Seeing Canada by rail: Green leader brings retro touch to modern campaign trail

May is staging the first cross-Canada whistle-stop tour since former prime minister John Diefenbaker's iconic trips in the 1960s, and life on the rails has seen May forgo the carefully staged photo-ops and scripted announcements of her counterparts.

"There's no barriers - I'm not in some enclosed cocoon away from the journalists and other passengers, whom I hope can tolerate what's going on," May said Monday while staring out the observation deck out as the train snaked through Alberta's Rockies.

"This kind of campaigning is high-risk but high-reward. (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper takes no risks. He screens these so-called average Canadian families for photo-ops or backdrops for whatever announcement he's making. The whole thing is so staged and phoney - this is real."

May left Vancouver on Sunday evening on a trip that will take her through eight provinces, arriving in Nova Scotia by the weekend.

While party leaders are often kept at a safe distance from reporters and photographers, it was next to impossible for May to avoid the dozen or so journalists along for the ride as the train clattered along the tracks. May's rented passenger cars were added to a regularly scheduled Via run.

Between stops, May could be found chatting with reporters about her favourite train movies ("Some Like It Hot" and "Silver Streak"), editing her daughter's blog for the party website or passing out locally grown organic peaches that a supporter handed her at one of her whistle stops.

The trip even doubled as a family vacation, with May's 17-year-old daughter and 13-year-old grandson along for the ride.

And even the planned moments required some adjusting.

When supporters unexpectedly showed up at the station in Mission, B.C., May's staff persuaded the train's crew to let her step out for a few minutes and say hello to about 20 people waiting in dark.

A dozen people, including the local Green candidate, were left waiting in the rain in Agassiz, B.C., when the crew decided there wasn't enough time for a lengthy stop. The same thing happened in Hinton, Alta., where May was able to pop her head out of the train and give a brief wave.

May seemed a little worried no one would show up at a planned 3 a.m. rally in Kamloops, and looked genuinely surprised when she stepped off the train to see several dozen people, some dressed in pyjamas and bathrobes, staring back at her holding signs and banners under the warm glow of the train's lights.

"I think that John Diefenbaker had his own car and didn't need to make any stops at two in the morning, so I would say we are making history," she told the collection of tired faces.

May disappeared for a couple of hours before that late-night stop for a quick nap while Adriane Carr, the Greens' deputy leader and candidate for Vancouver Centre, watched "Festival Express," a documentary about the train that carried several musicians, including Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, across Canada in the early 1970s.

The TV cameras chasing May around the train received some bemused looks, but most passengers seemed indifferent about the whole thing.

Bob and Anna Scott, two Britons who live in Greece, said their curiosity was piqued by a rally at the Via Rail station in Vancouver, with the loud skirl of bagpipes, but by Day 2 on the train they had pretty much tuned the reporters out.

"It's pretty obvious what it is, I mean we don't know who the lady is, it doesn't mean anything to us," said Bob Scott, a 69-year-old retiree.

"We just keep seeing 'Vote Green,' 'Vote Green' - does that mean she's called Green or you're the Green party or what?" added his 66-year-old wife.

Using a train instead of a chartered jet to mount a cross-country tour is considerably cheaper for the Green party than air travel.

And May is quick to point out it will also bring her to smaller communities that the other party leaders likely won't be visiting.

"Anyone remember the last time a federal party leader came through Mission?" she asked supporters gathered to meet her there.

The Green leader is also using the tour to highlight her call for upgrades to Canada's rail system. Her party's platform calls for $1 billion for rail improvements.

On Monday evening, the train stopped in Edmonton, where May met several dozen supporters and called for Canada to take a greater role in encouraging nuclear disarmament. She was joined by Douglas Roche, a former Senator who was Canada's ambassador on disarmament to the United Nations.

The train was scheduled to cross Saskatchewan and Manitoba on Tuesday.

The first leg of the tour ends in Toronto on Wednesday. It will pick up again in Montreal a day later than scheduled, on Friday, and continue on to Nova Scotia by Saturday.