SSI 2009

All right, so maybe I should have followed the recommendation that passengers should get to the train station at least 30 minutes before departure. But, really, does anyone but terminally obsessive-compulsive individuals do that? The train going from Toronto to Montreal was scheduled to leave Toronto at 9:30am. I was planning to be at Union Station in Toronto by 9:15. But with this and that, and delays here and there, when I got to the Via Rail ticket office to exchange my computer printout for the actual ticket it was 9:29 by their clock.

They gave me the ticket, saying that I might just make it, but by the time I got to the gate I was told by train officials, sadly shaking their heads, that the train had already pulled out of the station. Bummer! I was not keen on re-enacting one of those scenes in movies where the guy is running behind the train, yelling "Stop! Wait for me!" Maybe if I had my trusty steed . . .

In the event, I have to say that the Via Rail people were very kind, exchanging my supersaver no-exchanges-or-refunds ticket for a ticket for the next train leaving at 11:30am. That's the one I ended up taking, and it got me into Montreal at 5pm, just as the Salon Son & Image's Trade Day was ending. Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day, a day that, as Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables said, has no mistakes in it.