Tracks Across The Border
Saturday, March 31st, 2007So I arrived in Toronto last night (finally!), which means at some point I had to cross a national border. Yay customs inspections! In case you’re curious, here’s how it went.
First off, though, I have to confess that my Coach Car Checklists were in some ways a little Zephyr-centric. The California Zephyr, which rolls between the San Francisco area and Chicago, is the line I’m most familiar with, seeing as how it services Denver. Its elderly double-decker coach cars differ significantly from the newer, single-level coaches of the Lakeshore Limited and the Maple Leaf. The latter had better lighting, bigger restrooms, and reversible seats. And they featured an easily accessible electrical outlet or two per row, making the Great Outlet Hunt completely unnecessary.
So when the customs inspectors came on board at Niagara Falls (the one in Ontario, next stop after the one in New York), I was happily reading preloaded blogs, charging my phone, grumbling that VIA-Rail’s ubiquitous wi-fi Internet access wasn’t free, and preparing to print out a Scrapbooked map of my walking route from Toronto’s Union Station to the Downtown Marriott. Yay electricity!
Customs by rail is to be preferred to the airport variety. In an airport, you get off the plane, go to Customs & Immigration, and stand in line a long time before being granted the privilege of being interrogated at the desk. During yesterday’s border-crossing exercise, by contrast, it was the train that did the standing around. We passengers reclined in our seats, sipping our coffee, hitting pause on our DVD-players or sticking a thumb in our books, while the customs inspectors boarded and worked their way down the aisles. The interrogation was about the same–”Why are you here? Where will you be staying? For how long? Got any goods or plant material to declare?”–but the comfort level was much improved. And that goes for both parties. The inspectors didn’t have to stand at desks processing an interminable line. They just waited in their office for the train to arrive and then they got on board. Maybe that’s why they struck me as more relaxed and patient than any customs inspector I’ve dealt with in an airport. As they disembarked and headed back into the office, they seemed to be joking around and laughing.
After that, those passengers whose travel plans included detraining in Niagara Falls did so and the train continued northward towards St. Catherine’s. Amtrak logos were replaced by VIA-Rail signs. Onboard announcements were now made in French as well as in English. And the train picked up time. We were an hour and a half late out of Buffalo-Depew, but we arrived in Toronto only half an hour late.
Welcome to Canada!