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The Kamloops Station is one designed by the Rocky Mountaineer to get passengers from their hotel motorcoaches to the train with the least amount of walking as possible. The long platform at Station Plaza is wide enough for cars and buses to drive directly down and before morning departures the buses actually hold-up for one another in an area just east of the platform (Banff/Jasper end of the platform) so they can all drive down in a numbered order and get passengers as close as possible to their coaches. Everyone on the train is assigned (no choosing the hotel) a hotel for the night at check-in and all receive their room keys upon arrival in the station from their attendants and then board motorcoaches right outside the train door. There is no way to request a hotel and we were assigned (I was traveling with my grandmother) the Thompson, apparently one of the nicer ones right in downtown and got a complementary upgrade to room 201, the family bedroom which was nice so we basically had separate bedrooms. The station is located in the rail yards just north of downtown Kamloops and literarily a ten-minute walk across a neat modern footbridge over other railroad tracks from downtown (and the Thompson Hotel) so I had a nice walk in the morning right by the locomotives and did a full photo essay of the train. If your are lucky and assigned a hotel in downtown I highly recommend doing this walk at least before the trains departure, it is also the only opportunity to photograph your train. There is a historic CP Station House as well along the edge of the road/platform but this has mostly been turned into a franchise of the Keg Steakhouse. A portion of the station house along with the platform is home to and also used by the Kamloops Heritage Railway (using steam locomotive #2141) and their equipment is visible beyond the station across the tracks. The rest of this railyards area is in a new town center condo type development.
All photos taken on October 6, 2011
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Last Updated: 17 November, 2011 |