! It doesn’t work, VIA — don’t tell me that it’s there if it doesn’t work. And it isn’t my laptop, as I know I can connect to virtually any wireless network I’ve ever seen. I can see yours but you won’t let me see anything else!

Mind you, could be someone else on this train using up all the bandwidth for porn…

(And if you’re wondering how on Earth I posted this despite not having any connectivity, I offer the simplistic Notepad + Copy & Paste method.)

[Ed. Note: When we got past Brantford, it actually seemed to work, albeit not very well. I wouldn't rely on VIA's WiFi service for anything mission-critical, though it was still better than the next-to-nothing access I had with the CBC.]

VIA Train from Montreal to Toronto

23 Feb 2004

Morning came early. (When your hosts have to get up early to go to work, you get up early, too.)

The plan was simple: on their way to work, Therese and Stuart would drop me off at Central Station where, like when I arrived in Montreal, I would proceed to kill a couple of hours before my train boarded (around 11:00).

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