Driving in Nova Scotia

[Scott Fybush]

Doug Drown wrote:
> The Portland-to-Yarmouth ferry is gone, too --- I think it was 
> discontinued before The Cat was introduced. I agree with all of you on 
> the Board.  I can't believe available riders aren't out there.  Someone, 
> somewhere, could still do a big business with this.
> There hasn't been train service to the Maritimes in about fifteen years, 
> either, since The Atlantic Limited across Maine was discontinued (after 
> 103 years).

This is my cue to bemoan the premature demise of the ferry service we 
briefly enjoyed from Rochester to Toronto a few years back. The 
execution was terrible - they commissioned a brand-new ferry that was 
much too big, which meant a limited and ultimately rather inconvenient 
schedule. And the private operators who initially worked with the city 
of Rochester turned out to be crooks, which doomed the service. But it 
was fantastic while it lasted - 2 hours of relaxation across the lake 
instead of 4+ hours of traffic and border delays driving around it. In 
its second, and final, season of service it was operated under contract 
to the city of Rochester by the same "Cat" ferry operators who were 
doing the Maine/NS service.

ObRadio: I did get the chance to test out radio reception from the 
ferry, twice, and it wasn't very exciting - it hugged the south shore of 
the lake for most of the ride before turning north toward Toronto, so 
there wasn't much to hear beyond the usual Buffalo/Toronto signals.

s