Saguenay part one

Late last year I looked into what kinds of vacations could I take that do not involve owning a car, so that limits me to airplane, bus or train. Of course for train our only option here is Via Rail, and that is when I discovered that there is a train that goes two or three times a week back and forth between Saguenay and my city.

I booked this week off work and booked my train tickets and lodging months ago. Originally my trip there was supposed to leave at 7h30 and arrive at 18h52 and my return trip on Thursday was leaving Saguenay at 8h58 and returning at 19h46.

Due to the rails being affected by summer heat, I received a notice of a schedule change for both train rides from Via Rail. Now my trip there was to be 15h15 -> 2h13 next morning and my trip home will be 22h50 -> 9h38 the next morning. While arriving after 2am is not great, departing on Thursday at 22h50 means I get a whole extra day there.

My apartment was getting warm and so I left two buses earlier than I needed to to get to Central Station which is air conditioned. I arrived there without a problem, an hour before my 15h15 departure, which then became a 15h30 departure, and the time kept getting bumped up piecemeal like that until:

Right at the top you can see boarding 17h with departure at 17h05, however, the time shows 17h03 and we still hadn't begun boarding.

We were only about 20 passengers in our 601 railcar and only a handful in the 603. This made it so that boarding was very quick and we ended up truly departing at 17h09.

603 was going to Senneterre while 601 was going to Jonquiere, so the two trains are joined together and share the first eight stations, and then 603 separates to head west while 601 continues north. Well, we got to a certain spot where the engine for 603 encountered some kind of problem, so in order to separate the two trains we had to go to the nearest double-track which was behind us by about 20 minutes. So somewhere near Hervey we went backwards for 20 minutes and then finally we passed the 603 train and were on our way again.

I disembarked the train at 4h41 this morning and had no trouble walking to the Auberge le St-Georges where I am staying. Once I found out that my arrival would be significantly delayed I emailed them, and they accommodated this delay by putting the keys in a mailbox out the front door that I was able to get to let myself into the building and into my room.

The Auberge is adjacent to the Riviere aux Sables and on it within the Jonquiere area are two hydro power facilities.

At the second one, which was higher up the river further away from the Saguenay river they had these machines at the top that would, I suppose, automatically raise or lower the baffle in order to control the level of the water behind the dam. I could hear one of them in motion as I was passing, but I was unable to see any difference in the flow rate below.

I did considerable walking around Jonquiere today spending four hours walking without hardly ever stopping. I walked through the campus of CEGEP de Jonquiere, on the multi-purpose path along the Riviere aux Sables, and a fair distance down Rue St-Pierre and Blvd Harvey.

On the train ride here I bought a couple of snacks and my credit card didn't work to pay for them, though, it is possible it failed because of our train being out in the wilderness. At the Auberge this morning my credit card failed but he had an alternative way of keying in the number that allowed it to charge successfully. At A&W for lunch today my credit card failed. Fortunately I brought cash with me as a back up, which worked for the train and A&W, but it also means the amount of cash that I brought is now greatly diminished. Presuming my CC won't work at all this trip I will get more cash. Fortunately my plan for tomorrow already was to take the #3 bus to Chicoutimi and there is my brand of bank there (there is none here in Jonquiere).

I have been messaging the ePlancul woman who lives here that I am hoping to meet, and she said she is having a bad day at work and doesn't want a first date with me to be on such a day. Hopefully she changes her mind or that it does work out for tomorrow.

Due to my poor sleep on the train and my late arrival this morning I am going to have a nap and then maybe go for another shorter walk after the sun sets.