When Wes and I moved to Winnipeg way back in 1979, we left all of our family in Southern Ontario. I experienced a bit of homesickness back then especially on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas when families are often together.
Now, 26 years later, we have a rather large family in Winnipeg. Two of my sisters and their families, as well as a neice, now call Winnipeg home. When we all get together we often have a group of 18-20 people. Birthdays are becoming more frequent and we are finding ourselves combining birthday celebrations. In the month of August, there are 3 birthdays, one of which happens to be mine.
On August 14, we celebrated our birthdays by "riding on the rails." The Prairie Dog Central is run by the Vintage Locomotive Society a group of railway affictionados who have refurbished an old steam engine and about 4 cars. They ride up to Warren, Manitoba with a stop along the way in Grosse Isle. The round trip takes about 2 1/2 hours.
The train doesn't go much faster than 60 km per hour and because of all the rain we've had this year, there were spots where the rail bed was soft and we seemed to slow down to 10 or 15 km per hour. For most of our group, this was the first train ride of their lives. Most of us have been on touring busses, airplanes, cars, motorcycles etc. before and we began comparing the different modes of transportation.
There are some differences between riding this antique locomotive and the various forms of transportation that we are accustomed to today. We noticed that there were no TVs or video games on this train. No in-flight entertainment options. There was a washroom that we could only use while the train was moving. (We were curious about that rule until one of the children of our party checked out the toilets. He discovered that when the toilet was flushed, the tracks became visible for a few moments. This helped us understand the importance of the announcement not to use the washrooms while the train was stopped at the station.)
Sitting in car #106 and watching the prairie go by was a wonderful experience. We wondered about the immigrants who landed in Halifax and took the train west so many years ago. What must it have been like for them? 2 1/2 hours was quite enough for us but we were told by one of the porters that it took 3 days of travelling for these people to make it to Winnipeg.
I think that one of the things that made this trip so enjoyable was the crew of the train. There were probably 5-6 men who were porters, engineers and brakemen, all of whom were volunteers. They did this because they love the railway and they love the stories which they were very willing to share with us.
I was trying to understand just what it was that made this trip so much fun for me. Someone suggested to me that it was because "community" was so present and so easy to experience.
The volunteers were part of a community which is passionate about keeping the railway stories alive.
In each passenger car, a sort of community formed. It is easy to talk to the people around you and we were invited to walk down the aisles of the car in order to visit with other people in the car.
There wasn't much else to do. The swaying of the cars made it difficult to read, nobody had any kind of device that required headphones and as I mentioned earlier, there were no TVs. There wasn't much to do but look out the window or talk to the people around you.
There were 30 of us in the group. The extended family and some friends who joined us too. This trip was a reminder of simpler times, when it was expected that a trip would take a long time. I thought back to a short 10 days ago when we were flying down the QEW at 120 km per hour.
These days, we are able to get to our destinations much faster than our ancestors. I love and appreciate the fact that it only takes 2 1/2 hours to get to my folks (by air). But that Sunday, it was great to slow down, watch the prairie go by and just do nothing for an afternoon.
(This post was written almost a week ago. I was trying to add some pictures to it without any success! Otherwise you would have read this days ago. Anyone else having trouble downloading pictures?)
No comments:
Post a Comment