By Ken Winlaw, Canada.com; June 17, 2019
I have grown up with trains. A childhood spent in small Ontario towns built along the rail line, I would hear the trains shunting in the freight yards on sticky August nights. I’d climb out of bed in my cowboy pyjamas (and cowboy slippers, each with its own tiny holster to hold tiny silver six-shooters) and sit by the screened window, listening to the echo of the couplings as they bang and boom and the train takes up the slack between the railcars. Railcars filled with car parts, tankers of oil, flatcars of construction steel and farm machinery.
Or in the glare of midday, sitting with my mom in the family’s ’67 Ford, counting the cars at the level crossing, always losing count.