Canada’s ultimate railway journey

"Elk! Elk on the left!" the cry echoed along the train. In the shadow of Canada's Rocky Mountains, a small herd was grazing contentedly, the animals’ magnificent antlers visible even from a distance.

There are few better ways to see the country's wildlife than from a seat on the Rocky Mountaineer. With several different routes through Canada and the US, I was travelling from Vancouver to Banff on the company's original itinerary, First Passage to the West, a two-day journey from the west coast into the mountains. For the full luxury experience, travel GoldLeaf class — these tall carriages have seats on the top deck with panoramic windows to soak up the scenery as you go, as well as an open observation deck for an uninterrupted glimpse of the lakes, rivers and hills along the way.

Reclining in my spacious heated leather seat, with an apparently unending string of snacks and drinks served throughout the journey, is an indulgence that's hard to resist.

Below is the dining car, where breakfast and a three-course lunch are served each day, cooked from scratch with plenty of choice for vegetarians and other dietary requirements. The alternative, SilverLeaf class, is still a long way from roughing it, although there’s a more limited selection of food and you eat at your seat.

The sun had barely risen when we boarded the train in Vancouver at Rocky Mountaineer's private station, waved off by staff to the strains of a bagpiper. A fitting tribute to the Scottish origins of many of those involved in the early days of Canada's railways, driving the line from coast to coast and helping transform rough and ramshackle Gastown into the thriving city of Vancouver.

Save some time for a Forbidden Vancouver tour before you depart the city, to discover more about its early days and colourful characters, from scandalous vaudeville legends to corrupt civic officials with ties to organised crime, as well as the glorious architecture such as the Art Deco Marine Building and chateau-style Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, my base in the city, reportedly haunted by a woman in red. Supposedly the ghost of Vancouver socialite Jennie Pearl Cox, who was a regular at the hotel in the early 1940s, she apparently decided it would be a great place to spend her afterlife after dying in a car accident in 1944.

With its fantastic location, themed afternoon tea served in a hidden room tucked away behind a secret door disguised as a bookcase, and luxuriously comfortable beds, I can hardly blame her.

There are more tales to keep you entertained aboard the train too, where history is woven through every length of track.

Take explorer Simon Fraser, who helped map the area around the river that now bears his name and whose journeys through this dramatic scenery led to parts being dubbed Hell's Pass and the Jaws of Death. Or Donald Smith, who was instrumental in getting vital investment to finish the last stretch of the transcontinental railway, and the man who hammered in the final spike completing the Canadian Pacific railway at Craigellachie, now marked with a cairn containing stone from every Canadian province, and Scotland, in honour of Smith’s heritage.

In fact, the spike had to be hammered in several times: the first attempt bent under Smith’s unpractised hand, while the second successful attempt was then removed for posterity (and to discourage souvenir hunters).

It's not only the historic characters who add colour to the route. In the town of Salmon Arm, Doris (or her husband Brian, if she's busy) come out to wave every time the Rocky Mountaineer passes by, alerted by their dogs which bark as the train approaches — although never for the freight trains which trundle along the same tracks.

But the real star of the journey is the scenery: rivers so clear that you can see jewel-bright green moss on the stones at the bottom, and the shimmer of fish if you're particularly sharp eyed. Elsewhere, white water froths on the surface of the fast flowing stretches, surging around submerged rocks and shimmering under the autumn sun. As the Fraser and Thompson rivers meet, the brown of one and the blue of the other course side by side for a short while before merging. Visit in early October, as I did, towards the end of the train's operating season, and you'll see splashes of sunshine bright yellow leaves from larches among the evergreen trees carpeting the slopes, as well as the occasional scarlet blaze of maple trees.

Perched on top of high branches, bald eagles sat patiently before flying off to hunt — we counted half a dozen in one day alone. While you'll be lucky to spot a moose, who prefer to vanish into the woodland as soon as they hear the train approaching, it's not uncommon to spy herds of elk along the way. The real prize is seeing a bear, although there was not so much as a furry paw on display during our journey. By October, many have already started heading off for hibernation, though if you plan your trip a little earlier, you might spy them foraging and fattening themselves up for the long winter sleep. Unlike some of the world's other great train journeys, you don't sleep aboard yourself, breaking the journey in Kamloops — the name comes from the indigenous word tk'emlups, which means "where the rivers meet”.

Depending which package you book (and your own preferences), there are several hotels to choose from, with luggage whisked seamlessly from Vancouver to your hotel room, before travelling on separately on the second day to meet you in Banff or Lake Louise. There’s little chance to explore Kamloops though — arriving in the dark in time for dinner, it was just as dark at 6am when we headed back to the Rocky Mountaineer for our second longer day of the journey. The scenery here gets ever more dramatic, with snow dusting the top of the mountains before lunch. Passing the huge Shuswap Lake, which covers almost 120 square miles, Eagle river and Kicking Horse River, we ventured into Glacier National Park, where guides were imported from Switzerland to lead tourists around the area.

Ordinary tunnels aren’t enough for the gradients and the Rocky Mountaineer curves through a series of spiral tunnels before reaching the highest point of the journey, at 5,332ft above sea level and the final station at Banff.

If the scenery has whetted your appetite, Banff is the perfect place to indulge a little more. Our hotel, the Rimrock Resort was only a short stroll from the Banff gondola which climbs the memorably named Sulphur Mountain, to 7,486ft above sea level. From here, a boardwalk leads to Sanson Peak, the mountain's highest point for views down onto the glittering Bow River, Lake Minnewanka, Banff's attractive streets and over to the surrounding peaks.

After catching your breath from the climb and the altitude, there’s another exhilarating experience to be found at the Rimrock Resort’s fine dining Eden restaurant, where local ingredients get transformed into some very creative dishes, complemented by wine pairings from the 17,000-bottle cellar. A new addition to the Fairmont group, the hotel is due to undergo major renovations next summer, although its grandiose sister hotel, Fairmont Banff Springs, makes a very tempting alternative with its mix of Scottish baronial style in the lobby and distinctly contemporary cocktails and sharing plates in the restaurant (one of 14 places to eat and drink on site).

Nearby Lake Louise is equally unmissable – there’s a reason it’s Canada's second most visited tourist attraction after Niagara Falls. Famous for the colour of the water, a bright emerald at some times of the year and an eye-catching deep turquoise by autumn, the unusual shade is caused by glacial dust, less poetically known as rock flour, and created by the inexorable grinding of glaciers on the bedrock.

Taking a canoe out onto the waters of the lake, framed by a circle of mountains, the particles are so minute that you'd never know there was anything in the glass clear water. While some hardy souls plunge into the chill shallows to start their day, I decided another hotel tradition was more tempting — an apple roast, warming up around a wood fire as your apple cooks in the flames before peeling the blackened skin off and rolling the chunks in cinnamon sugar.

A final moment of sweetness to end one of the world’s most unforgettable — and indulgent — journeys.

Getting There

The two-day First Passage to the West route, from Vancouver to Banff, costs from £1,389 per person for SilverLeaf service or from £1,897 per person for GoldLeaf Service. Includes two days onboard Rocky Mountaineer, all meals on the train, one night hotel stay in Kamloops, and luggage handling and rail station transfers in Kamloops. Departs between 14 April and 10 October, 2025, packages including stays in Vancouver and Banff or Lake Louise are also available. rockymountaineer.com