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Cariad
@Cariad

I decided to look this up on Wikipedia:

The station is served by Via Rail's The Canadian as a flag stop (48 hours advance notice required). The station is only served by westbound trains towards Vancouver. Eastbound trains call at Agassiz railway station along the CPR tracks, on the other side of the Fraser River. This split in service between Vancouver and Ashcroft is due to CN and CPR utilizing directional running through the Thompson- and Fraser Canyon.

Okay. So 48 hours notice is required to catch a train from Chilliwack to Vancouver. Let's see how much it costs to book:

Ticket option showing $32 to take a train

So it's CA$32 to take a train, but they're quoting me it's five hours to do the entire trip? Here's why it's absurd:

Image showing travel options for a 100 KM trip

I am guessing Via has zero expectations for being on time when arriving so they pad it out by 5 hours. Freight rail surprise surprise often causes delays.

I was curious, what does Chilliwack's counterpart in Aggasiz look like?

Aggasiz station

So it looks slightly better but it is still a dreadful platform situation. Just like Chilliwack, it has zero accessibility. However, we have another station we can look at:

Supposedly a train station in a farm field

This is Abbotsford station. It's literally in a farm field located 80 KM from Pacific Central. It's the counterpart to this station:

Mission Harbour station

Yes. This is a station and it's gated off. Just like Aggasiz, this is the split service station to Abbotsford. It's so dreadful. The irony is that this station is 1 KM away from this station which is used for the commuter rail into Vancouver's Waterfront station:

Mission City station

It is entirely possible for Via Rail to have a platform at this station considering it passes by it, but for whatever reason they do not want to build a platform on the other side.

Google satellite map showing the two stations

All of the trains that go to these Via Rail stations terminates or departs from this beautiful building:

Pacific Central station at night

Part of me wants to book a trip from one of these stations to Vancouver to just experience it, but the idea of dealing with an up-to five-hour delay seems like a really, really bad time.


kda
@kda

Damn, and I thought the BC Rail flag stops for their old Sea to Sky services were inadequate.

Those were for short trips on DMUs, not a train which goes to/from Toronto.


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