On September 15th and 16th, 2021, I made a quick trip to Windsor, Ontario and back. I went down and back by train, departing and returning from Oakville on VIA Rail.

The trip to Windsor was aboard VIA Rail train #73. The train consisted of F40PH-2 #6405, four LRC coaches, and one VIA1 club car, with F40PH-2 #6426 bringing up the rear. The train would return to Toronto from Windsor in the evening and would not need to be turned around.

The train departed Oakville a couple of minutes late but we would make up the time within a short period of time.

As this was a lunch run, I decided upon the pasta dish for lunch which came with cheese.

With my lunch, I had some nice white wine.

On the way to Windsor, we made stops in Aldershot, Brantford, Woodstock, London, Glencoe, and Chatham.

Between Chatham and Windsor, we get a great view of Lake St. Clair. It’s not the easiest to get pictures when you are speeding past the lake at 90 MPH, but here are a couple of pictures:

There are also some inlets where people keep boats:

In Windsor, I stay at the Best Western Plus hotel which is located downtown on the Detroit River.

The hotel provided great views of the Detroit River and Detroit, Michigan:

The night views were incredible:

The morning view was also very nice:

The Detroit River connects Lake Erie with Lake St. Clair, which means that it also sees a number of ships, both Lake Freighters and Ocean Freighters, as they travel to various points on the Great Lakes.

Two ships that I was able to get pictures and video of were the MV Edenborg and MV Sam Laud:

The MV Edenborg:

And later on, when I went for a walk, the MV Sam Laud:

Before dinner, I went for a walk along the river, through Dieppe Park.

Located up the street from the hotel was the site of the former Canadian National Railway (CNR) railway station for Windsor.

In the area where the station was located is a 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive, former CNR #5588, the “Spirit of Windsor”:

Also in the area are the ramps used by the CNR for their former car ferry that used to transport freight cars between Windsor and Detroit. I grabbed some pictures:

Dinner was at The Keg, just down the street from the hotel. Dinner was a garden salad, medium rare prime rib (with strong, and I mean STRONG, horseradish), and their Billy Miner dessert (a slice mocha ice cream cake.)

On September 16th, I returned home aboard VIA Rail’s train #72. The train consisted of F40PH-2 #6401 (now the oldest F40 locomotive on VIA Rail’s roster), one VIA1 club car, and three LRC coaches. We departed Windsor right on time at 08:48, with stops in Chatham, Glencoe, London, Ingersoll, Woodstock, Brantford, and Aldershot.

Lunch for the trip home was sole with potatoes and carrots and white wine.

When we arrived in Oakville, I got off and went to get a video of the train departing Oakville for Toronto. I got lucky, as train #73 was arriving at the same time, so I was able to get a video of train #73 arriving and then train #72 departing immediately:

All-in-all a good trip.

Here is a video highlighting my trip (including video not seen above):