The Bracebridge Train Station Was My Playground

Lindsay and District Train Show 2013 - Photos by Fred Schulz 

TRAINS KEPT ME THINKING ABOUT ESCAPING THE PRESENT - AND LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE

THE BRACEBRIDGE TRAINS STATION IS WHERE WE HOLED-UP

     IN THE LATE 1960'S, FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, THE BRACEBRIDGE TRAIN STATION WAS ABANDONED. YOU COULD GET INTO THE STATION WAITING ROOM, WHICH WE USED TO DO ON COLD WINTER DAYS, AND WATCH THE TRAINS COMING AND GOING ALL THE LIVE-LONG DAY, BUT IF YOU NEEDED A TICKET, YOU WOULD HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THE TRAIN STOPPED…..AND THE CONDUCTOR EMERGED.

     I CAN'T REMEMBER WHEN THE STATION-MASTER POSITION WAS ELIMINATED, MR. STACEY, IF MEMORY SERVES, BUT IT HAD TO BE AROUND THIS PERIOD. THE HUNT'S HILL LADS, SPENT A LOT OF TIME AT THE RETIRED STATION, AND PLAYED WHENEVER POSSIBLE, WITH THE HUGE LUGGAGE CART THAT WASN'T EVEN CHAINED IN PLACE. SO YOU CAN IMAGINE WHAT RESOURCEFUL KIDS DID WITH THAT PIECE OF TRANSPORTATION EQUIPMENT. HECK, WE USED TO HAUL IT UP THE PLATFORM, ON THE THREE OR FOUR FOOT HIGH RAMP, AND THEN RIDE IT BACK DOWN. IF YOU HAPPENED TO FALL OFF, YOU WERE LUCKY IF IT DIDN'T RUN OVER YOU AS WELL. THOSE IRON WHEELS WOULD CRUSH A LEG, ARM OR HEAD, FOR THAT MATTER. SPLINTERS FROM THE PLATFORM. ALWAYS. IN OUR BEHINDS MOSTLY.

    WE GOT INJURED A LOT, PLAYING AT THE STATION, BUT IT HAD A COMPELLING AURA TO IT, AS IF ALL THE GHOSTS OF FORMER CITIZENS, WHO HAD USED THIS FACILITY OVER THE CENTURY, WERE STILL CAMPED IN THAT CAVERNOUS ROOM, WAITING FOR THE NEXT SCHEDULED TRAIN. I RECALL SITTING WITH MY CHUMS IN THE BEAT-UP CHAIRS, STILL LINING THE WALLS OF THE STATION WAITING ROOM, AND FEELING IT WAS A VERY HAUNTED PLACE…..WITH A LOT OF UNRESOLVED ISSUES. WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT ALL THE EMOTION THAT SPILLS-OVER IN TRAIN STATIONS AROUND THE WORLD, IMAGINE THE FAMILIES THAT WAITED IN THIS SAME ROOM, FOR THE PASSENGER TRAIN, RETURNING THEIR SOLDIER SONS…..ALIVE, AND SOMETIMES, DECEASED. THE ROUGH BOXES STORED IN THE CARGO SECTIONS OF THE CARS. THE MANY PAINFUL FAREWELLS UTTERED QUIETLY, BUT WITH HARDY WAVES, FROM THE PLATFORM, TO FAMILY THAT POSSIBLY, AND POTENTIALLY, WOULD NEVER RETURN TO THIS HOME TOWN…..SOME THAT WOULD NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN, AS CASUALTIES OF WORLD WAR. I FOUND IT QUITE A SAD PLACE, WHEN I USED TO VISIT. WE TREATED IT WITH THE UTMOST RESPECT, BECAUSE WE ALL LIKED TRAINS…..AND WE FOUND IT QUITE A PRIVILEGE TO BE ABLE TO PLAY HERE, AND WALK THESE SILVER RAILS, FROM ONE NEIGHBORHOOD TO ANOTHER, WITHOUT BEING YELLED AT, OR CHASED AWAY. MAYBE THIS IS WHAT MADE IT A SAD PLACE, KNOWING THAT NO ONE WAS AROUND TO DEFEND ITS HONOR; OR CONSERVE ITS HISTORY.

      I remember one day driving down Hunt's Hill, on the east side of the tracks, and seeing the wrecking crews, and heavy machinery, knocking the last wall of the elegant train station into sawdust…..and being heartbroken, that the town had decided to do this without any real public scrutiny. I would have liked, if possible, to have sat, one more time, in that hollow, spirit-full waiting room, and run along that train platform with chums, before all was splintered on the same ground, where so much regional history played out, in the dusty, half-forgotten heritage of this small Ontario town. It was an act of profound disrespect to the citizens of the town, but it has happened in other locales just as violently, and without warning.

     The train station for me was symbolic. When I was a youngster, growing up in Burlington, Ontario, I went to school listening to the sounds of the foghorns of passing Great Lake freighters, navigating through the morning fog. When we moved to Bracebridge, in the winter of 1966, I was constantly aware of the train horns that, on winter nights, sliced through the air, such that a voyeur might expect to see the "Polar Express," coming right down the neighborhood street. We resided in an apartment on Alice Street, almost a full block, and some impressive geography, from the tracks and the train station, situated on the upper bank of the Muskoka River, not far from Bass Rock, another place we used to play on the long, hot days of a Muskoka summer.

     The train horns throughout the day and night, were so loud and echoing, off the hillsides and through the hollows of our sleepy town, that it did seem a little more intrusive than it probably should have been. A lot of folks hated the intrusion, but for me, every time I heard it, I was reminded initially, of the foghorns of Lake Ontario, and secondly, about my Lionel train set, that never worked properly…..but my imagination did. I have always been a subscriber of escapism, when at all humanly possible, and it's why I still roam so much today. While I walked to school, along Lakeshore Road, in Burlington, those fog-horns inspired me of adventure. On my free time, I built elaborate rafts, that I planned to sail along the shallows of Ramble Creek, into the wide open lake. I always thought about how fantastic it would be, to make it that far, and sail across the lake, and eventually to the ocean. Hey, I was a kid, with an atomic imagination. So I did the same, a little older this time, with trains. Every time I heard a train horn, whether I was having dinner, at school, playing road hockey, football, or baseball, I would freeze-up, and just stand there listening to another rail adventure leaving without me. Honestly, I always felt as if I was missing something important in life, and even to this day, I feel it necessary sometime soon, to catch, at the very least, the Portage Flyer, in Huntsville, if not the Orient Express. It's part of my bucket list which is a long one.

     When I was younger, I was always sending to Canadian National Railways and Canadian Pacific, for published resources, they would give-out to school kids for transportation projects. I had a huge collection of train ephemera by time I was enrolled in my first year of university. When I got home later that fall, for my first visit after my family had moved to Alport Bay, of Lake Muskoka, I discovered that my mother had not only given away my accumulation of childhood toys, but also anything else she deemed, on her own, to have ceased being useful or desired by a university student. So my collection of train heritage, was given to the neighborhood kids, who she hand picked to get my stuff. I was happy for them, because they didn't have much of their own, because of unfortunate family circumstances, but I felt pretty desperate, assessing everything that went missing, of my first major collection of antiques and collectables. Gone. All of it. Apparently, I was being selfish, for feeling ripped off of my childhood keepsakes……including this really neat pile of train memorabilia, dating back to 1966. I had a big box full of this material, and yes, it would be worth quite a bit of money by today's valuations.

     I would hear that train horn, cutting through the bitter January air, and be able to transport myself onto that platform, with my ticket firmly in my hand, and feel the pushed air hit my face, upon the locomotive's arrival in Bracebridge. I could feel the rubber beneath my feet, of the small steps the conductor placed for my convenience, and smell the distinct aroma of those passenger cars and the vinyl and metal, and perfumes of the community of passengers……that I would soon become a part of, via an overactive imagination. I could see it all, and feel the comfortable cushions wrap around my legs and back, and then feel the slight but detectable first motion of the engine, pulling, tugging at the passenger cars, to get us rolling down those silver rails, dazzling in the moonlight. All while I was laying in bed, the covers up to my chin, looking wide-eyed out the window at the frost on the window pane of my bedroom. But alas, the train would pull away, and I would startle to the reality, it had all been a wide-awake dream, and that I hadn't moved an inch, except in my mind.

     A love of trains and train lore has remained with me my entire life. Whenever I hear a train horn, I will remember all those times, when its sweet refrain…..(at least this is what I thought of it), invited me to travel along as far as the horn would echo, off the frozen countryside……before I had to disembark, and satisfy myself, with the what-ifs of a long life ahead. And indeed, my favorite transportation movie, is "The Polar Express," and photographer Fred Schulz, and I are of kindred spirits in this regard. Of course, as luck might have it, instead of a trip on the Polar Express, we'd get mistakenly ticketed for the "Silver Streak." You have to be careful what you wish for!

     Thanks so much for visiting with me today, via this blog. It is always nice to meet up with good friends…..and share memories of the good old days. And for me, yes indeed, they were good.

     Please visit my other blog, "Muskoka as Walden," by clicking on http://muskokaaswaldenpond.blogspot.ca/