The Rural Voice, 1993-02, Page 40Romantic
railway days
remembered
Growing up on a farm bisected by
a CN rail line, the railway was
always a fascination for me. It was a
place of excitement, running to wave
at the engineer and the passengers; a
place of wonder when we'd put a nail
on the tracks and the
hugc weight of the
train would flatten it;
a place of danger
when we'd cross the
wooden trestle a mile
down the line; and
now and then a place
of tragedy such as
the tales of cattle that
got onto the tracks,
or the time my father
got his car stuck on a
snowy level crossing
at train time and was
unable to stop the
train despite his
waving arms (the
carcass of the car
ended up a half -mile
down the track).
Most of us of my age and older,
have a romantic nostalgia for
something about trains. Perhaps that
explains the tremendous popularity of
Elizabeth A. Willmot's books about
railway stations and the people who
ran them. Her first, Meet Me At The
Station, is still in print many years
after it first appeared. Her latest,
When Any Time Was Train Time, sold
2000 copies the day of its
publication.
Willmot has been chasing trains
since she fell in love with them at age
12. She first visited many of the
communities in western Ontario to
take pictures of the local stations and
chat with the men who had the
wonderful stories to tell of railway
life. Later she moved to Clinton and
her new book pays particular tribute
to railway stations in this part of
Ontario. Stations in Brucefield,
Brussels, Ethel, Exeter, Flesherton,
Listowel, Lucknow, Mitchell.
Seaforth, Stratford and Wiarton are
Book Review
among those featured. Each has a
full-page picture of the station as it
was in its glory days, along with a
page of history and tales of the days
when the trains ran regularly. Sadly,
many of these stations don't exist any
more. In many cases, the railway
lines they served don't even exist any
more.
But Willmot manages to bring
them to life again, if only for a short
time, through her photos and her
description of the day when the
Elizabeth Willmot: always chasing trains.
railway station was the focus of the
community. She captures the sense of
the times, too. Take for instance her
story of the Harriston man who
caused a scandal in Lucknow when
he became involved with the hired
girl at a boarding house (he'd left a
wife back in Harriston), and managed
to slip through a vigil of local men
trying to stop them from escaping by
train. Brucefield's Ross Scott recalled
when strolling to the station to see the
train come in was a major courting
ritual for young men and women. In
her story of the Flesherton station,
she recalls when it was the entry way
to ski -country in the 1930s and 1940s
as city people made their way north,
got off at the station and were met
with open, horse-drawn sleighs from
the ski resorts.
While the Canadian Pacific line to
Flesherton was a scene of many
happy times, it was also a place of
tragedy with the Great Horseshoe
wreck. Wrecks were a part of railway
36 THE RURAL VOICE
life, some tragic, some slightly funny.
The first locomotive to arrive in
Flesherton, an engine with no brakes,
missed the opening ceremony when it
glided right through the station,
ending up in the front window of a
local business.
The weather plays a big part in the
stories. From the severe storms of
1874 and 1875 that disrupted service
near Ethel just months after the new
rail line there opened, through old
railway man Herb Stitt's tales of 20 -
foot snowdrifts in the Listowel area
that could shut down trains for three
days, through the blizzards of 1943
and 1947 that buried trains near
Flesherton, requiring six locomotives
to push the snowplow, the railway
years were years when harsh winter
weather seemed to affect us more
than today.
For anyone who still feels a
stirring when they hear the wail of an
increasingly rare train whistle, the
book is sure to bring back
memories.—KRO
When Any Time Was Train Time by
Elizabeth Willmot, published by
Boston Mills Press (Stoddart
Publishing), hardcover, $29.95.
Got a�'�`
story to
tell?
Taken a trip to another country
lately? Taken time to look at the
agricultural scene there? If so, we'd
like to have your observations.
At The Rural Voice we want to
give our readers an insight into
what agriculture around the world.
But we need your help. We know
that there are farmers from our area
travelling regularly to all corners of
the world. We'll pay for your story of
800 to 1000 words if we use it.
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