Farm Girl Friday -26 August 2011

Joining the ladies at Farm Girl Friday!

Today's post is about the end of an era.  One that had a big impact on farming.  The rail road!    Neither Canada nor the United States would be the countries they are today without the cross country rail lines.   It's hard to imagine what this country would have looked like if those hard working men hadn't risked life and limb to lay down the 14,000 or so miles of Canadian Pacific Railway track.  In fact, the rail line in the Ottawa Valley pre-dates CP rail as it was laid down by the lumber barons in the early years.

Well, this piece of history is nor more.  For about a month they have been busy ripping up the rails and ties.
They are very efficient at taking up the rails.  The machine starts pulling and whole long sections of rail just basically load themselves onto the rail cars.  They are pulling up the track behind them as they go along.
They have another vehicle that came along and picked up the ties and made them into neat piles.  They are still waiting to be picked up. 

Our crossing has been removed.  And I certainly hope they plan on coming back and cleaning up the mess.  All the ties from the crossing were dumped down beside the rail bed -and right in front of the culvert that runs under the road!  Not terribly bright of them.  I'm sure it will get blocked and flood the road.  I emailed our Whitewater Region about it (since it's their road), but as of yet, the mess is still there.  How much you want to bet Colin will have to do something about it??


While the historian part of me hates to see the trains go, the mother in me is glad.  You see how close the tracks are to the house?  This picture was taken from the front steps.   We have enough vehicles in and out of our yard and now I have one less thing to worry about running Ella over.  Also, I used to worry about the state of the tracks and having a train de-rail.  You really don't want to know some of the things that go by on the trains.  And finally, I won't miss the whistle.  The trains need to whistle because it's an official crossing over a road -I get that.  What drove me nuts is when they start whistling at the bridge and keep going till they are past our neighbour's driveway!!  When Ella was  a baby we always had to make a mad-dash for the door every evening just before 10.  If we forgot the train whistle would echo around the house and wake Ella.  Equally disturbing were the trains that didn't whistle at all.  You would be surprised how a train can sneak up on a crossing.

My mother-in-law is upset to see the trains go, but really, I'm enjoying a little more quiet in our corner of the country.