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On Saturday this past weekend, I had booked a few months in advance a day trip to Quebec City, mostly as part of my Resources game to go and attack some mines and build some of my own.

I took the train there and back, riding economy on the way there and business class on the way back, the train trip both ways cost 212$. 

The train wasn't full when we left Central Station, conveniently it had double seats on the left and single seats for solo travelers like me, on the right:

Each seat had an above the seat storage spot and a below the seat storage spot. There was also a way to check more significant luggage that would go on a different railcar and be taken out at your destination by Via rail crew.

On the first roughly ten minutes of the ride we parallel the REM and an REM train passed as we were exiting. My mobile device camera wasn't quite at the ready when the best photo would have been taken, but I did catch it here as it was moving faster and further ahead of us:

There were two or three additional stations before the long stretch to Ste-Foy where additional passengers boarded and so the economy part of the train became more full.

Quebec City, way back, used to be a walled city and the walls in some parts of the city are still very visible:

I got a Chic Cola and a La Fumée poutine at Le Chic Shack:

I did not like the Chic Cola, and the poutine was okay, but wasn't traditional in any sense. As I walked around the city both before and after I saw many other places that had a more traditional poutine that I would try if I ever do this trip again.

It was very windy and light rain fell almost for the entire five hours I was in the city, so I did not end up taking as many photos as perhaps I would otherwise have done. Here, for example, is the National Assembly building of our provincial government:

As I had been continuously walking, and the city topography is very up and down, after about four hours of this I had had enough, so I went back to the train station at about 16h15 for the 17h45 scheduled departure. Had it not been rainy and windy, there were numerous places where I could have taken a seat outdoors to rest for half an hour.  The Quebec City station, like a few others, had a business class lounge, so I went in there and as a benefit, for free I consumed a Coke. The train only departed at 18h06 and in the business class railcar there were only four passengers. The railcar itself was not different in any way from the economy car, however, there was a proper meal included and numerous passes by the server to provide alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks of your choice, all included in the fare.

Via Rail has ordered and has already received some brand new train sets but not enough yet to replace every scheduled route. It seems that originally the morning train was supposed to be a new train set, but it was announced on the train that unfortunately it wasn't ready yet. This made no difference to me, I got to where I wanted to end up and got home too.

Fortunately when I got back to my city I was able to catch the metro almost instantaneously and then the bus home again almost instantaneously, and so I got home with hardly any delay at all once we arrived back in Central Station.

I quite enjoyed this trip and I do believe I would do it again, hoping for better weather. The train ride there and back was pleasant and of a very nice duration of between three and four hours. I liked taking business class on the ride back as that ride was during what would be my supper time and so it was nice to have a nice meal. In economy I could have bought a sandwich and a drink but these would have been simple caliber.