The 325 mile journey from the environs of Montreal and the southern Ottawa Valley to Georgian Bay takes about 9 hours by train.  The trip cannot be hurried as the narrow gauge track, while well maintained and built to a moderate grade profile, is light and wide heavy passenger cars are not designed for comfortable high speed travel.  Nonetheless, a 35 mph average for the trip is quite reasonable in light of normal speeds on the surrounding railroads. Only the Grand Trunk’s crack varnish between Toronto and Montreal consistently turns in average speeds that are significantly faster. 

A 9 hour trip each way is somewhat awkward for a daily round trip of the equipment.  If it is done in a single 24 hour stretch, then sleepers would be carried empty on one of the two halves. The ultimate solution for scheduling is to provide a connection for late afternoon or evening arrivals in Montreal and an overnight trip up to Georgian Bay with an early morning arrival. Then to leave late in the day for the trip east again making an overnight run for morning connections on the way home.

Once the scheduling was settled, the rest of the planning could proceed relatively easily. The planned service would run three times a week going west for arrival at Georgian Bay on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings while coming east on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.  Since the train would leave in the evening and arrive in the early morning in each direction, no dining car would be required as full meals would be available at the excellent station restaurants before departure and at arrival.  Light collations should however be available on board the train.

The train should offer a high standard of accommodation precluding coaches in an all sleeper consist.  There is, however, an important and lucrative mail contract plus considerable very profitable express traffic. Although local express between points will not be carried due to the first class nature of the train, express destined for shipment on the steamships will be taken.  This will simply add some head end tonnage to the train.