Steve

Apparently a VIA train evacuated after an engine fire last night just outside Ottawa. Not only did the passengers have to walk nearly 2km down the tracks to reach buses, but the wreck is still on that single-line stretch today and disrupting rail travel between Ottawa and Toronto.

Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt and the engineers (who initially tried to fight the fire before abandoning the train and supervising the evacuation) only suffered minor smoke inhalation.

-- Steve finds it all too easy to imagine himself trying to schlepp baggage through blackfly-infested swamps.

My final leg back to London is late... at least a half hour. This means getting home at 10:00 pm at the earliest.

-- Steve thinks he'll just flop into bed upon arrival.

I just got off the phone from VIA, and they changed my (non-refundable, non-exchangeable) reservation in a touch more than a minute. Admittedly my newly-minted Preferance membership might've helped move me to the front of the phone queue, which may have shaved some time off, but the rest was simply asking for the date change on my return trip and the operator very promptly and politely making the change. I was going to say "no questions asked," but there was one... she asked if I wished to change the departure date as well. Even the times on the trains, and my seat assignments, were unaffected.

Now, to see if Delta will be as accomodating...

-- Steve's hoping so. He's had enough curve-balls thrown at him with this stuff.

The VIA strike is over, effective tonight. Both sides have agreed to binding arbitration, and trains will start rolling again tonight.

VIA's site looks to still offer refunds and changes to reserved tickets while waiving service fees. I may take advantage of that and extend my trip by one day so that I can attend that tour of the Canadian Space Agency offered by the convention; otherwise my tickets were nonrefundable and unalterable. If I get any hassle on that, though, I'll just scrub 'em and go with Porter... though instead of taking the bus I'll take the train to Union Station.

-- Steve wishes this hadn't turned into a roller coaster, but now that it's steady again he'll take maximum advantage of whatever is offered. Dammit, the public is owed that.

There might be a railway strike this Friday.

*sigh* It looks like I might not be taking the train to Worldcon this year. It's too early to start laying in fertilizer, diesel fuel, rat poison, and scrap metal panicking but it isn't too early for me to start considering alternate means of getting to Montreal in exactly two weeks.

Whatever those means might be... *sigh* I hate long-haul buses.

-- Steve really, really didn't need that right now.

I just ordered a whole whack of reservations for train travel over the summer... and got some rather good prices too for ordering in advance.

The big prize is my trip to Montreal this August; I got the "supersaver" discount for advanced purchase plus the delightful 10% convention discount, and I may even have gotten the 10% discount for paying with my Visa card... so my return fare for Business class seating (meals and taxes inclusive) was $243.81. (Hee, I just noticed that I even got window seats each way.)

If it'll get you to where you need to go, rail just works.

-- Steve's wondering if these'll accrue points to his just-requested Via Preferance account, or if he should've signed up for the points program first. Oh well, it had to be done anyway.