Soon you will be able to virtually travel aboard a unique train across Northern Ontario from the comfort of your own home. Journalist Warren Schlote interviews the film’s executive producer, Mitch Azaria.
When Via Rail Canada’s Budd car pulls up in the wilderness of northern Ontario, no one knows what will come out of the baggage car: half a dozen canoes, bait from a fishing lodge for the week or even a new essential device for a bush camp.
These scenes and more are the focus of an upcoming documentary that showcases one of Canada’s most unique rail services.Trigger train 185 takes viewers on a journey between Sudbury and White River, Ontario, inspired by a unique slow-motion television format that is gaining worldwide popularity.
Trigger train 185 is the fourth episode of TVO Triggering series, which takes people on a real-time journey through various regions of Ontario. There’s no music, no narration — just natural sounds and occasional pop-ups or text animations for historical context.
The film features Via Rail Canada’s Budd car service. It stretches approximately 480 kilometers through the wilderness, with only a handful of communities along the line. The route encounters only a handful of forest access roads along its length, with crossings 55 kilometers apart.
It’s unlike anything you can imagine being on a train. What you see is great.— Mitch Azaria, Executive Producer
“I think the 185 train is Ontario’s, maybe Canada’s, best-kept secret,” said Mitch Azaria, executive producer of Good Earth Productions, which directed the film.
Trigger train 185 premieres April 7 at 7 p.m. on TVO.
For some, the railway is the only land access to the rest of the country from the heart of Northern Ontario. The train makes “flag stops” anywhere on the line for pickups and drop-offs, depending on passenger needs.
Train 185’s combination of remote stopping service and its seven-decade-old equipment makes it a unique train on the continent. It typically operates a set of two or three Budd Rail diesel cars, which are essentially a locomotive and wagon combined into one compact unit.
The Budd Company made about 400 between the 1940s and 1960s, but only a handful are in active service in North America.
“The train is historic,” Azaria said, saying the journey takes passengers “back in time.”
An immersive movie
Azaria and her team filmed this documentary during a few trips, including a segment during a winter storm. The film offers an engineer’s point of view, as well as aerial shots of the train gliding through the wilderness.
There are scenes of the crew loading the baggage car and footage from the ground as people disappear with their canoes – and even a newly delivered barbecue – in tow.
There is also an animation of a school car, which was once used to educate children living far from cities.
The documentary is inspired by a style of Norwegian cinema known as slow television. These productions show their subjects in real time, often spanning hours or even days. One production, in 2013, aired for more than two consecutive weeks.
Azaria said he views his series as “immersive” television, since his films are edited from the full runtime of the original actions. Trigger train 185for example, shows three hours of the train’s seven-hour journey, including scenes from parts of the train reserved for the crew.
“It’s unlike anything you can imagine on a train. What you see is great,” Azaria said.
The first movie of the Triggering was a four-hour ride on the Rideau Canal in a vintage wooden motorboat. The next two were three hours long, with a bird’s eye view of the Niagara River and a sailboat tour of the Bruce Peninsula.
Azaria said he hopes his film will inspire people to take this train journey.
L’original Triggering film on the Rideau Canal drew 1.2 million viewers on opening night, according to TVO.
He said he wanted to see more people using the service, especially as the future of the train itself is uncertain.
Via Rail scrapped its only other car route Budd, on Vancouver Island, in 2011. This company also started major investigations in the crashworthiness of its Budd stainless steel passenger cars.
A similar remote and flag-stop train on the former Algoma Central Railway closed in 2015.
Via Rail’s Sudbury-White River service operates three round trips per week.
