This is an autobiographical account of the author’s travels through Canada’s Rocky Mountains on Canada’s most-famous train, The Rocky Mountaineer, with his ten-year-old grandson, Riley.

Published in April 2023 by Greystone Books Ltd. and written by Rick Antonson, this hardback book measures around 15.8 cm x 23.6 cm, and has 280 pages, 17 illustrations, and six maps, all in black-and-white.

It has a published price of £19.99 and is available from Amazon for £17.09.

Although Rick Antonson has travelled by train in over thirty-five countries, he tells in this book how everything he knew about train travel changed when he boarded the Rocky Mountaineer.

He finds that each mile of track was a story of dynamite, discovery, and surveyors, and tells how the railway built through the Rocky Mountains helped to establish Canada despite its vast size.

Rick has the skill to get fellow-travellers to tell their stories as the train passes through a wild mountainous landscape.

His intriguing anecdotes make this book more than a travelogue as fellow passengers recount their own travels by train in other countries and their nostalgia for the age of steam locomotives.

The book has five chapters and a prologue that gives a brief history of the Rocky Mountains.

Chapter I, Junctions, takes the reader back to the 1920s when a predecessor of The Rocky Mountaineer ran from Chicago, then moves forward to the start of Rick’s journey at Banff, the junction of the Canadian National route to Jasper and Prince Rupert, and the Canadian Pacific route that he travelled along to Vancouver.

Chapter II, Westering, tells of both Rick’s journey and the difficulties the railway faced in building the line through the mountains.

In Chapter III, Roundhouse, Rick is in a former steam-age roundhouse in Vancouver, and tells tales about the Chinese immigrants who forged the railway through the mountains.

Chapter IV, North by Northeast, takes Rick and his grandson through the heart of British Columbia to the famous ski resort of Whistler, then continues to Prince George before running parallel to the Fraser River to Jasper in Alberta. Chapter V, IN The Nugget Route, they return to Banff with musings from the ten-year-old Riley about what the mountains really mean to travellers who experience them.

The map below shows Rick and Riley’s travels, but unfortunately the most detailed part of the map coincides with the join in the pages. It would also have benefited if the different parts of the author’s journey were shown in different colours.

The book’s illustrations are let down by being printed on the same type of uncoated paper as the rest of the text.

They are also in black-and-white, whereas the magnificent scenery through which the train passes cry out for the use of colour. At the top left is the author’s companion and co-traveller, his grandson, Riley.

At the top left is the author’s grandson, Riley, who accompanied him through his travels.

The map below shows the various routes taken by different versions of the Rocky Mountaineer train. However, it doesn’t appear until nearly the end of the book, but to get a better appreciation of the author’s travels, it would have been better if this map had been included near the beginning .

The photos below could have come from a travel brochure expounding the attraction of the Rocky Mountaineer, but as in the previous pages, they are sadly let down by being printed in black-and-white on uncoated paper.

If anything sums up a trip on the Rocky Mountaineer, it is the scenes below, where the Rocky Mountains provide a magnificent backdrop to the train running alongside the the Fraser Rover.

This is a thoroughly-entertaining story of travelling through Canada’s vast geography and learning something about its history, and stands out as being more than an ordinary travelogue.

Part autobiography, part travelogue, and part historical, it blends memories of the journey with the history of the lines, while travelling on one of the world’s most famous trains through its dramatic route. Intriguing anecdotes add to the author’s own story.

As a story the book is superb, but is let down by some shortcomings in the publishing process. An excellent map showing the author’s journey, is spoiled by the most detailed part of the map coinciding with a join between the pages, and like others in the book would have benefited from different parts of the journey being shown in different colours.

It is reasonable to expect that if the body of a book is printed on uncoated paper, the illustrations would be printed on art paper.

Unfortunately, in this book not only are they printed on the same type of uncoated paper as the rest of the text, they are also in black-and-white which doesn’t do justice to the magnificent scenery encountered during the author’s journey.

The book is available to purchase from Amazon and from Greystone Books Ltd.

We would like to thank Greystone Books Ltd. for providing us with a copy of the book for review.