Day 4 · km 4,220 from Toronto
Kamloops North
The last stop before Vancouver, and — despite the name — not a stop in Kamloops proper.
The last stop before Vancouver, and — despite the name — not a stop in Kamloops proper.
Kamloops North station sits on the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 5) on the north side of the city, separate from Kamloops' own downtown core. It's a station built for the rail route, not a downtown terminal — don't expect the walkable stop that Jasper offered the day before.
Kamloops North doesn't function as an interchange point for this journey — there's no same-day onward connection to Vancouver from this station separate from staying on The Canadian itself. If your itinerary involves getting off partway and continuing later, that has to be booked as an entirely separate reservation, not treated as a stopover on a single ticket.
This stop typically falls late at night or in the very early hours, the last sleep of the trip before arrival. The scenery through the dry Thompson River interior around Kamloops is a genuine change of landscape from the Rockies the day before, but most of it passes in darkness on the westbound schedule — the descent to the coast the next morning is where the visual payoff comes back.
From Kamloops North, it's roughly 250 km and the final few hours to Vancouver, following the Thompson and Fraser river canyons down to sea level — worth being up for well before the scheduled arrival, since this final descent is scenic in its own right and easy to sleep through if you're not watching for it.