Travelling to Portland by Rail

 Getting from Vancouver to Portland by train is surprisingly easy provided you are willing to get started VERY early in the morning. The train leaves town at 6:30am and since it is an international trip, you are encouraged to arrive at least an hour early for ticketing and customs while some websites suggest an earlier arrival to ensure a good seat. Since we did not expect to be the only people going down for the eclipse, we were at the station by 5:15am and even that left us fairly late in the line. Protip: if you leave early for this trip, make sure you remember the delicious lunch you packed or it becomes the delicious dinner you return to.

 Once we were seated and the train was underway it was a very soothing chance to sit back and enjoy the scenery as it goes by. The trip is about 8.5 hours all in, but since you can get up for coffee and to stretch your legs anytime (except briefly at the border) you never end up cramped or uncomfortable. We had heard that the best view is from the right side (going south) and would certainly agree that its worth trying to get a seat on the seaward side for the journey.

 The train station in Portland is right downtown and we were easily able to start exploring the city as soon as we got off. In comparison, the airport is further out to the east and would have required a little more time tinkering with transit and collecting baggage before starting the adventure. All in all this is a very enjoyable and highly recommended means of getting from BC to Oregon.

Wandering Washington Park

 Somewhat confusingly, Washington park is neither in the city of state of Washington, but rather on the west side of the city of Portland in Oregon. Regardless of the unexpected given the location, it is a large and beautiful bit of land close the the heart of a sizeable city, much like our own Stanley Park. Near the train station, is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which does a great job of commemorating the people who served while also being a pleasant place AND including some lighthearted moments of Oregon history during those years to remind us all that real life continues during times of war.

 Next up, the International Test Rose Garden is apparently the oldest rose test garden in the USA, boasting over 7,000 plants from more than 500 variations. However you count them, the flowers in the garden were stunning and a delight to walk through, covering a large space to help diffuse the large number of people visiting at any given day.

 Also close to the main entrance was this neat old locomotive which I was unable to pass up the chance to have my picture taken in the cab of. Despite being decommissioned years ago and severely burned in an accident not that long ago, it has been very nicely restored and creates a great photo op.

Squamish Railway Museum - Outdoors

 While we were in Squamish with Kathryn's parents earlier this summer, we also stopped by the Squamish Railway Museum which has had some expansion work in the few years since we'd been there last and was a thoroughly entertaining place to spend a couple of hours. As you can see below, a significant portion of the outdoor displays are several lengths of track with an assortment of diesel locomotives, old passenger cars and cabooses along with an old station and roundhouse.

 I find these old snow shovel locomotives particularly amazing given that the cab sits a good 12 feet in the air, giving you an idea of just how much snow needs to be cleared off of the tracks in some of the mountains and interiors.

 Another fun aspect of the outdoor area is being able to clamber around and inside of most of the exhibits. Valerie in particular was delighted to climb up into a caboose as seen below and was very keen on exploring and sitting behind the wheel of every machine in the yard.

Neat Old Machines

Being a historical and touristy place, Telegraph Cove also has its share of neat old machines on display. Having been well trained by my father to always stop and admire old locomotives I was particularly happy to find the one shown below sitting at the side of the highway at Beaver Cove, just minutes from our lodgings. I assume it was once used by the nearby lumber company but there wasn't much signage there to explain it.
Although it was somewhat ambiguous about climing it; the front sign says do so at your own risk and the back sign says not to, I clambered around and gave it a thorough photographing. The interior of the cab was particularly neat as it was rapidly being reclaimed by nature and there were plants growning through the floor and out of the various pipes along with a generous coating of moss on the flat parts of the exterior.
This old truck was sitting as a little display in Telegraph Cove and was well in line with the old-time feel that most of the old town carries, along with little historical fact signs and a general feeling of the past. I doubt this truck could ever run again, but better to see it out on display in any form than at the bottom of the sea or in a junk heap.

Miniature World

Our whirlwind tour of Victoria in 2009 tried to take in the majority of the museums and cultural collections of the city. One such place which had been described to me by a co-worker as "the best place in the world" was 'Miniature World', a small museum connected to the Empress Hotel.
The small size of these photos doesn't really to justice to the scale of some of the displays, the train photograph below is only a snippet of a diorama showing Canada from coast to coast with a train running the length of it every few minutes along with lights for day/night and detail crammed into every inch.
The displays ran the gamut throughout history from World War 2, to the Middle Ages to an entry display of a space station which was gorgeous but sadly too dark to photograph well enough to share online.
I found that the macro mode of my camera helped capture these miniatures with a sense of scale and depth which I very much enjoyed experimenting with but which may not come across as well in such small pictures.

Closed and Accidental Railway Museums of the West

On our journey through the west coast states and BC we happened across a couple of railway museums, one on purpose and one quite by mistake.
The intentional one was also the closed one unfortunately. The Kettle Valley Railway was listed in our tour book of the Okanagan but didn't happen to mention its seasonal nature and though I followed in my fathers footsteps and poked around the engine shed, someone had callously locked it.
And then as we were passing through Garibaldi, Oregon we came along this one sitting in the middle of the town and quite open to our pokings. Although this locomotive is no longer used (and has a boiler full of garbage tossed in by ungrateful passers by) they do let you poke about and there is another engine that does rides in the summer as well.