Freight Across Canada

"Listen," said Blaine, "I know that these birds can talk to each other. Let's give this bird something to say to the others." Blaine started cutting one leg off. Strong men turned away. "What the hell's the matter with you guys?" I screamed at them. "We're tired of pigeon shit in our hair and eyes! We're fixing this bird so when we throw him back on the roof, he's gonna tell those other birds, 'those are some mean motherfuckers down there! Don't get near them!' That pigeon is going to tell those other pigeons to stop shitting on us!" - Charles Bukowski, Scenes From The Big Time.

The long walk. Dunrankin, Ontario. km 3900.

We stop at a siding and the mosquitoes are rapacious. I cover myself in DEET. Now they fly two inches from my face and ears and annoy the hell out of me. I listen to my iPod and try to ignore them. They call for backup. I can hardly breathe.

I send a message by killing every mosquito in my vicinity. I convince myself it is working. Thankfully, mosquitoes can’t fly faster than a speeding train (only Superman can do that) and we are soon moving.

Another sleep. Wake. Sleep. Wake. There’s really not much more to it. I scratch my nuts and ponder the simplicities of life. I talk to myself and purposely sing out of tune. I wonder if I should have tried harder to get someone else to come along. I haven’t seen any sign of other hobos. What are the chances there’s another hobo on my train? It would be almost impossible to tell. I look for hobos on passing trains.

The train stops in Buttfuck Nowhere, Ontario. It’s early morning, and I’m huddled in my sleeping bag for warmth. I hear the squawk of a radio. ”Twelve cars back.” Shit. I hear the crunching of ballast beside my car. Shit fuck. I gingerly slide over to the side the sound is coming from. The well is 4’ deep, but 6’ off the ground. To look in, the cop(?) has to reach up and peer over the edge. My only chance is that he doesn’t look straight down. I hold my breath. Silence. More silence. “There’s nothing here. Twelve cars?” Squawk. “Yup, check the other side.” Shit. To get to the other side he’ll need to climb up the ladder of my car, getting a perfect unobstructed view. But no. Crunch, crunch, crunch. He walks back to the car behind me. Ahhh…other END not other side. Phew. “Nope, not here.” Squawk. “Ok, I’ll pick you up.” The train backs up and picks him up.

Foleyet, home of the famous white moose. Yep, it's a moose. It's white. No joke. km 3980.

My mind is racing. Ok, that wasn't a cop, that was the conductor. But how did he know I was here? Did he really not see me? If he did see me and wasn’t letting on, was it because he was being nice, or was it a clever trick to keep me on the train until the rail cops could sort it out in the yard? Fuck that. I jump off the train and run back, way back, to find another car.

The train starts moving, and I still haven’t found a car to ride. All suicide 53’s. Shit. What’s that up ahead? Not a 48’. The train is moving too fast now. Damn they pick up speed quickly. Great. Where the hell am I?

I’m at a siding somewhere. All sidings have a little white marker sign, and mine reads "Dunrankin". I look on my rail map -- I’m between Hornepayne and Foleyet. Judging from the map it looks to be about 60 km to Foleyet (it’s actually 80 km). There isn’t a road anywhere. I consider my options. There’s only two: walk or wait. I wait, trying to gauge how frequently trains pass by, and what the chances of two meeting at this siding are. A single train passes in two hours, with no reason to slow down.

I’ve got three liters of water and am feeling like a tough guy, so I lighten my pack and start walking. 15 km later I collapse, unable to push on. Decades of participating in sports involving jumping around like an idiot has done a number on my knees. My patellar tendonitis (jumper’s knee) is flaring up.

I pitch the tent and drink the last of my water. The ballast has neatly cut around the edges of my boots, removing the whole sole in one piece. I duct tape the soles back on to keep from walking on the bottom of my upper liners.

Trains pass through the night. I’ve set up camp near a siding, hoping to get lucky. Thinking back to Dunrankin, I wonder how they knew I was on the train. I must have slept through the meeting of an oncoming train at one of the sidings. Usually trains blow by at full speed, but occasionally they’ll do slow “roll bys” to make sure everything is in order. They must have spotted me then.

Ballast shredded boots. Brampton, Ontario. km 4700.

In the morning, I consider my options. There’s only one. I wait. It’s worth noting at that I did not bring a cell phone. I do not own a cell phone and do not want a cell phone -- this is the only time in my pleasant cell phoneless life that I’ve considered I may NEED a cell phone.

A few hours later I hear music. Odd. A truck-on-rails is approaching, its FM radio blaring out of loudspeakers on the roof. OK, play this cool. I signal to them with the appropriate level of urgency. They look puzzled, slow to a halt, and state the obvious. I tell them I hitchhiked into Hornepayne, and decided to walk the 170 km to Foleyet after not being able to hitch out. Improbable, but hopefully not entirely unbelievable. I tell them I’ve been walking for five days and am out of water. They reach into the back seat and hand me a couple of bottles. “The company gives them to us for free.” I show them my boots, and ask if perhaps they could just maybe give me a ride into town. They happily oblige.

I eat their lunches and drink their water, promising to pay them back in town.

They are heading home for the weekend and are in good spirits. At one point one of them jumps out and gives someone hell for working on our permit. Each truck needs a permit from dispatch to be on the rails -- makes sense. This other guy is holding up the show and we can’t leave until he’s done. Fucking yahoo.

My Hornepayne story quickly breaks down. I’ve got no clue about the surrounding towns or roads. “HOW did you get to Hornepayne?” I guess (correctly) that there’s only one road. “On the only road in.” “From WHERE?” “Uhhh… Manitoba?” They stop pressing me on the matter.

They drop me off 1 km outside of town, “This is a rail town, we can’t let people see you in the cab.” I’m eternally grateful. They don’t take me up on my offer for lunch. Foleyet has one general store, one diner, and one dead white moose in said diner. I'm no stranger to taxidermy jokes, having believed for the majority of my childhood that Jackalopes were real, so I have a healthy skepticism for this oddity. But no, this white moose is the real deal, complete with photos documenting its life before its misguided standoff with the sharp end of a locomotive.

Useful graffiti. Toronto Yard, Ontario. km 4700.

Foleyet is supposed to be a crew change point for the CN mainline, but after two days of waiting not a single train has stopped. Everything just blows by. I think about an old joke: a man pulls up in his sports car to a kid on a tricycle at a stop light. “Hey kid.” The kid leans over, “Yeah?” “I’ll race ya.” “Yeah right.” The light turns green and the man speeds off. To his disbelief the kid shoots past him, legs a blur. The man guns it and manages to overtake the kid. Once again the kid passes him. The man can’t believe it. They both stop at the next light, and the kid cries, “I’m glad you stopped mister, I caught my suspenders in your door.”

I wish I had suspenders.

I give up on the purity of my cross-Canada via freight experience and try to hitchhike to Timmins. It’s one RV after another and nobody stops. The monotony is broken by the sound of trains passing on the other side of town. I hear an anomaly: a train coming in slow. I grab my gear and sprint through town, directly through the yard, and jump on a 48’. It nearly tears my arms off it is moving so fast. I laugh maniacally and it feels good. Goodbye Foleyet.