As anyone who has read these occasional jottings is already well aware, I have always been, and likely always will be, a “rail fan.”

That being the case, I figured the time had come for me to get myself the perfect birthday gift – tickets for self and wife Pam on the Credit Valley Explorer, which appropriately bills itself as Southern Ontario’s Most Scenic Tour Train. (It can’t claim to be Ontario’s most scenic, since that title must go to the Agawa Canyon tours out of Sault Ste, Marie.)

However, my visit to the Explorer’s website (creditvalleyexplorer.com) led to a rather significant problem. It appeared that the trip I wanted to take, on Saturday, May 29, had only a single seat left.

Wondering how that could be, I called Steve Gallagher, who likely deserves more credit than anyone else for launching the Explorer in 2004 as something that was then, and still is, unique in Ontario – a tour train that’s operated as a potentially profit-making business.

Steve, who manages the Orangeville- Brampton and Barrie-Collingwood short line railways for Cando Contracting Ltd., suspected that the tour had actually been sold out, but said he would check and give me a call back.

Less than an hour later he was on the line with the good news that a couple of tickets would be waiting for us at the station by 10:30 a.m. And when I tried to volunteer a credit card number, he replied, “No, that’s our birthday present for you.”

Well, it turned out to be everything I’d hoped for and then some. The weather was perfect (sunny and comfortably warm), the service great and the food (a light lunch) fabulous.

And as a bonus, we found ourselves facing a fascinating couple from Burlington. Sandie and Randy had travelled to just about all parts of the world, except for this part of Southern Ontario. A native of the Philippines, Sandie has her own interior decorating firm. Randy, a native of Buffalo who fell in love with Canada while playing in a touring band, is in sales. (His mother, who still lives in Buffalo, called to check up on him while we were aboard the Explorer.)

For those who have never taken the Explorer, there are a few things that should be explained.

One is that the equipment itself is all comparable to the “classic” automobile, having been built in the 1950s when Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways launched new transcontinental trains featuring the latest in technology and best in passenger comfort.

The three coaches owned or leased by Cando were all built for service on CN’s Super Continental and later were employed on BC Rail’s Royal Hudson steam train excursions between North Vancouver and Squamish. Fully air-conditioned, they boast incredibly comfortable seating and huge picture windows as well as an amazingly smooth ride on tracks that are being better maintained by Cando than was the case when the line was owned by CP Rail. The coaches are also being beautifully maintained and now boast a unique maroon and grey color scheme.

As for the tour itself, it is supported by professionally designed , informative brochures that include some interesting history on spots like Alton, Cataract, Forks of the Credit and Inglewood.

For anyone who travels regularly on Highway 10 between Orangeville and Brampton, the route taken by the former Credit Valley Railway (a name that surely should be restored) provides an enormous contrast.

Instead of the highway’s straight line plus dull vistas dominated by huge gravel pits and corporate farms, Explorer passengers find the tracks snaking through wilderness, crossing Orangeville and Osprey Valley golf courses, clinging to cliffs as they leave the Niagara Escarpment and cross over the West Credit at Forks of the Credit, passing along the edge of quaint Boston quaint Boston Mills and emerging on to the fertile plains near Cheltenham.

The train then goes past the Brampton airport and as far south as the former hamlet of Snelgrove at the city’s north end, stopping just north of Mayfield Road, with a new subdivision on one side of the train and a still-open field to the west.

The return trip invariably includes a stopover at Inglewood, with time for the passengers to detrain and visit Inglewood’s General Store, which once served as a railway hotel.

For anyone who would like to try out the Explorer, the best idea is to check out the website and start by viewing an impressive new video that includes some historic steam-age footage and aerial views of the train in motion, as well as some shots taken from the 1950svintage locomotive and even somehow from the roof of the first coach!

The Explorer tours started pretty humbly in 2004, with a single coach and no terminal facilities. Today, patrons find a lovely new station with computerized ticketing, a concrete platform, a lovely paved parking lot (shared with GO Transit) and three coaches complete with washroom facilities.

In July, the Explorer will be offering both mid-week and weekend scenic tours, with departures at 11 a.m. and returns shortly after 2 p.m. In addition, there will be twilight dinner tours each Saturday leaving Orangeville at 5:30 p.m. and returning by about 8:30. The tour on July 3 will feature jazz entertainment.

Mr. Gallagher says the twilight excursions were first tried in 2008 and were offered again last year despite the fact the recession’s advent had left sales below expectations. Sales did pick up in 2009, and he says they have been even better this year.

All this has been without much in the way of an advertising budget, Cando relying mainly on the website, the video and “word of mouth.”

As for the future, the big challenge will be to find a way of offering trips out of Brampton, where there’s a potential of having a station and platform immediately west of a GO Transit parking lot that’s a short walk from the impressive new GO train station.

Although some Orangeville politicians apparently object to the idea of tours ever starting and finishing in Brampton, there’s surely no doubt that excursions based in a city of 500,000, a short walk from trains to and from Toronto, would be immensely successful. They could also benefit Orangeville, especially if they included stopovers in the town of an hour or 90 minutes, with such options as local sightseeing tours and visits to local eateries.

Something else that might well be explored would be special deals for bus tours, which would open up the possibility of using all three coaches on an excursion without running out of the limited parking capacity now found in the GO Transit lot.