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| © C.L.R. CNRail - Toronto to Montreal '14 |
I grew up in a town nicknamed "hogtown". That
is a term given to places that have many
"train engineers"...I think anyway.
Many family members on my mother's side worked for CPRail and my mother
took my sister and me regularly on the train that left Farnham to Montreal at
Windsor Station.
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| © C.L.R. Windsor Station - Montreal - 2014 |
CP has sold off certain sections of their rails to an
American company...yes, yes, that was the one that is responsible for the
tragic explosion in Lac Megantic last summer.
And yes, I know personally some people involved...such a tragedy.
Now back to this train town...if a long freight train
passes through (and there were too many, let me tell you) motorists were often
blocked from fifteen minutes to an hour.
The cause of course that the freight was so long it blocked all the
railroad crossings.
I remember as a driver, seeing the freight train arriving
at one end of the town near the Military base, I would step on the gas to get
to another crossing before the train blocked me from getting home.
But as a young child, I suppose we enjoyed watching the
trains, those huge steel wheels. My
grandmaman lived 4 houses by the tracks...the busiest railroad crossing by the
river. I ran across the tracks just as
the bells were ringing and seconds before the gate was lowered hearing the man
at the wooden tower yell at me. I sure
wouldn't do that now but as a child we see our peers brave it, so why not.
There was a dog across the street that ran only on 3
three legs. The story goes that he got a leg caught under a train...it was a
schnoodle but in the 60's we just call him a mix. He was a lively fella and ran
pretty fast...we could never catch up to him. But if he came on his own free
will, well he just washed your face with his lickin' {smiles}
We could see the dam from my Grandmaman'shouse {which
became my home too as a teen) and over that dam was a train bridge. Now if you
had friends on the other side, it was very frustrating having to cross only the
regular car bridge to get home. I know many of my peers would cross that bridge
...bravely...I did it only once but being mostly a goodie two shoes and scarety
cat, once was enough. But I remember how
amazed I was at how quickly I could get to that other side...it literally saved
a pedestrian an hour...so I get it.
In those days, most folks knew the time that regular
freight trains would pass that bridge ...but what if there was an extra load on
the way? Yeah, I often thought of many
"what if's".
When we were newly weds, we lived in a small furnished
studio apartment over a bowling alley.
Yes, there was noise until 11:00 PM and as the building quieted so
everyone could sleep, the shunting of trains began behind us were about a dozen
tracks and we were 2 minutes from the passenger station. This place was worse than my home by the
river. The good thing was you could
never be afraid of thunder storms, you just had to imagine they were the trains
at it again.
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| © C.L.R. view from my childhood home, train bridge. 2014 |
noontime
freight
village
held hostage
cold
soup
braving
shortcuts
dodging the
two o’clock
whistle
blows
by the
tracks
houses tremors to quake,
shunting
at night
shunting
at twilight
toddler
wails, nightmares
end of the
world
© Tournesol '14
Posted by Cheryl-Lynn Roberts, 2014/09/18
