Jasper is the ultimate railroad town in the heart of a Canadian, Jasper National Park. To live in it you have to have a job or own a business, most employees work in tourism or for the railroad. Large wild animals, particularly elk, wonder through town and across the railroad tracks frequently. The train station is a 1926 restored heritage railway station that fits its location in a national park well. The building has visible stone foundations, cream-colored walls and a green gabled roof. The stations main entrance is from a parking lot along the side of Connaught Drive across the street from downtown Jasper. Three different wooden signs on top of stones inform passengers on the street of the business and services in the depot. Inside there is a small main waiting area with a large VIA office that has three ticket counter positions complete with their digital information signs saying tickets and information. It has complex opening hours depending upon the day because of its complicated Tri-Weekly Schedule. There are two car rental agencies, Hertz and National, each with a counter plus a small office used by the Rocky Mountaineer but no actual ticket window since they hand out most boarding passes at hotels. In the central area there are green cushioned high back wooden chairs for waiting passengers. A corridor leads to other station services, first is a railroad shop selling various posters, train whistles (when All Aboard was called for the Rocky Mountaineer (meaning the train is now boarding, not the train is leaving) the shopkeeper blew one) and other railroad memorabilia, before reaching Trains and Lattes, and then the Greyhound Ticket Counter, it has extremely limited hours of 9am to 3pm Monday to Friday and 11:00am to 1:00pm Saturday and is closed on Sunday. Service is four buses a day to Edmonton, one to Prince George, and two a day to Vancouver.

Train side of the depot is now taken up by some cafe tables for the latte shop that take up most of the public area before the restricted area that is the rail yard begins. This area has a low fence allowing decent photographs and gate openings for when passengers are actually boarding trains on the very long strip of concrete that serves as the platform, that is a siding in the rail yard and controlled by manually operated switches. West of the station there are parking lots for employees and CN building across the tracks. Locomotive #6015 a Mountain Type Steam Locomotive is on static display. There is also a random unfenced yard track that when I visited the station was housing a VIA Rail Canada (backup service) F40PH-2 #6406 Locomotive and a HEP2 Stainless Steel Coach #4122, along this area of the yard. A short ways beyond this, after the rail yard ends, is Hazel Avenue offering those types of photographs as well. East of the Station is a large parking lot used mainly for buses, including the Rocky Mountaineer motor coach service the short distance to hotels in town. The town nature trail begins here and runs mostly on top of the embankment that separates the rest of the rail yard from town and offers excellent photograph opportunities for any train that is in the yard.
All photos taken on 29 October, 2011

Last Updated: 10 November, 2011 This website is not allifiated with Rocky Mountaineer, there official website is here This Website is maintained and copyright © 2011, Jeremiah Cox. This website is not affiliated with any transit provider. Please do not remote link images or copy them from this website without permission.