Civilized

I love aircraft. I have since the first time my Father took me to Uplands Airport 14,000 years ago. I got to fly on a tour of Ottawa in the grips of the fall foliage, on a short Air Canada hop around the Capital. The aircraft was a Vickers Vanguard turboprop.

At the time, around 1965, you could stand on the outdoor observation deck at Uplands and watch the planes, hearing the almighty whine as the Rolls-Royce turboprops spun up. You felt the turbine screech then a thump as the combustion chambers lit off. You were bathed in hot, humid, kerosene air as the aircraft taxied, turning its sooted exhaust can towards you as it lumbered off towards 32 or 07, carrying the glamorous and wealthy to their exotic destinations of Winnipeg or Halifax.. On special days there would be a DC-8 or a 707 at the airport. It was pure jet wonderment for a young child.

Since then, I have had a love affair with aviation, despite deregulation, security and the commoditisation of air transport.

My maternal grandmother, Frances Preece, lived fifty yards from the CN/CP Rail yards in Smiths’Falls, legitimately on the wrong side of the tracks. Since the age of 6, at least that I can remember, I’ve been playing near trains. I know the difference between a switch engine and a mainline motive unit. I can read the signal lights and know how to spin the brakes on a four car shunt. Gondola, reefer, bulk, coal, phosphate, boxcar, oilcan and pressure tank are known commodities to me.

I can jump on and off a moving train. I can hook up air lines and have gone from Smiths Falls to Brockville in a caboose. Even to this day, I can tell the difference between a Westinghouse deuce and a Nathan Airchime five throat.

I’m not going to mention trucking and how to shift a transmission without using the clutch, or how to make rude noises with a Jake. Then there is the whole cars, motorsport and racing shenanigans.

Some days I have Jet-A in the veins, other days, Diesel, other days Sunoco 260. Occasionally, I’ll admit to having blood in the veins, but for most of my life, it has been some kind of fuel.

The first legitimate train trip I took was to Montreal for Expo67 and I fell in love with passenger trains. In those days the toilet emptied on the tracks. I kid you not. You flushed the head and could look down the hole to see sleepers and rail.

Over the years I have taken the train, be it CP or CN on Red, White and Blue days, or later, the VIA red-headed stepchild several dozen times. There was an occasion whereby I joined the 70 mph Adultery club on an overnight train from Ottawa to Toronto. There were also two acts of oral intimacy on the return trip, one of which got my ears wet, but I digress.

Today, I am in VIA 1, hurtling to Montreal. The server has just brought me a hot, lemon-scented actual terrycloth towel with which I have refreshed myself. Shortly I will be brought a beef tenderloin, steamed vegetables and a nice dessert. There will be coffee, liqueurs if I so choose and copious amounts of wine.

I will be treated like a grown up and allowed to work, or gaze distractedly out the window of the car, as I so see fit. In this particular car, five people wanted to sit at the four place seat towards the back. It is easier to work there, as there is a table, much like a travel trailer table, so you can spread out. Between the five of us, we worked it out, without booking in advance, demanding accommodation, whining about membership in the frequent traveler program or being pissy, spoiled brats. Grownups handled it, without intervention by the train staff. In other words it was civilized.

Currently, the engine is moving air out of the way in the neighborhood of 160 kph (or about 100 mph) in the Toronto -Belleville-Kingston section.  I have been brought an appetizer of hummus and pita with olives and marinated red peppers with a slice of cold, grilled zucchini.

Nobody has asked to see my ticket to determine if I am eligible for a free soft drink, or bag of pretzels. No corporate drone has insisted that I sit up straight and not move, in the interests of safety. There are no crying babies, although there are young children in the car.

Outside, I can see Lake Ontario on one side, then into the backyards and farm lanes of Cobourg on the other side. The snow has been light this year. Brown stubble is everywhere, the light skiff of snow collecting the in the rows where the harrow disks have piled up the soil for the winter sleep.

A sudden roar and startle, as a unit train muscles the other way, a whooshing parade of empty well cars lugging west, then the parade of pines and fields resumes out the window. Occasionally you see into someone’s back yard, where a discarded 1966 Chevy pickup lies preserved, bushes growing out of the cab.

Then in a furious zoetrope, a glimpse of a partially melted snowman in a side yard, facing the tracks, a stick arm waving at the trains. It was built by a youngster who knew, exactly and precisely, when I would look out between the passing freight cars roaring in the other direction to see his or her handiwork waving at my seat on this train. It is a symbol of hope and love and happiness, as if a melted snowman waving at me would change the arc of my day.

Thank you, young person somewhere between Quinte West and Belleville East. You reminded me that sometimes you do things because someone else might enjoy them.

There might be much civilization and gentility on the train, but the best part of all, is the unexpected greetings from a snowman who knows you are passing by and wants to wish you well on your journey. There, in a short couple of paragraphs, is the joy of travel by train. You should take the train some time, if only to find your own snowman.