Pacific Central Station — Local services in Vancouver

Had a 1 Star interaction and a 5 Star interaction on the same night, averaging out to 3 Stars. With an earlier positive interaction, the final is 3/5.

First interaction was pleasant with a ticket counter employee (from Winnipeg, MB, he said) exchanged our printed tickets. The baggage counter employees (francophones) also gave good information about priority seating.

The second interaction on July 28th was extremely unpleasant. Indian / Punjab security guard loudly antagonized my support person and myself for being seated in the priority boarding area. As my physical/psychological disabilities are invisible usually, he was not able to see that I was having vision complications due to a neurological condition, and that my GAD was already wracked by losing part of my field of vision. He singled us out, and everyone in the busy station was listening to him berate us for being in the section we were entitled to.

My chaperone alerted the manager - a blonde francophone woman - who was very polite and kind with me. I explained that this was the second negative experience I had this month in a Via Rail station, although this was worse than the first (in Halifax, NS). She looked after us until boarding and informed us that she had had issues with the same security guard before, and that she would be doing a follow-up to ensure it doesn't happen again. I hope she holds to this, as it would seem security has done other things (see comments by other users) that are unbecoming of CS staff, and which negatively affect Via...

Bus service is fine and the station is clean and tidy (dutiful employee going around with a duster - fair play that’s a lot of dusting to do). My two stars is because of the vile security guard working in the station. I asked him a simple question “I’m on Amtrack is it a train or a bus? I don’t really know how this works (I’m not from Canada). Do I need to print off a ticket or is the email fine?”

This person barely looked up from his phone and asked “can you time travel?” To which I said no… So he said “then get the bus from over there like everyone else”. I then repeated my question of whether I needed to print off my ticket and he, visibility’s annoyed at my question, responded “no just go over there and wait 25 minutes”. Then he went back to staring at his phone.

I don’t expect a welcome mat and a warm hug from a security guard. But is it really too much to ask for someone to just look at you when speaking to you and not practically snarl at me for asking basic questions. There wasn’t another employee in the place to field my questions to (apart from the cleaner) so he should surely expect to have to deal with members of the public to some degree? Just a...

Came up from Seattle by train to catch a cruise ship. We have a mobility-challenged travel companion and were located in the handicapped car (the one with the wheelchair accessible bathroom). I figured we would be released right after the business class, but no, we were the last car released. That meant we had a really long line to go into the station. Luckily, after waiting a little while, they recognized we needed assistance and escorted us through the line; however, there was very little room on the platform to walk past the line.

Once we got through the customs, we were surprised to find no taxis waiting to pick up passengers. The security guards were nice enough to put out an APB to the major taxi companies. But it makes no sense for the taxis to not come meet the train. And with the mobility needs, not having a dispatcher there meant we had to plead other passengers to give us access to a SUV or minivan taxi.

So, overall, my least favorite train...