Riding the train in P.E.I.'s Bygone Days

Reginald "Dutch"Thompson's column The Bygone Days brings you the voices of Island seniors, many of whom are now long-departed. Thesetales of the way things used to be offer a fascinating glimpse into the past. Every second weekend CBC P.E.I. will bring you one of Dutch's columns.

The last passenger train left Prince Edward Island on Oct. 25, 1969 just shy of 50 years ago.

But at one time most Islanders, especially thosewho lived in the country, travelled by train.

"I remember going on the train with my dad to Summerside. I had to have a tooth removed and there was no dentist at the time," said Ethel Leard Thomson, who grew up in North Tryon.

It was just such a wonderful thing.Dorothy MacKenzie MacClure

She remembered she cried because she was scared of the dentist, but that was offset by the fond recollection of her father getting her a store-bought coat and hat.

Ethel was born in 1915 and was 12 years old when she made the 50-kilometre round trip to Summerside. She travelled by train most of her adult life.

'The only way you could go'

Brothers Danny and Francis Rose lived in eastern P.E.I. in North Lake and Lakeville, just up the road from the very first station on the line in Elmira.

"If you were going to town or anywhere, it was the only way you could go even to Souris. The only thing, you'd be in Souris all day, you'd have to wait. It'd leave at 6:30 in the morning and it would get back here about 6:30 in the evening," said Danny Rose. He remembered the roundhouse at the end of the line that the engine would use to turn around.

"Went to town pretty often, to Charlottetown," recalled Francis Rose, who said he and his bride went to Boston on the train for their honeymoon in the 1940s.

"My two sisters were down there. It was quite a treat to get a drive on the train then."

Islanders 80 or 90 years ago used to take the train for outings like socials or picnics, often sponsored by a church group or school. They'd hire the train for the day and head for the hills.

"We never went far. We always went on a picnic every year boy that was some day. I don't know how much money we had to spend, not a whole lot. But it was just such a wonderful thing," saidDorothy MacKenzie MacClure of South Granville.

Flockedto see new ferry terminal

She was born in 1912, and recalled one trip to Borden in 1918 with her entire large family and her grandparents, where they had a picnic in a field.

"The conductor was very lenient with us," she said. Her parents had purchased tickets for themselves and her two older sisters, while the three youngest children were allowed to go free. "When he saw the big family he said I could go free too."

You might think a trip to Borden was a bit unusual, but back in 1918 the ferry terminal in the town was brand new and Islanders were flocking to see car loads of goods being off-loaded from standard box cars to the narrow-gauge boxcars used on P.E.I., as well as automobiles being strapped to flatcars to take the ride across to the mainland.

Last freight train

2019 is also the 30th anniversary of the last freight train on P.E.I. Back in 1989 was a sad day for those who loved the trains, especiallythe old train men like Charlie Deighan who grew up in a railroading family in Summerside.

His dad Ernie Deighan taught young Charlie how to drive a steam engine. But before that, he had to learn how to fire the engine throwing coal into the hot fire box was the job of the fire man on the train.

"It was all steam shovelling coal, and keeping 180 pounds of square-inch steam, working the inspirator, keeping her full of water," recalled Charlie Deighan. "They liked the Springhill coal, that was the hottest coal."

Deighan also said the engine driver and the fire man had to get along well. "I got along and worked hard but the early going was tough," he recalled.

The railway jobs were good-paying jobs that people stuck with and were much sought-after, Deighan said. For decades CNR was one of P.E.I.'s biggest employers, and touched everyone from those who harvested Irish moss to silver foxes, to milk and even Christmas trees to the U.S.

Took the train to buy a car

Most things cost $1 to ship from Holman's department store in Charlottetown to St. Peters even a 400-pound wood stove cost just $1, Dutch said.

Farmers out working in their fields would know what time it was by the trains coming through.

In Murray Harbour and Murray River in southeastern P.E.I., people in the village would walk to the station just to see who got off the train.

"And a friend of mine, he'd be crawling under the platform looking for cigarette butts," said Angus Johnston, born in 1913. "I was 16 before I was ever on the train."

His favourite thing to do when he took the train to Charlottetown was look at the cars at Alison MacLeod's and Ives's showrooms.

"My father bought his first car in 1934 and traded a horse and wagon in on the car," he said.

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