Amtrak to Canada! Business Class on Maple Leaf - New York to Toronto

Note: I realized that I made an incorrect statement at 5:21 when I said the Tappan Zee bridge connects New York and New Jersey. This is in fact not correct, as the bridge connects Tarrytown, NY and Nyack, NY. I apologize for this inaccuracy.

I’m so grateful that services to both Toronto and Montreal have been restored from the U.S.

5:30 Thank you to referring to it as the Tappen Zee but it connects Westchester and Rockland Counties in NY. You’d have to connect to the GSP from the Palisades to reach NJ

The reason that Empire Service was being pulled by the Lake Shore Limited is likely because it broke down on the way. Occasionally you will see this on the Empire Corridor in New York when one Empire Service train breaks down it will be picked up by another train.

The tracks at Niagara Falls (Canada) station are maintained by CN but the only track users are GO Transit and Via Rail. So CN only does the bare minimum maintenance, resulting in overgrown tracks with a 10 mph (16 km/h) speed limit. The international bridge is jointly owned by VIA Rail and Amtrak.

Oops, the Tappen Zee bridge is between Westchester and Rockland Counties in NY, not New Jersey.

Great video and Moynihan Train Hall is beautiful. Next time I visit New York City I will take the plane out but return to Toronto on the Amtrak train. I saw the schedule the train leaves New York 7:15 AM in the morning and arrives Toronto 7:43 PM in the evening. Coach is $134 and Business is $169.

Glad you featured West Point as one of the landmarks on your trip. My grandfather attended and graduated there before joining the army as a Calvary scout officer during the era of world war 2. Before I joined the railroading field, he told me of how he used to ride the original New York Central on the line I work on, as his main way getting to and from the Academy, before they soon sent him out elsewhere on the PRR

Modern infrastructure mats are used under the gravel to make plant growth impossible by impeding sunlight and photosynthesis , the station hasn’t been modernised it seems ✌️❤️🇬🇧

I'm taking the Maple Leaf to Niagara Falls Ontario in just under two weeks. Really looking forward to the ride.

Hopefully you'll go for a trip on VIA's 'The Canadian' to give some of those "old Budd sleepers" a try ;)

Talk about timing. I was about to book tickets for this. Issue is I didn't realize Amtrak asks for your passport number while booking which sucks when it's still being mailed to you. That put a pin in some planning for my friend. <_< Still hoping to manage the booking proper in a few days. :)

I rode the Maple Leaf in October 2017 way before the Pandemic. It was a very enjoyable and very relaxing train ride to Toronto. It was my first time going to Canada by train. Going through customs in both countries was straight forward but It took much longer with the US Customs on the trip back. The only difference was that I was in coach but it was a pretty quiet ride. I'll ride it again on my next trip to Canada.

I see this train pass over Twelve Mile Creek in St. Catharines daily from my house, just 3 minutes from the stattion. Thanks for this! :)

The Moynihan Train Hall is absolutely a work of art. The James A. Farley Building was designed by McKim, Mead & White alongside the original Penn Station, so I'm glad they decided to take advantage of the beautiful space and balances old with the new. The hall is named after Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US senator who had originally championed the plan, so naming it after him was a nice tribute. I especially love that the Metropolitan Lounge has a balcony, so you can snack on the free goodies while taking in the train hall. I also like the cool headhouse clock and the breakdancing stained-glass artwork Go inspired by the 18th century ceiling frescoes of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and honors breakdancing's roots in NYC. I'm glad you referred to the bridge as the Tappan Zee Bridge. The name honors the heritage of the area. Tappan Zee is also the name of the geographic feature itself, so no matter the name of the bridge, you're still going over the Tappan Zee! Tappan comes from the Tappan tribe of the Lenni Lenape, while the Zee part is Dutch for sea, referring to the fact Henry Hudson thought this widening of the river was the beginning of the Northwest Passage. Also, the western side of the bridge isn't NJ (though it is close to the border) but rather Rockland County which is still NY. There is a pretty big mall in Rockland called Palisades Center with an indoor Ferris wheel, climbing course, ice rink, and a double-decker carousel.

The Palisades are a sight to see! The basalt cliffs are the margin of a diabase sill, formed about 200 million years ago at the close of the Triassic period! This was formed by the intrusion of molten magma upward into sandstone. The molten magma then cooled and solidified before reaching the surface. Water erosion of the softer sandstone left behind the columnar structure of harder rock that exists today as the Hudson Palisades! And wouldn't you believe at one point in time, streetcars were able to tackle these cliffs to serve the people who lived on top? The North Hudson County Railway in NJ used everything from an elevated trestle, funicular wagon lifts, and an elevator! Tackling the cliffs this way was an engineering feat, especially for the time. Other facts for the things you saw along the way: Every day at West Point, a staff of over 200 people cooks and serves more than 13,000 meals for the 4,400 Army cadets attending the school! Schenectady is notable for being the former headquarters of General Electric and the American Locomotive Company, which is why its motto is "The city that lights and hauls the world". The current Toronto Union Station is its third iteration as the first one opened in 1858, replaced in 1873, and the third opened in 1927. It was designed by Ross and Macdonald who also worked on Ottawa's Château Laurier.

WOW! What a difference a quarter of century makes about customs inspection makes! When my wife and I went to Toronto, we stayed in the car while the customs agents went through the cars. They removed some passengers though.

Taken the Maple Leaf the whole way north twice now - both times there was at least one Amfleet 2 on the consist. Last time I headed north, I booked business between the border and Toronto since it was only a dollar extra, and quite honestly I liked the Amfleet 2 coach seats better than the Business/cafe seats. Also, odd you got a sniffer dog check, that didn’t happen to me either time!

5:21 the tappan zee bridge goes between new york and new york

So a couple items to note for you. The station in Niagara falls proper is owned by Via, tracks by CN. The lack of care for weeds is the same for most rail lines in Canada that only see a few trains. The Canadian government has limited the amount of pesticides and herbicides that can be used, so that is one reason why. The Budd cars and Blue Sleeper (Edmunston) are owned as part of thw Via Historical Society, and LRC engine is owned by the TRHA (soon to be going to VHA) at Mimico.