As a five-year-0ld child,
I was often taken to the Brantford railway station as a treat to watch the
trains come and go. World War II was on and there was plenty of traffic on the
line to watch. Warm summer evenings, blue sky, colourful sunsets and above all,
the wonderful sounds, sights and smells of the trains provided endless
fascination. Even then, I was somewhat fascinated by the very fascination itself
for no matter how many trains I watched, I always wanted to stand and watch
another pass by.
A broad, sweeping curve of the double main track occurred
in fron t of the station and it was possible at one point to directly face the
oncoming trains from either direction. A switching engine or even two often
chugged endlessly back and forth in the switch yard tracks across from the
station. About a mile in either direction the tracks curved again before they
headed out of town. Ideally, I would hear the approaching through trains just
before their sudden entrance into the field of view. Then, all else in the world
would recede into insignificance as I focused all of my senses on another
onrushing magnificence, the whistle, bell, clangs, assorted hisses, squawks,
squeaks and diminishing exhaust of the steam pistons right down to the last
chug.
Once in a while, my mother or my aunt would indulge my inclination for
a close-up of the engine. The guardians of the thing were usually preoccupied
with oiling this or that or filling it with water. Once I was hoisted up to the
cab by an engineer who seemed only to want to talk to my mother. He showed me
the "throttle".
Many years went by before I realized that he had shown me
the handle of a shovel.
This item by George Noviss was included MC2 (Mensa Canada Communications) April 1989
