The news from Somewhere

"I have a best case scenario." It's Mickey Keating, the Park car attendant, who has bounded up the steps into the dome. "If we keep moving along nicely, we can make Toronto by 10 tonight." Okay, that's twelve and a half hours late. But Mickey continues: "I'm thinking more like 11 or 11:30. And if we keep waiting half an hour at a time for trains . . ." He leaves that thought hanging.

You last heard from me as the Canadian left Winnipeg, on its way east. We were almost ten hours late. As I write this, I think how I would love to be just ten hours late. At the first siding east of Winnipeg, we waited almost three hours. Three passengers summoned a taxi from town and jumped ship. What is keeping us here, we wondered? Turns out the train ahead of us at the next siding was setting off a block of cars to be able to fit in the sidings and doing a damn poor job of this simple task. Finally it finished but we still couldn't move until two westbound freights passed. We left that siding shortly after noon, 13 hours behind. And our fate never improved.

At a certain point a train becomes so late that it is an embarrassment. VIA Rail surely wishes this edition of the Canadian would go away. Host railroad Canadian National is doing its best to see that we do disappear. No sooner had Mickey given his best case scenario than we started picking up yellow signals from an eastbound freight, and we crept along. Yesterday, that freight whose setout delayed us just outside Winnipeg? We followed its yellow signals for 150 miles! The dispatcher only let us around it when the freight's engineer and conductor ran out of work time and were put in a siding to await a relief crew. Is that our fate today, to tag along behind another freight train?

But I'm not complaining, just reporting the facts. Here's a happy memory: Last night I feasted on pickerel, a fresh water fish that is rolled in fine bread crumbs before being sautéed. Loved it. And I'm getting to like Canadian wine.

A bit ago I heard the train director tell the engineer: "We have one to pick up at Elsas, if he's still there. I guess he's still there." Elsas, I'm told, is a tiny railroad camp in northern Ontario, and so our would-be passenger is probably a CN employee. And when we reach Elsas, almost 16 hours late, a solitary person awaits us. He could teach me much about patience. Mickey's best case scenario for Toronto looks less and less possible.

We're stopped, somewhere. I hear intermodal train 115 meeting the train ahead of us at the next siding. It will be another 10 minutes reaching us. Meanwhile, outside my roomette window, the snow is several feet deep and of a purity that city dwellers can only imagine. Seldom is the smooth white blanket broken, even by the footprints of animals.

I've got books to read and the company of many new friends to enjoy, not to mention the sight of that snow. So I'm feeling pretty good. My worst thought is arriving in Toronto after midnight. But I imagine there are plenty among you, reading this, who would gladly take my place. Sorry, I'm not trading.

And guess what? That eastbound freight ahead of us is still in the next siding when we go by after meeting train 115. We're set free! Things are lookin' up. -- Fred W. Frailey