To Ottawa - testing the trains

After the fun of Montreal (and the fun of adjusting to the new time zone), we had to move on to sample pastures - or even cities - new. Ottawa was our chosen target and the challenge had been a simple one. How to get there? A flight with someone like Air Canada costs a small fortune and lasts no time at all. A one way hire car did not seem appropriate so we'd opted to test out the Canadian trains to see if they could be as unreliable / uncomfortable as our recent UK experiences. The trip was only 185Km and around 2 hours but was not friendly price-wise if you wanted to take luggage. Kind of Ryanair style ticket pricing. As the posh Business class ticket cost little more than an economy version with bags, we opted to go posh. It gave us a lounge to use whilst waiting (that was handy as in true UK style boarding was delayed) and lunch on board. We were at the end of the carriage and the best meal options had run out by the time they got to us. However, the crew managed hers manfully - or should that be womanfully?

The train was comfy enough but we were surprised at how rough the ride was for much of the trip - the permanent way certainly needed some attention. Way worse than on most UK mainline services. This little video shows how the coat hangers danced to the tune of the steel tracks, not the music ones:

Despite that, it was a good trip with a chance to seem some proper rural locations on the way too. Watching the freight trains pass us by,  often with 100 wagons in a rake, was quite something compared to the "baby" train stuff we are used to at home. The only trouble on our arrival was finding our way to the public transport links as we arrived in Ottawa.  Poor signs and location maps. The good bit was that they have a new metro system called the O Train and it links to the airport. We were staying in an airport hotel so we bought a nice cheap transport pass and headed out there. The second of the trains we used reminded us of the Edinburgh trams - painfully slow! However, it all worked well.

We kind of fell in love with Ottawa. Friendlier than Montreal (less sniffy about English language use too), a small city centre with a great mix of old and new buildings. This reflection of the parliament estate buildings in the windows of a new block kind of sums it up:

Following on from the last cathedral experience, we had to see the Ottawa offering. Less "visitor friendly" but equally beautiful:

with another glorious interior:

The museum opposite was suitably futuristic as were the sculptures outside. The sort of thing that you would not want to bump into on a dark night after a couple of drinks:

The point on which the museum was build showed the link to the "First Nations" people - something that we became more and more familiar with:

It also had good views back towards the Rideau Canal entrance and government buildings:

Being boating types, we had to walk along the canal and admire the flight of locks at the entrance:

The canal is a UNESCO World Heritage site, have a look at this Wikipedia link for more information on it. We noticed real similarities to the Caledonian canal in Scotland - not a surprise as both were constructed by the UK military to give safe passage to their ships. The hooks used in the lock chambers for transiting craft to pass a rope around were pretty similar in shape to the ones we'd used in Scotland:

One huge difference of course is the number of petrol (gas) powered boats using the waterways compared to the UK / Europe where diesel is king. This sign in the locks: 

made sense - avoiding nasty petrol vapour explosions when boats are restarting their engines after locking through. Once boats have transited the lock flight things were comparatively quiet and pretty weed infested too. Some folks seemed to find paddleboarding exhausting:

The anti-Trump feelings were pretty clear from the pavements:

and the signs in many shops:

We quite understood why.