Meet Me at the Station
The long, lonesome wail of the steam-train whistle was once a familiar sound in the lives of many Canadians. And the town railway station was an integral part of community life. For it was there the townsfolk gathered on election night to hear the results fresh off the telegraph. It was to the station they ambled to discuss local gossip or to sit and see who was coming into town. Sometimes it was as important a personage as the Prince of Wales or King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on the Royal Tour of 1939. More often, it was simply relatives arriving for a visit or wives returning with butter-and-egg money.
In Meet Me At the Station, author Elizabeth Willmot recaptures an important part of the Canadian past. The elegance and graciousness of many railway stations comes alive for us in her photographs enhanced by a text containing countless railway yarns: the great snowfall of 1948 when train crews spent days digging out locomotives by hand with shovels; the memories of Christmas meals cooked in the caboose; the engineer who thought more of his train than his wife—but then everyone felt affection for the trains and gave them fond nicknames such as "Old Tuney", "Mad Dog", "The Dutch Mail", "The Moccasin" and "The Rustabout". The trains were a part of their daily lives and the station was the hub of the town, a symbol of glamour, mystery, travel and adventure to a whole generation.
Miss Willmot hopes through her book to impress upon readers the importance of preserving Canadian railway stations. No reader will doubt that necessity after reading Meet Me At the Station.
Hardback with dust jacket, 120 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Good/Very Good
ISBN: 9780771599767
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Updated: 2 January 2025