Originally Posted by
Askartus
This was also our first idea, but the other way round: from Vancouver to Port Hardy, doing some bear watching for a couple of days
here and then the inside passage to PR and the Skeena to Jasper.
Unfortunately the Skeena doesn´t allow much more then hand-baggage anymore, so our suitcase weren´t allowed on the train (reason: no luggage car - confirmed by the VIARail support).
If your traveling in the peak season, the Skeena has a baggage car so 99.9% of luggage will be allowed (certainly anything an airline would accept).
If your traveling non-peak season, the train is usually VERY empty. Sometimes in the single digits of total passengers. The crews are quite good generally and they won't care if you have extra baggage. The baggage rules they came out with are very Toronto centric, they were concerned with people bringing too much baggage for corridor trips between Toronto and Montreal and applied the rules across the whole system ignoring the fact long distance trains have different requirements.
I would seriously doubt you would be turned away if you showed up with reasonably sized luggage. The car has luggage space above your head which is fairly roomy.
http://www.viarail.ca/sites/all/file...omy/index.html
Gives you a bit of an idea of the space available. I believe the economy cars also have luggage racks for larger items.
In the non-peak season, the Skeena is one of the best deals for train travel in Canada. Everyone gets dome access, the fares are cheap and the scenery is fantastic. I hope the baggage issue doesn't scare you away from taking it, if not on this trip than another.