The Grey Cup Train, Part 1

On Saturday, October 6, I took my kids to Union Station in Winnipeg to see the Grey Cup train. It was scheduled to be open for viewing from 11 AM to 4 PM. We parked at 10;30 and the line was already quite long.


At 11 sharp they opened the gates and we started shuffling along. By 11:07 we were crossing under the entrance archway. They had quite a greeting party out.


The Winnipeg Blue Bombers cheerleaders were doing a great job welcoming everyone.




We lined up inside the station. As we slowly made our way through the station, VIA was calling passengers to board the westbound Canadian. It took until 11:43 until we climbed the inactive escalator to see the Grey Cup train on track 3. Here's VIA 6445 proudly at the head of the train.


You may remember that VIA 6445 was the lead engine on the Coors Light train too.


VIA 6445 was one of the last refurbished engines for VIA. I had expected that it would not be refurbished until after this gig, but it is obvious that it is a refurbished engine. In fact, you can see that they applied the Grey Cup decals right over the refurbished logos.


You can see the refurbished colours on the rear of the engine.


The next car was VIA 8615, and that's where we boarded.


Here's a sneak peek of what was in the car. VIA 8615 had an excellent display of the history of football, especially Canadian football.


On part 2 of this I will continue on through the two CP cars and then out to the Grey Cup itself, which was not actually on the train!

PS: Here's a great series of photos of the Grey Cup train when it was in Vancouver.

Grammar extra: Nothing drives me crazy more online than people using "sneak peak". This is wrong. It is SNEAK PEEK. Grrrr.


READ PART TWO