DAY TWO:

I woke up at daybreak and checked out of the hotel by 6 am. I spent the next 90 minutes or so wandering around downtown London, getting over to the Thames River on the west side of the downtown (the Thames flows westward through Chatham and on into Lake St. Clair). London is an old fashioned city where there are still retail establishments and many restaurants in the central business district. The local sports arena, Budweiser Gardens, was in the center of town, as well as a large indoor farmers' market (Covent Garden Market). One thing that struck me was the number of high rise (20+ story) residential buildings in or near the center of town); quite different from similar-sized US cities like Grand Rapids or Fort Wayne. I felt comfortable and safe wandering around.

Train time for the VIA Rail service to Toronto Union Station was 0750 (120 miles); it was on time (it had originated at Windsor). The train stopped at Ingersoll, Woodstock, Brampton, Aldershot (near Hamilton) and Oakville before terminating in downtown Toronto. I sat in the last car of the 6 car train, which appeared to be at capacity (I'm guessing 80 passengers in the car). My train fare this morning in the Escape bucket was US$51. It was a pleasant trip; we were maybe five minutes late arriving in Toronto.

Union Station is a sprawling complex, with a classic century+ old main train hall and at least two subterranean floors of shops and services. The exit to the Toronto subway was down a flight of stairs folllowed by an escalator ride to a lower floor. I learned that I could buy a senior Presto card (similar to the Oyster and Smartrip cards in London UK and Washington) at a Shoppers Drug Mart store in a shopping arcade connected to the Toronto Subway "Union" station. For 65s and up, this is a good deal, as transit fares are discounted by 50% or more. The card is good on Toronto's subways, streetcars and buses, as well as on the regional commuter rail service GO.

I decided to misspend my adulthood once again at the equine establishment known as Woodbine, one of North America's finest racetracks. I got out there in 80 minutes via Toronto Subway Lines 1 and 2, alighting at Islington station in Toronto's west end and connecting to bus 37, which conveniently stops near one of Woodbine's entrances. I stayed for the first three races, and actually hit the daily double which paid $49 for $2. Sadly I lost a photo finish in the third race or I would have hit the Pick 3. I did win enough on the second race (I also had the exacta and trifecta) to purchase a souvenir shirt, and so I viewed the trip as a success. I retraced my transit trip and got back to Union Station around 1630, in time for the next aspect of my trip.

GO COMMUTER RAIL --Toronto to Niagara Falls, ON (approximately 92 miles)

GO only runs a couple of through trains per day to the Niagara Falls station, about 1/4 mile west of the Niagara River and 1 1/2 miles north of the Rainbow Bridge. My senior PRESTO card worked on this service, and my train fare was only about C$7.70, which was a real bargain. I tapped the card on the disc mounted on a post as I entered Union Station platform 13 and touched the card on a similar device as I alighted from the train in Niagara Falls. I was not visited by train staff the entire trip. We stopped at a few commuter stations between Toronto and Hamilton such as Exhibition, Port Credit, Burlington and Aldershot, but interestingly did not stop in Hamilton (despite rolling through the southern districts of that city for several miles), only stopping once more on the outskirts of St. Catherine's before arriving in Niagara Falls about 2 hours 20 minutes after departure justs before 1925 The train was clean if a bit slow, but the operators of GO erected head-high plexiglass dividers between seats in the 2 x 2 configuration of most of the train, making most of the seats extremely uncomfortable for horizontally-challeged people like me. I did find two seats together on the upper level of one of the cars which didn't have such a divider, and was comfortable there. The train I was on was maybe 10% full by the time we reached the end of the journey.

About 1/2 block from the GO train station is a bus station which serves two local services, WEGO (they sell passes for $12 per day and serve as a tourist bus service), the local city bus, and Megabus, which had a bus which was timed to meet the GO train and then travel to New York City (arriving there at 0440 the next morning)

I tried to buy a one-way ticket on WEGO but was refused. When I told the driver I was trying to get to the US border and just needed a ride to the Rainbow Bridge, she relented and let me on. Less than 10 minutes later I was on the bridge span headed for New York state. My goal was to make a public transit bus bound for Buffalo which stopped in front of the Sheraton hotel about 5 blocks from the US end of the bridge scheduled for 2009, but decided that it was pretty tough to rush across the bridge and not marvel at the spectacle of the waters of the Great Lakes falling over 180+ foot high cliffs into the chasm below.

As I crossed the bridge I encountered a single file line of at least 100 persons seeking to clear immigration on the Canada side. By contrast, when I reached the US CBP checkpoint, there was only one man in front of me waiting to be interviewed. My encounter with CBP was fast and cordial, and I was free to leave by 2015. Just to the east of the Sheraton is the high-rise Seneca Niagara Casino, and I went in there to change my Canadian dollars back to US money. I won a few bucks in there, went and had dinner, and made the 2209 bus (which arrived two minutes early). The bus is operated by Niagara Frontier Transit Authority (NFTA Metro), Bus #40, runs all the way to an indoor transit hub station at 100 N. Division Street in downtown Buffalo. The distance was approximately 21 miles, the fare was $2.00, and the journey took 57 minutes.

As I had missed the 2009 bus, I knew that there would not be a public transit option to the Amtrak station served by the Lake Shore Limited in the Buffalo suburb of Depew (somewhat near BUF airport) 10.6 miles east, and luckily enough there was a taxi outside the bus station, and the congenial cabbie got me out there quickly (fare was $41 before tip).

The last leg of the trip was the westbound Lake Shore Limited, scheduled to depart Depew at 0039 and arrive in Elyria at 0432, a distance of approximately 206 miles, with stops at Erie and Cleveland. My fare for this segment was $54.00. As it turned out, our train had run into delays in the Syracuse area, and never quite made up the time. We departed at 0135 and were actually making up time until we hit a red signal near Painesville, Ohio, 25 miles east of Cleveland. As a result, we arrived back in Elyria at 0521. Amtrak's coach seats are more comfortable and have more pitch than the VIA seats. As my car was parked just a few feet away from where I detrained in Elyria, I was home with 25 minutes and sound asleep a few seconds thereafter.

VERDICT--I love trips like this. In a certain way, I feel I have more freedom than if I am driving my own car from place to place and having to worry about driving in strange cities. I traveled over 700 miles in just over 48 hours, on 5 different inter-city trains and one inter-city bus. I experienced the public transit systems of Detroit, Windsor, London, Toronto, Niagara Falls ON and Buffalo-Niagara Falls. I took a streetcar, a driverless people mover, transit buses and subways. I traveled through an international tunnel and walked across an international bridge. In short, it was a blast!!!

I'm going back to Canada in September; I'm going to work my way from St. John's, Newfoundland & Labrador back to northeast Ohio by bus, overnight ferry, a series of buses, and then VIA Rail's "Ocean" sleeper train followed by Amtrak trains from Montreal to Schenectady and Schenectady to Cleveland. I'll be on the Trans-Canada Highway across Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, ending my bus trip in Amherst, NS (on the New Brunswick border) and starting my train adventure there. I'll photograph the provincial capital buildings in St. John's, Halifax and Charlottetown. I'll eat lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Maybe I'll even get to see a moose (I've been to Alaska, the Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Idaho, Montana, the upper peninsula of Michigan and northern Maine and have yet to see a moose). I've got air and rail booked. I can't wait.