To paraphrase Canadian narrator Stuart McLean, Via Rail is mentioned in the Bible, right there in the passage about “all things that creep and crawl.” It is true that there are faster ways to travel across the country.
And there are times, say, when one of the many freight trains pushes toward a siding for an hour, whose right-of-way dominates the same tracks that Via uses, when the idea of walking becomes quite attractive. But that would defeat the purpose.
Despite the regular and vaunted talk about high-frequency rail in Canada, our country’s trains have been unfairly ignored, diverted onto the fringes of our national infrastructure. They are not a simple means of transportation, but a forgotten national emblem.
Unlike taking a passenger plane, anyone who chooses to go by train spends a memorable part of their life in it. Consequently, speed is not the fundamental attraction of train travel. Rather, it’s a chance to catch up on lengthy assignments, while letting the enormity of the country take over.
The 3,400-kilometer drive from Winnipeg to Halifax, for example, is long enough to read all 900 pages of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.” When I arrived in Montreal and boarded the historic Ocean Line to Halifax, Ivan Karamazov was doing much the same, leaving Skotoprigonyevsk for Moscow: “The traveler felt worried in his mind, but looked anxiously around the fields, the trees, the flock of wild geese flying over a clear sky. And suddenly he felt so happy. “I could relate.
The diminishing Montreal skyline helped, its blocky facade with the blinking red letters of the Farine Five Roses mill carving a ghostly neon scar in the darkening sky. As the ocean rose and crossed the San Lorenzo, the river flowed fierce and dark in the warm afternoon air.
If one is not depressed about time, there is nothing better than sitting in a chair as comfortable, or almost as comfortable, as your favorite at home, and gazing out the window at a view that changes slowly but incessantly.
Speed cannot reveal the line where the city becomes suburb and the suburb in the country and the countryside of the rural city; Passing slowly, you can almost put your finger on those dividing lines. On the one hand, if we had shot out of Montreal, I would have missed, or mistaken for grass, the stunted corn stalks that grow between the sleepers of the Pointe-Saint-Charles railroad, the crop of seeds taken from some grain wagon.
Train passengers are different from other travelers. Freed from the gibberish of security measures, they travel unloaded. As the lights dimmed, a sense of tranquility fell over the cabin like dew, and most settled into the night with blankets and sleep masks.
With my book and a packed lunch of puffed wheat cake and Polish sweets, I felt well prepared for whatever might come; little more is required of the train passenger than to sit and watch. There is no need to worry, there are no turns to decide, there are no exits to miss.
This was not a sentiment shared by everyone that night. Across the aisle, a passenger settled into his seat, nervously cradling a bag on his restless leg and bouncing it like a happy baby would. Protruding from the open bag was a toothbrush, a glue gun, a mint can with a faded image of hockey star Eric Lindros, and a putty knife.
Throughout the trip, he sporadically but intensively studied a tattered copy of the “Official YMCA Physical Fitness Manual (Questions You Should Be Able to Answer About Your Good Health).” It was reassuring to know that if I broke my glasses, or needed a flipped egg, or wanted some advice on the proper way to jump, that was at hand too.
In the morning, when the ocean shot out of the confines of a birch corridor, we riders struggled to measure our surroundings. “I swear I saw a wild turkey,” someone said, and we all craned our necks in hopes of seeing the bird. A train is not just an event for the insiders, but also for the outsiders. People take twice, stare and take pictures. Near the Quebec border, where the line follows the Matapedia River, grandfathered fly fishermen, waist deep in the water, stopped their stagger to turn and salute.
Here the burly, bearded butler caught our eye from the window. “We’re a little late,” he said, his voice tinged with resignation. He told us that they had left us outside Rivière-du-Loup overnight. And Rimouski. And Mont-Joli. It was there, in the twilight of dawn, I was awakened by a freight train that passed by blurry, the window bending under the force of its speed.
When we arrived in Matapédia at 11 in the morning, we were four hours late. We all knew it, of course, but there was nothing to do. Even if, after more than a century (the line’s first run was in 1904), the ocean is still fixing some problems, once it is on, it will be on.
But there was a beautiful sight. We had entered the woods and the tall white spiers of New Brunswick’s churches, and the railroad track was lined with geese and mulberry trees. At Campbellton, Sugarloaf Mountain loomed darkly over the Restigouche River. After a brief, refreshing stop in the fresh, salty air, we continued to hug the Baie des Chaleurs, where bone-white driftwood marked the high water mark along the rocky beach.
When we arrived in Moncton (at the time we were supposed to arrive in Halifax), the disembarking passengers suddenly looked disheveled and tired, as if the proximity had defeated them. Those traveling to Halifax seemed cooler: the longer the journey, the less the effect of a delay. Despite all of our troubles, we enjoyed a full, complimentary chicken dinner as a peace offering for the last few hours.
The mud fields of the Fundy Basin gleamed with our second setting sun as we crossed into Nova Scotia, and two hours later, we crawled toward Halifax like a fox, as if afraid to wake it up. Behind a gray veil of mist, the city lay like a ghost and silent. When the ocean parted the cold curtain of the Atlantic, inside we were warm and happy.
Travelers are reminded to check for public health restrictions that could affect their plans.
Reference-www.thestar.com