Flashback: Riding the Rails Ottawa Style

This post originally appeared last August and we thought we'd share it again! Going for a trip on the O-Train is such a fun idea for kids. And you get to spend two hours going back and forth over and over, as long as the kids stay interested! :) by Alison

My son is into vehicles. He loves to point out buses as they go by, and garbage day is cause for huge excitement. But trains are his favourite! He enjoyed taking the Metro on a recent trip to Montreal, and we thought that maybe the O-Train would have the same attraction.

It did!

We drove to the Greenboro Park and Ride, besides the South Keys shopping area on Bank St. The parking lot was quite full in the mid-morning, but we found space. A ticket for the O-Train costs $2.85, children 11 and under ride for free. This ticket is then transferable to the bus. We waited at the platform for less than 5 minutes, good timing on our part as the trains run every 15 minutes.

The O-train was very spacious and pretty quiet. The seats are in sets of 4 or 2, so you can ride forwards or backwards. There was enough space under the seat to store our umbrella stroller. The train ride was just over 10 minutes each way. The train makes 5 stops in total and goes through two tunnels and a trench. It also crosses the Rideau River at Carleton which is pretty. At Bayview Station we stayed on the train and rode it back to our car.

All in all, for less than $3 we had a very enjoyable morning. Our next task is to track down the elusive double-decker OC Transpo bus and go exploring.

Alison is a mom of two energetic children, ages 5 and 1. She just started a blog, Ali’s Adventures.