Caption: Built in 1954 as part of a 154 car order to furnish Canadian Pacific's transcontinental train The Canadian, dome-bullet-lounge-observation car "Assiniboine Park" is one of the 18 cars of that type purchased from Budd of Philadelphia to grace the rear of that then-new train. 50 years later, she is still doing just that: sparkling in the morning light on the tail end of VIA train 1, the Canadian, as it waits to board passengers at Toronto's Union Station.

In less than an hour, VIA 1 will depart from the sprawling trackage and GO trains of downtown Toronto, speeding through Northern Ontario on the way to Vancouver at the other side of the continent. A journey that Assiniboine Park is all too familiar with: having crossed Canada countless times since she left the assembly plant back in Red Lion, PA half a century ago.