Last Train to Toronto: A Canadian Rail Odyssey

This is a coast-to-coast train ride and back, interchanging between travel description and local history. This was Terry's attempt to describe the last passenger train of the Canadian-Pacific Railroad before the route became dedicated to freight hauling, although the actual last train is just the last chapter, the rest are descriptions of scenery, passengers and history of the area along the way. The story shows how Canada was united because of the railways. Immigrants were recruited to settle the northern praries and then were promised railways to connect the town. (In US-American history it worked the other way around) The story works. Between meeting foreign travelers (many who openly admit they don't like Americans), oil drillers, loggers and nude Canadian dancers out West (amazing, really, how many crowned dancers he met on the trains!) to crabbers and fishermen and disenchanted Quebecois out East, his style is a bit Paul Theroux and Studs Terkel. It's a shame that most of the trains no longer run like they do in the book. The characters are varied, the dialogue interesting and the countryside in most cases breathtaking. It's almost worth jumping on a train westbound to experience again. What a shame such travel now is obsolete. It makes me wonder what happened to all the people Terry profiled, especially the nude dancershe met out west. This book is not a chronological story of his cross-country trip, though. Almost half the book was dedicated to British Columbia in great detail. Granted, it's a region rich in history, but I almost wondered if he would ever set foot in the rest of Canada. He does. After finishing off his time in BC he starts the next chapter in Montreal and moves east from there to Nova Scotia.

Pindell knows just when to switch from the grand sweep of history to the tiny details of train travel, and paints a picture of our nearest neighbor that is surprisingly complete. Although Pindell expresses justifiable nostagia for routes that have been axed since his journey, a great number of spectacular rides are still to be taken in Canada. Everyone who loves the "torque of travel" should consider the cross-continental trip to Vancouver or Prince Rupert, the bi-lingual route from Toronto to Halifax, or the "Polar Bear Express" to the edge of Hudson's Bay. Don't leave home without Pindell.