48 hours 16 minutes

Day One

ELY to TOL (82 miles): Amtrak Lakeshore Limited pulled in to Elyria Station roughly one-half hour late; we pulled out at 0506 on my watch. Only issue here was that the Elyria city government had closed a major intersection just east of the station for roadwork and forced me to go on unfamiliar side streets in the middle of the night; luckily the train embankment forced me onto a street that led down to where old US 20 passes under the tracks, and just after that is the left turn for the station. The only seats open in my car were the ones facing backward used for handicapped persons. I sat down and incredibly no Amtrak crew member told me to leave. I enjoyed the ride thoroughly, as daybreak happened as we passed over the Sandusky Bay causeway.

TOL to DET (64 miles) Amtrak Thruway Bus waiting for us right in front of the door of the Toledo station. Bus went out over 90% full. I've done this bus three times in the past year and we haven't gone the same way from the Toledo station (south of downtown, near the Owens-Illinois corporate campus) to I-75. Bus ride went off without a hitch, with no traffic problems at all. We reached the Amtrak station at the corner of Baltimore Street and Woodward Avenue right on the stroke of 0800.

DET to Via Rail Canada Windsor Station (7.8 miles) I had 5 hours 46 minutes to work my way under the border (as opposed to over the border) and get out to the Windsor train station to start the eastbound legs of my trip. The DET station is typical of Amtrak markets where it was denied access to a large and historic train station and ended up with a makeshift facility that has been there now for decades (like Cleveland, Richmond and South Bend). Fortunately, the new QLine streetcar that runs up and down Woodward Avenue, Detroit's main street, has a station catty corner from Amtrak, and with cars every 10-12 minutes and free to ride, it is a great resource for travelers like me who would rather not drive if possible. However, before I started heading south toward the Detroit River, I explored the area around the former General Motors headquarters, which is on the other sie of Baltimore street from the Amtrak station.

As I am a regular listener of WJR AM 760 in Detroit, one of the really famous radio stations in the United States, over 100 years old), I knew that they broadcast from "the golden tower of the Fisher Building". It turns out that the Fisher Building is 2 blocks west and 2 blocks north of Amtrak at the intersection of Second and Grand Boulevard. It is an impressive and classic skyscraper, although the "golden tower" looked green to me. While I didn't get close to Paul W. Smith (who was on the 22nd floor, I believe), I did go into the lobby of this wonderful building. As for the former GM headquarters, it is now called Cadillac Place and is occupied by Michigan's state government (at least those parts of it not located in Lansing).

Woodward Avenue amazes me. For a city that has been saddled with really terrible reputation as violent and dangerous, I'm not sure that there is another city in the country where one street has as many amazing buildings and exciting attractions as Woodward Avenue. Riding on the QLine, one passes Wayne State University (established 1865), the Detroit Public Library, the Detroit Museum of Art, the David Whitney house, Little Caesar's Arena (NHL Red Wings), Comerica Park (MLB Detroit Tigers), Hockeytown eating and drinking establishment, the Detroit Symphony Hall, the Fox Theatre, Grand Circus Park and Campus Martius Park.

Had I not chosen to travel the way I did, I would have never known about these things. Even though one has to got out of his or her way to travel like this, I truly love rail and public transportation.

Another unique feature of downtown Detroit is the "Detroit People Mover", a driverless two-unit train that runs on an elevated track on a roughly 3 mile circuit in the lower downtown area. The entire circuit takes about 20 minutes to complete. I made an easy connection to this service from the QLine stop at Grand Circus park. It connects to venues like Huntington Place convention center (the former Cobo Hall), the riverfront, the Renaissance Center (the current GM headquarters), the Greektown neighborhood and Indian reservation (which is co-extensive with a high rise casino hotel) and various office buildings and hotels. I rode around 1.5 times and alighted at the Millinder Plaza building, which is across the street from the historic Mariner's Church (established as an Anglican parish in 1842). This is at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Randolph Street. Just behind the church is the entrance to the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. The bus stop for
Transit Windsor's hourly "Tunnel Bus" (route 2222) is directly behind the church, so one has to cross Jefferson and walk on the right hand side of Randolph to a shelter just before the toll plaza.

The bus comes at 41 minutes after each hour, and in my case the bus promptly arrived at 1041. Unlike my previous trip in this tunnel in 2022 which resulted in about $2k in damage to my car, this trip went swimmingly well. On the Canadian side, the bus pulled to a stop right at the door to the immigration station, and not even 10 paces later I was meeting with a CBSA officer. She asked me twice whether I had a gun, which I politely answered in the negative twice. She then let me go on my way. As I still had three hours to go before traintime, I got back on the bus and rode to the city bus hub at 300 W. Chatham Street, where there is a modern lobby with tourist information. The #8 bus for Walkerville, which serves both the VIA station and the airport, leaves from here. As it was such a sunny and pleasant day (temperature about 60F) I decided to walk. The time was 1056, so all of this had only taken 15 minutes. The bus fare is $7.50, payable in either US or Canada money. I paid in Canadian money, so my actual cost was US$5.52. The tunnel toll for cars is US$6.50 (credit card or toll transponder only, no cash).

I stopped at the enormous Caesar's casino/hotel complex about 5 blocks east of the bus hub and changed US money into Canadian dollars at the casino cage (I actually got a fair rate in there, US$100 = C$131 (the international bank rate for $1m transactions was about US$100 = C$136 at the time), so the "juice" was less than 5% (there is a currency exchange office in T5 at ORD that was gouging the uninformed for almost a 20% "vig".

At 1245 I set out for the train station on foot. I could have taken the bus but chose to enjoy the day and get some exercise. It was about 1.75 miles out Riverside Drive then a right turn onto Walker Road for 200 yards to the station. This walk was unique in that it was very scenic (beautiful views of the Detroit River and Belle Isle, part of the city of Detroit), ending up in front of the famous Hiram Walker distillery complex (at one time they used to transport the booze through pipes under the river). The plant weas in production as I walked by, as one could probably get inebrieated just by standing there long enough and inhaling the unique vapors that such a plant emits.

VIA Rail constructed a modern and clean, if spartan, station with free parking (I saw a number of cars with US plates on them). I was greeted by friendly, smiling VIA rail staff. Unlike Amtrak coach tickets which do not have assigned seats, VIA rail does assign you a seat at boarding and allows you to select either aisle or window seats. The coach I traveled in had 2 x 2 seating. The train consisted of one locomotive and six coaches, the front two of which were business class. VIA has three coach fare buckets and two business fare buckets. I got the "escape" bucket (the cheapest non-refundable fare) for C$43 (US$31 on my credit card statement), for the two hour trip to London.

Via has similar trackage rights issues as Amtrak, as most of it runs over rights of way owned by the Canadian National railway. My trip, roughly 118 miles in length with stops at Chatham and Glencoe, was scheduled for 1 hour 52 minutes, but arrived at London station about 25 minutes late just after 4 pm, as our journey was impeded by CN freight trains which had priority (much of our trip was on a single track railway, which was fine until we got east of Glencoe). There was a European-style beverage and snack trolley service that came by my seat once (I passed on it). Seat pitch was much tighter than on Amtrak's long distance trains, but the seat comfort was acceptable. There were no tray tables, despite their clearly being space for them in the seatbacks, which was a bit puzzling.

Via runs four trains each day from Windsor to Toronto, and five each day from London to Toronto.

In London, the station is two blocks south of the centre of the city, so it is extremely convenient. I was able to get a nice accommodation at the London Extended Suites hotel at 362 Dundas Street, about 5 blocks from the station, through hotels.com for US$121 all in (the Delta Armouries hotel across the street was over US$200).

I stopped in London to attend one of the few remaining horse racing tracks I had not previously visited: The Western Fair Raceway This is a 1/2 mile circumference harness racing track that operates between October and May every year. This was the final Friday night of racing for the season and featured the C$150,000 Camluck Classic, the most lucrative race of the year. I had the winners of the second, third and fourth races (all odds-on favorites), only to have my pick 4 ticket blown up by an improbable 80/1 shot named Yoda Queen in the fifth race (paid $162.80 to win and the exacta 6-3 paid $559 for $1). The track had a big crowd and was fun to attend. I hope to go back someday.

The public transit in London worked well for me; the track was located on the #7 bus line, and got me back to my hotel in good shape.

End of day 1.