J.T.S. and Martin Bienwald write:
>>> Any help appreciated from a European planning a trip from New York to
>>> Ottawa by train, is there such a service ?
>> Apparently, you have to spend a night in Montreal on that trip ...
>> You *might* catch the 6pm train from Montreal to Ottawa on weekends, but
>> I wouldn't bet on that. There seem to be no later trains on that line.
> yeh just been loking through at the times, doesnt look real simple! might
> end up flying, just thought it would be nice to see the country along the
> way on the train.
The New York to Montreal train route includes a good scenic section
along the Hudson River, though. (Going north, be sure to sit on the
left.) I don't know about the second half of the trip, after Albany.
You might taking this train and then continuing by bus (coach to you,
if you're British) to Ottawa. Picking a random date in March to query
at www.greyhound.ca, I find hourly buses until midnight, taking 2 hours.
So this ought to be doable even if the train is significantly late
(which is a real risk).
>>> Also looking for info on travelling by train from Montreal to Chicago.
I wouldn't. There's a decent train service from Montreal to Toronto,
and at one time you could do that one day (or overnight) and go
on from Toronto to Chicago the next day, which gave a reasonably
direct route passing north of both Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
But now the latter service has been truncated at the border, so
the farthest you can get that way is Windsor or Sarnia, Ontario,
still needing a change at Toronto in either case.
You could make your way from Windsor to Detroit and go on by train to
Chicago, but I imagine the schedules would require an overnight stop.
I don't know about continuing by bus from Windsor or Sarnia, but
even if you can do it the same day, it'll be a long travel day.
As noted, the alternative is to deviate south of one or both of
the lakes, but then you face an inconveniently long distance and/or
awkward connections. Going via Schenectady (which is near Albany) is
the shortest route with only one change, and it takes about 24 hours.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Not looking like Pascal is not
msb@vex.net a language deficiency!" -- Doug Gwyn
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