In case anyone's interested in what business class on Via Rail is like I travelled between Montreal and Toronto in business class last week (in a refurbished LRC carriage) and made the following observations:
- There are huge overhead bins for luggage, like on larger planes.
- Seating is 2+1 with leather seat cover and lots of leg room. If you're in a pair of seats there's a small table between the seats with a cup holder for each passenger. There's also a fold down table on the back of the seat in front for most of the seats.
- Coffee is served in a mug not a throwaway container.
- There was a choice of 3 lunch options, served with a glass of wine - again a real glass not a throwaway container.
- Strangely there were two toilets in the carriage, a universal toilet and a ladies toilet.
- Wifi was available and there's the option to view TV shows via a special webpage which you can only access when connected to Via Rail wifi.
- Charging points were available at all seats.
- Everyone's allocated a seat but I overhead another passenger asking if he could change where he was sat and the staff told him which seats were unallocated for the entire journey.
- You get access to the business lounges where hot and cold drinks, newspapers, magazines and apples were available.
And something very strange I was sat next to an emergency exit window so I had a member of staff explain to me exactly how the window should be broken in an emergency!
The ticket price was equivalent to around £65 single so seemed very reasonable for business class considering the length of the journey.
- There are huge overhead bins for luggage, like on larger planes.
- Seating is 2+1 with leather seat cover and lots of leg room. If you're in a pair of seats there's a small table between the seats with a cup holder for each passenger. There's also a fold down table on the back of the seat in front for most of the seats.
- Coffee is served in a mug not a throwaway container.
- There was a choice of 3 lunch options, served with a glass of wine - again a real glass not a throwaway container.
- Strangely there were two toilets in the carriage, a universal toilet and a ladies toilet.
- Wifi was available and there's the option to view TV shows via a special webpage which you can only access when connected to Via Rail wifi.
- Charging points were available at all seats.
- Everyone's allocated a seat but I overhead another passenger asking if he could change where he was sat and the staff told him which seats were unallocated for the entire journey.
- You get access to the business lounges where hot and cold drinks, newspapers, magazines and apples were available.
And something very strange I was sat next to an emergency exit window so I had a member of staff explain to me exactly how the window should be broken in an emergency!
The ticket price was equivalent to around £65 single so seemed very reasonable for business class considering the length of the journey.